Realme U1 evaluation: Heading in the right direction

It’s been an eventful 5 months or so for Realme. For a model which was born as Oppo’s sub-brand, Realme has been on a launch spree of a form. The goal stays the mid-range and the entry-level smartphone section and taking over different Chinese language and Korean opponents. The most recent challenger is the Realme U1. The smartphone has been launched in two RAM and storage variants: 3GB+32GB and 4GB+64GB with an expandable storage as much as 256GB. Realme U1 is available in three color variants: Bold Black, Courageous Blue and Fiery Gold.

We obtained to evaluation the Bold Black 4GB+64GB variant of the smartphone and right here is how the cellphone delivered.

Realme U1 design

Realme U1 flaunts a tough and durable physique with a matte end, sandwiched between a 2.5D glass display and a partly smudge-and-fingerprint resistant glass again. Sure, this time round, each the back and front glass do register smudges and sweaty fingerprints however not so shortly as in different Realme fashions until now.

Realme U1 weighs roughly 168 grams (battery included). The handset is 157mm lengthy, 74mm extensive and 8mm thick. It’s got an excellent snug grip and feels gentle to carry with each the arms and likewise, one hand. Owing to its strong construct, the U1 appears able to taking just a few falls in its stride and are available out unscathed.

It options the dewdrop notch design on the prime entrance, with the earpiece and a single 25MP entrance digicam having Sony IMX576 sensor with f/2.0 aperture. The rear facet of the cellphone carries the twin 13MP + 2MP digicam setup with f/2.2 + f/2.4 aperture and an LED flash, all in direction of the higher left facet. On the centre of the upper-half lies the fingerprint scanner. The ‘Realme’ brand is current on the backside half.

The left edge carries the twin SIM slot with a devoted microSD slot and the quantity keys from the highest whereas the correct edge carries the ability key.

The underside edge has obtained 5 round small vents that function the audio system, a microUSB port, two small holes for the microphone and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The highest fringe of the cellphone is devoid of any buttons or microphone vents.

The cellphone has obtained round 4mm thick bezels, each close to the highest and on the backside and about 1mm thick bezels on the edges.

Realme appears to have reached some type of unstated finality on the subject of the design of their smartphones. First Realme 2, then Realme 2 Professional and now Realme U1, all these three are constructed alongside comparable design, with Realme 2 Professional coming closest to the U1.

Whatever the U1’s virtually fully comparable design when in comparison with Realme 2 Professional, there are just a few delicate variations. For starters, the twin rear digicam setup is embedded fully within the U1 physique, in contrast to it being barely raised in Realme 2 Professional. This permits for the smartphone to lie completely flat on its again. Additionally, U1’s glass again is completely flat and never even a bit bit curved on the edges, in contrast to it being a wee bit curved in Realme 2 Professional. The microphone this time has two small round orifices as an alternative of only one within the earlier cellphone. Lastly, the highest fringe of U1 doesn’t carry any orifice for the microphone however there are two on the backside edge. Realme 2 Professional had one on the prime edge and one on the backside edge. The U1 additionally has a glass again that doesn’t register fingerprints and smudges shortly, opposite to the opposite cellphone.

Realme U1 show

Realme U1 encompasses a 6.3-inch (16 cm) LTPS IPS (In-Cell) LCD FHD+ show with a display decision of 2340×1080 and a pixel density of 409 PPI. The smartphone show has obtained a 19.5:9 facet ratio and a screen-to-body ratio of 90.8%. The contact panel is made up of two.5D Gorilla Glass 3.

Just like the earlier fashions from the corporate, this smartphone additionally comes with Auto Brightness, three display color temperature settings — Cooler, Default and Hotter —, Auto Display Off (15 seconds to half-hour), Font Dimension and Night time Defend options.

The auto brightness characteristic makes the display adapt effectively to the surroundings the cellphone is in like indoors or outside. When this characteristic is on, the brightness is optimized routinely if it is extremely low or very excessive in accordance with the situation of the cellphone in numerous lighting settings. Chances are you’ll change off this characteristic too in case you want to alter the display brightness by yourself.

Speaking in regards to the display color temperature settings, switching to Cooler makes the display go completely white bereft of even a slight tinge of color, selecting Default infuses a bit tinge of heat color to the show whereas Hotter setting is an eye-friendly one and makes it extra snug to have a look at the display, particularly throughout evening. These three usually are not the one display color settings however extra like markers and you’ll slide to select any color setting in between two of them too.

The Night time Defend is supposed to guard your eyes from dangerous Blue-light emission. You possibly can schedule this setting to remain lively for a sure time slot, say 7 PM to 12 AM and might set a most well-liked heat color temperature that fits your viewing. There are three show results to select from—Show in Color, Show in Black and White and Comfy Night time-time Studying. The primary setting retains the color of the content material, the second solely permits black and white colors whereas the third shows white textual content on black background for night-time studying.

There may be additionally a Notch Space Show Management setting by way of which you’ll change off the Notch Space Show for a sure app when the notch space is obstructing the app content material.

On tilting the display on both facet in portrait mode, it turns a tad gentle pink in color.

The app icon textual content in fairly sharp and display colors are vivid. There are many icons accessible within the drop-down menu for fast entry.

Realme U1 efficiency

Powered by an octa-core 2.1 GHz MediaTek Helio P70 processor (ARM Cortex-A73x4,ARM Cortex-A53x4) with ARM G72 GPU, the smartphone runs ColorOS 5.2, primarily based on Android Android 8.1. The ColorOS this time additionally has been stored freed from bloatware. Some apps like Fb, UC Browser and Paytm come preinstalled. The UI works easily and navigating by way of the apps is simple sufficient.

