Geekhub Review · Smartphones

The powerbank that happens to be a phone

RealMe built this phone around one question: what if you never had to think about charging daily? Even though loadshedding is behind us for now, having to plug in every single day is still a genuine annoyance. My own iPhone is only 18 months old and, despite a full charge at 7am, it is limping along at 20% by 2pm. That is the exact problem the P4 Power sets out to solve, and everything else on this phone is built to serve that 10,001mAh cell.

RealMe has bundled a charger and a USB-C cable in the box, which sounds unremarkable until you remember that the tier-one brands have quietly trained us to buy those separately. Getting everything you need to charge the phone from the moment you open the box is a small thing, but it is a genuine cost saving that lands well with local buyers tired of hidden extras. Better yet, this is a proper 80W charger, whereas the tier-one brands that do still include one tend to ship a modest 25W brick. So you are not just getting a charger for free, you are getting a genuinely fast one that lets the phone hit the charging speeds it is capable of. Alongside the charger and cable you get a SIM pin ejector, a clear TPU cover and the usual user guide. The TPU case in particular is a nice touch, letting you wrap the phone in a bit of protection straight away without a trip to an accessory shop.

Powering it on for the first time, the phone came to life quickly, the screen was clear and crisp, and the software felt very fluid from the first swipe. First impressions matter, and this one made a good one.

Here is the thing that genuinely caught me off guard: this 10,001mAh battery phone does not feel like a brick in the hand. I fully expected a battery this large to make the device noticeably heavy, the kind of weight you feel every time you pick it up. On paper it does tip the scales at 219g, a touch heavier than your usual phone. But in day to day use, I honestly could not tell. RealMe has clearly done its homework on weight distribution, because for a phone carrying double the battery of most flagships, it sits in the hand far better than the spec sheet would have you believe.

To put that capacity in perspective, the P4 Power’s 10,001mAh cell is double the 5,000mAh battery you will find in a top-tier flagship like the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. For a phone that looks this ordinary, that is a seriously extraordinary headline number.

Up front, the P4 Power carries a generous 6.8-inch FHD+ AMOLED display, with curved sides that flow neatly into the frame. It is a large, comfortable canvas for everything from doomscrolling to watching a bit of Netflix, and the curves give it a more premium feel than the price would suggest. There is proper substance behind the panel too: a full 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut for punchy, accurate colours, a bright 6,500 nits peak brightness, and a smooth 144Hz refresh rate that makes scrolling feel silky. One thoughtful touch is the factory-applied screen protector, so it is guarded against scratches straight out of the box.

For extra peace of mind, the screen sits under a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass, and the entire phone carries IP66, IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance ratings. That means it will shrug off dust, a proper dunk in water, and even high-pressure jets, giving the P4 Power real day-to-day durability for pockets, bags and the odd rainy Joburg afternoon.

In practice, I had no issues with the screen at all. Coming back to a curved panel after a long time was a refreshing change, it was easily legible outdoors even in bright Joburg sun, and watching videos on it was a pleasure. My one gripe has nothing to do with the panel: there are no stereo speakers, just a single speaker at the bottom. It is audible, but you won’t enjoy watching a movie or a YouTube video on it, so you will want to reach for earbuds.

Review unit as supplied locally.

Charging a cell this size could have been a chore, but RealMe pairs it with 80W SuperVOOC fast charging, and the charger to do it is right there in the box. It gets you to around 50% in a little over half an hour, and a full charge from empty takes under an hour and a half. For a battery roughly double the size of a normal phone’s, refilling the whole thing in about ninety minutes is seriously good going.

There is a smart party trick too. The phone supports 27W reverse wired charging, so you can plug another device into it and use the P4 Power as a power bank. With a battery this big, that is not a gimmick but a genuinely useful feature for topping up a mate’s dying phone or your earbuds on the go. It also supports bypass charging, which sends power straight to the phone’s hardware rather than cycling the battery when you play games while plugged in, keeping the battery healthier over time.

RealMe rates the silicon-carbon cell for 1,650 full charging cycles and quotes it to keep over 80% of its health across eight years of use, helped along by an AI Charging Algorithm and a Silicon Aging Algorithm that manage power and slow the natural aging of the battery.

