realme 15 review – The new AI Party Phone tested

Launched to much fanfare, the new realme 15 was released in Malaysia alongside its slightly more powerful sibling the realme 15 Pro, both of which have a new AI Party Mode that adds in a set of filters and effects for social occasions.

We got our hands on the non-Pro version for testing and after taking it for a spin, here’s our realme 15 review where we suss out if its new features are worth the money.

realme 15 review – Design and Specifications

Intended as the successor to the realme 14 that was released several months earlier, the realme 15 has a somewhat similar design with a flat display, an equally flat backplate dominated by the square-shaped camera housing and gently curved corners with squarish-shaped sides.

There are, however, some subtle differences in terms of its build and design. For starters, the newer realme 15 is slightly lighter at 187g; the older model was 196g. The realme 15 is also slightly thinner at 7.7mm whereas the older model was about 7.97mm thick which is surprising seeing as it packs an absolutely massive 7,000mAh battery.

The chassis still retains a robust IP69 dust and water resistance rating while the front display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass though what specific type is not officially mentioned in the literature. The phone also retains their ArmorShell design which integrates a reinforced metal chassis and multiple layers of shock-absorbing foam around internal hardware to better resist drops.

Aesthetics aside, there are also notable upgrades especially in regards to the display that’s slightly larger by 0.03-inches with the front featuring a 6.77-inch FHD+ AMOLED display and is smoother too with a faster 144Hz refresh rate over the older model’s 120Hz refresh rate. Perched up top is a single 50MP main camera which is an impressive improvement over its predecessor that only maxed out with a modest 16MP camera.

The front selfie camera isn’t the only upgrade this time around and the rear gets an additional 8MP ultra wide angle camera alongside the main 50MP main camera which has optical image stabilisation.  

There are subtler improvements to the rear camera array; rather than just a single LED camera light, the phone has two with one to offer a more yellow tone and the other a cleaner, whiter tone for better overall lighting. There is also Breathing Light feature around the smaller sensor housing that acts as a notification light

Running under the hood of our realme 15 review unit is a MediaTek Dimensity 7300+ chipset paired with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage with Android 15 and their own realme UI 6.0 overlaying it which has several new features.

The most novel feature is an AI Edit Genie that allows for written text and voice commands to edit photos as well as an AI Party Mode for better portraiture in challenging party environments. According to realme, the phone will get 2 years of OS and 3 years of service updates.

@hitechcentury We unbox the new realme 15 that is the world’s first phone to feature AI Edit Genie that accepts voice and text commands to edit pics! #realme15 #aieditgenie #hitechcentury #fyp #techtok ♬ Chill Vibes – Tollan Kim

 Beyond the new chipset, our realme 15 review sample also supports faster 80W wired charging; almost twofold faster than its predecessor for the 7,000mAh battery.

The realme 15 phone also places greater emphasis on cooling with a larger, more robust 7000mm² Airflow vapour chamber to vent heat away from the processor in order to offer better sustained performance. Here’s how our realme 15 review sample stacks up on paper:

 

Price	RM1,499
Display	6.77-inch AMOLED, 1080 x 2,392 pixels, 144hz refresh rate
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 7300+
OS	Android 15 w/ realme UI 6.0
Memory	12GB RAM /  256GB storage
Camera	50MP f/1.8 w/ OIS + 8MP f/2.2 ultra wide angle [rear] / 50MP f/2.4 [front]
Battery	7,000mAh w/ 80W wired charging
Size/Weight	162.3 x 76.2 x 7.7mm / 187g

Other notable features with our realme 15 review sample is the inclusion of stereo speakers. realme has also bundled in a helpful assortment of extra gear including a fast charger and protective case alongside the usual USB-C cable, SIM eject pin and warranty paperwork.

realme 15 review – Performance and Benchmarks

In terms of hardware, our realme 14 review sample is powered by the Dimensity 7300+ chipset which is a mid-range SoC built on a 4nm process that was launched sometime in 2024. On paper, the Dimensity 7300+ is clocked faster at 2.5GHz and generally outperforms the older realme 14’s Snapdragon 6 Gen 4 which maxes out at 2.3GHz. 

Our realme 15 review sample  ships with their current One UI 6.0 interface which has the ability to assign virtual RAM off onboard storage with up to 14GB available or you can alternatively disable it entirely. By default, the phone allocated 14GB of RAM Expansion virtual RAM straight out of the box. When subjected to synthetic benchmarks, our realme 15 review unit scored the following:

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	348
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	345
3D Mark WildLife Extreme	861
3D Mark WildLife Extreme Unlimited	847
Geekbench 6 Single Core	988
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	2,886
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	2,483
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	2,484
Geekbench AI (CPU quanticised)	1,841
Geekbench AI (GPU quanticised)	582
PCMark Work 3.0 Performance	12,904
PCMark Battery Life	24 hours 11 mins

When compared to its predecessor with a Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, our realme 15 review sample offered better processor performance though its graphical capabilities on the Dimensity 7300+ and its integrated Mail G615 GPU offered equivalent performance to the prior model.