The safety choices embrace fingerprint, face and passcode. There have been no points with the primary two options whereas we went by way of every of the safety measure to guard the cellphone from undesirable entry. Nonetheless, the face unlock characteristic didn’t work effectively within the evening, when examined outside.

The Homescreen Structure characteristic provides you two options to select from: 4 x 6 and 5 x 6. Switching from one to a different rearranges the app icons and their place can’t be restored. The latter format accommodates extra icons on the display, packing them extra intently.

When inside an app, swipe up with three fingers (any three) from the underside of the display to make use of the split-screen choice by way of which you should use one other app within the second half of the display. To finish the split-screen mode, simply swipe up with three fingers once more.

Swiping down with three fingers will take a screenshot of the display which you could instantly ship or edit and even take an extended screenshot. The utmost size of the web page that may be captured with the lengthy screenshot is 1080 x 35539.

The audio output of the cellphone can fill a small room effectively and the sound is loud and clear sufficient to observe a video or a movie on audio system. The cellphone comes with Actual Unique Sound Know-how that permits you to convey a bit selection to the music you pay attention with its customized equalizer settings.

Gaming is a robust characteristic of Realme U1, courtesy the highly effective Helio P70 processor and the Realme Recreation Area setting that lets the gadget deal with high-end video games effectively with out a variety of glitches. Whereas the cellphone’s Recreation Engine expertise is alleged to enhance gaming efficiency by customized optimisation of each the sport and the gadget, the Graphics Acceleration expertise is alleged to optimise the sport show configuration. The cellphone has a cushty grip and titles like PUBG Cell ran effectively on the gadget on HD graphics and excessive body charges.

Realme U1 scored 1567 on Single-Core and 6001 on Multi-Core Geekbench 4 take a look at. On AnTuTu, the cellphone obtained a rating of 144798.

Speaking about connectivity choices, Realme U1 has obtained a twin nano-SIM card slot with microSD card help, micro-USB, a 3.5mm audio jack and helps Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Different connectivity choices are Bluetooth 4.2 and GPS/A-GPS/Glonass.

The supported networks bands are GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA: 850/900/2100MHz, FDD-LTE: Bands 1/3/5/8, TD-LTE: Bands 38/40/41 (2535-2655MHz). The cellphone comes with these sensors: M-sensor, G-sensor, gravity sensor, fingerprint sensor, gentle and proximity sensor and OTG.

Realme U1 digicam

The assorted digicam options that Realme U1 offers the person are HDR, Tremendous Vivid, depth impact, Sensible Magnificence, Customized Magnificence and many others. The accessible digicam modes are Time-Lapse, Sticker, Panorama and many others. The cellphone shoots movies in 720p and 1080p.

Now, let’s transfer on to how the digicam efficiency is. Realme introduced out this cellphone touting its single 25MP selfie digicam and even referred to as the mannequin India’s Selfie Professional. The 25MP entrance digicam comes with a Sony IMX576 sensor and f/2.0 aperture. The selfie pictures through the day, are clear, sharp and with out grain. The selfie pictures taken with HDR on do enhance the readability of the pictures. The Tremendous Vivid mode in selfies makes the pores and skin tone look extra pure however it modifications the color of the garments additionally a bit, which we didn’t like. One thing like that might be achieved with a photograph editor device additionally. The Bokeh impact blurs the background effectively, whereas retaining the perimeters of the article in focus.

Realme telephones have gotten this one huge weak point—their incapacity to shoot effectively in low-light settings. ‘India’s Selfie Professional’ is something however professional on the subject of low-light capturing. Selfie-shots in low-light settings usually are not clear, with grain setting in, and in darkish settings (like on the streets at evening), they don’t seem to be good in any respect, with the pictures popping out very grainy and stripped of color at totally different small patches.

Realme U1 is supplied with a rear twin 13MP + 2MP digicam setup with f/2.2 + f/2.4 aperture and an LED flash. So, how effectively does the rear digicam setup work?

The rear digicam pictures within the day, whereas outside, seize the objects near the digicam fairly effectively, clear and sharp however the distant objects got here out blurry and grainy within the pictures. Indoors additionally, the identical impact was there.

Within the evening, whereas exterior, the rear digicam pictures didn’t come out to be loads grainy however the objects within the picture usually are not sharp and those within the background got here out to be grainy.

In brief, we had been once more not pleased with the best way Realme telephones shoot in low-light, with Realme U1 being the most recent mannequin to hitch the record.

Realme U1 battery

The cellphone packs in a 3500mAh battery similar to Realme 2 Professional and it took about one and a half hours to cost totally because the cellphone doesn’t include any quick charging characteristic. The cellphone heats up a short while charging.

It was in a position to run for in the future on full cost with medium utilization (requires 1-2 hours, watching movies/listening to music for 2-3 hours, gaming for about 1 hours, WhatsApping, checking social media feeds and mails). For gentle customers, this cellphone would be capable of run for greater than a day.

For heavy customers who prefer to multi-task, the cellphone will give a battery backup of about 7-8 hours. On heavy utilization constantly for 2-3 hours and extra, the again will get heated up a bit. The battery drop shouldn’t be sudden and we didn’t come throughout any UI-related glitches.

Verdict

Realme U1’s design and construct high quality is spectacular, even whether it is strikingly much like Realme 2 Professional. It’s light-weight, the battery lasts in the future on common and the gaming efficiency is greater than what you’d anticipate from a cellphone priced at Rs 14,499 (4GB+64GB variant). On the flip facet, the digicam efficiency throughout day may have been higher and through evening, loads higher. General, it’s a well-balanced cellphone that gained’t disappoint potential patrons. The competitors is stiff however Realme appears to be on the correct path and Realme U1 is a high quality companion on that path.

FbTwitterLinkedin

finish of article