As for how long it lasts, the combination of a power-efficient Dimensity 7400 Ultra chip, a sensible FHD+ display and that mammoth battery gives the P4 Power the best battery life I have ever tested, full stop. Running it through the usual daily grind of web browsing, plenty of social media, a few calls, a couple of hours of TikTok and some CapCut editing on mixed WiFi and data, it was still on around 70% at the end of day one, about 35% by the end of day two, and only asked for a charge on day three. For anyone out and about, away from a plug for long stretches, or just tired of charging every night, this is a game-changer.

Performance is more than fine for what this phone is. Everyday tasks are smooth, games run without any drama, and YouTube plays back perfectly happily. This is not a phone bought for chart-topping benchmark scores, it is bought for the battery, and the good news is the chip inside is comfortably up to the daily job without ever feeling like the weak link.

The P4 Power runs Android 16 dressed in RealMe UI 7.0. If you have used a recent OnePlus or Oppo phone, this will feel instantly familiar, and that is a good thing. The interface is smooth, snappy and highly customisable. RealMe has committed to three years of Android version upgrades and four years of security updates, which is reasonable support at this price.

My one gripe is the bloatware. Out of the box you get a handful of preloaded apps you did not ask for, and I uninstalled the ones I did not want as soon as I set the phone up. If I am being honest, I would much rather see a clean, vanilla setup where I get to choose the apps I want rather than being force-fed software I never asked for.

The P4 Power runs a dual camera setup on the back, led by a 50MP f/1.8 main camera built around a premium Sony IMX882 sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS). That IMX882 usually does duty as a dedicated telephoto camera in other phones, but here there is no separate zoom lens, so it leans on cropping into the main sensor to get you closer to your subject. In plain terms, your best, most detailed shots come from the main camera, and any zooming is really the phone cleverly cropping into a high-resolution image.

The OIS is the quiet hero. It physically counteracts the tiny shakes of your hand, which keeps photos sharper when the light drops and steadies your video so clips do not come out looking like they were filmed on a bumpy taxi ride. It is exactly the kind of feature that used to be reserved for pricier phones, so seeing it do a solid job here is a welcome surprise.

Backing up the main shooter is an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide for wider shots. Together they give you 2x lossless zoom by cropping from the 50MP sensor, up to 20x digital zoom if you push it, and 4K video at 30fps. Up front is a single 16MP selfie camera that shoots 1080p video at 30fps.

Out in the real world, the rear cameras are at their best when you keep the zoom under 2x and shoot in good light. Stick to daylight and you get pleasing dynamic range, natural colour and solid detail from both the main and ultrawide cameras. The one thing to flag is the 2x portrait shots, which the phone works out digitally: most of the time it is fine, but occasionally the subject takes on a slightly cut-out look, as if pasted onto the background. Not a dealbreaker, just worth knowing if portraits are your thing.

Camera samples · All shot handheld in daylight on the main camera, straight out of the phone with no editing.

Locally, the RealMe P4 Power 5G comes in at R 11 999, which for a phone leading with the biggest battery on the market is a fair ask. It sits comfortably in midrange territory rather than trying to punch up into flagship pricing, and that keeps the value story intact. You are covered for 12 months through a local authorised repair centre, so if anything goes wrong you have proper local support rather than shipping the phone off overseas.

At the time of writing, the 8GB / 256GB model in Trans Orange is available locally from Smartphone Shop at R 11 999, with interest-free instalment options if you would rather spread the cost.

At R 11 999, the P4 Power lands right in the thick of South Africa’s most competitive midrange bracket, going head to head with the latest from Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Honor. Here is how it compares spec for spec against the closest local rival from each. What jumps out immediately is the battery: every one of these is a genuinely good phone, but not one comes close on capacity.

Rival pricing is approximate and based on local street prices at the time of writing. Scroll the table sideways on mobile.

The picture is clear. On paper, rivals like the Vivo V50 and Redmi Note 14 Pro+ edge ahead on charging speed and camera resolution, the Honor 400 gives you more RAM and storage for the money, and every one of them has stereo speakers where the P4 Power makes do with mono. But the moment battery life is your priority, the conversation ends. The P4 Power carries roughly double the capacity of anything else here, and that is the whole point. If you want the best all-rounder, one of the others may suit you better. If you want a phone that simply refuses to die, nothing here comes close.