On paper, the new chipset isn’t a radical improvement in performance per se and the slight improvements here don’t directly translate to radically improved performance.

As it stands, the Dimensity 7300+ is a competent chipset and is more than sufficient for day to day usage and can tackle all but the most demanding games on default settings.

The enlarged vapour chamber also contributed to better system stability to a degree with the Steel Nomad Light Stress Test enjoying a solid 98.6% stability while the best and lowest loop scores while the heat was kept consistent at 39℃ to 40℃.

In practical terms, the phone got slightly warm but wasn’t blazing hot to the touch when playing extended sessions of Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile. 

On that note, the phone retains Bypass Charging, allowing you to directly charge the hardware while bypassing the battery entirely and also reducing heat build-up. Unfortunately, it still retains the same issues as its predecessor. While it has an emphasis on gaming, the use of bypass charging and an attached cable makes gaming on the phone in landscape mode a distinctly uncomfortable experience.

Where our realme 15 review unit excels in particular though is battery life and the phone with its larger capacity battery offer up a whopping 24 hours and 11 minutes of battery life, exceeding its predecessor significantly and comfortably allowing for 2 days of normal usage.

The display on our realme 15 review sample offers crisp detail and vibrant colour rendition along with good clarity even under direct sunlight.

The stereo speakers flanking the phone are solid affairs and the speakers also feature a 300% increased volume setting for extra loudness though dialling it to this level results in some distortion and the heavily boosted mids often drown out subtler elements of a track.

That quibble aside, the biggest pickle we have with the phone is its preponderance of bloatware and there’s a ton of it preinstalled that requires vigorous housekeeping to remove them when you first get the phone.

realme 15 review – Cameras

The realme 15 has a single front-facing 50MP camera for selfies and video calls which easily outguns many higher end flagship phones though it only has bi-axis electronic image stabilisation (EIS). 

The rear features a dual camera setup with a primary 50MP main camera that has optical image stabilisation (OIS) as well as a secondary 8MP ultra wide angle camera. Both the front and rear camera arrays max out at 4K@30fps video capture and have up to 2X digital zoom by cropping the sensor and up to 20x digital zoom for stills. 

In terms of overall performance, the rear camera does its best work in daylight conditions and if you keep shots to below 2x zoom with generally decent detail and colours.

Beyond that, shots tend to look soft and the camera has some challenges tackling light sources like street lamps and the like with noticeable lens flare especially at night. Front selfie shots offer good detail and decent skin tones which may be appealing if you’re looking for a selfie-centric design.

The cameras also allow you to set them to either a Vibrant or Crisp colour profile. The Vibrant profile makes blues and greens more saturated and brighter while the Crisp profile aims to introduce an apparently flatter colour profile that’s more akin to actual conditions. The former is preferred as it lends images more aesthetic zing whereas the latter makes images look rather flat.

The raison d’être of the realme 15 this time around is its inclusion of an AI Party Mode, a setting in the cameras that adds unique filter and setting tweaks to offer better low light portraiture while boosting lens flare from lit background objects like candles and the like to make things more dramatic.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to dial the intensity of the effects so shots look trippy and lens flares occasionally obscure important details.

The majority of users will likely get more utility out of the new AI Edit Genie mode which leverages Google Gemini to let you creatively edit photos with voice and text prompts.

You get the best results with simple prompts like palette swaps.More radical modifications to an image like changing a backdrop from summer to winter or radically altering objects can introduce unpredictable results even with the most careful AI prompts.

It’s whimsical and does help do fun, simple things like adding hats to pets and the like but it’s not going to replace Photoshop anytime soon.

Overall, the realme 15 offers adequate camera performance for casual users though the AI Party Mode only has very niche applications. However, the AI Edit Genie does look promising and can help novices to get basic tweaks in photos easily.

 

Should you buy the realme 15?

While it isn’t as compelling an upgrade for those who own the prior model, the realme 15 is still a decent all-rounder- you get an otherwise solidly built phone with exceptional battery life, a decent display and extra accessories bundled in the box.

The new AI Party Mode is more of a novelty at best though the AI Edit Genie is a promising addition especially for novices who want to leverage AI edits to tweak their photos.

realme 15 review sample courtesy of realme Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.realme.com/my/realme-15-5g/specs