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The consumer smartphone market may seem saturated, with Xiaomi and Honor generally dominating this space, but emerging brands such as Realme have shown that it is still possible to grow. A recent report has ranked the company among the best emerging groups in India, thanks to an aggressive pricing policy and a rapidly expanding portfolio.
Realme adds a new series to his portfolio. The first model to debut is the Realme U1 – the first smartphone of the company "Selfie Pro". Given the popularity of the Oppo F series, it is not surprising that the former Oppo sub-brand is adopting a similar strategy. Besides having a high resolution front camera, the Realme U1 is also the first phone to launch the MediaTek SoC Helio P70, reputedly more powerful and efficient than its predecessor, the Helio P60.
The Realme U1 will compete with the Xiaomi Redmi Y series, which is another range of selfie smartphones, and of course other notable ones such as the Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 (Review) and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro (Review). Rs. Price Band 15,000. Let's see if it's worth it to recommend such powerful competitors.
Realme U1 design
The Realme U1 looks a lot like the recently launched Realme 2 Pro (Review), and it's not a bad thing. The rounded edges provide good grip and the matte finish on the back does not mean that it is slippery. The screen is slightly elevated relative to the rest of the body, so that its edges do not merge with the sides of the body. The same goes for the laminated back panel. Fortunately, the back of this phone did not detect any signs of wear during our review, which is a good sign. With a thickness of 8 mm, the Realme U1 is comfortable to hold and is not too heavy at 168 g.
The location of the buttons is good and, with typical use, we were able to seamlessly access the power and volume buttons. The SIM card tray on the left can accommodate two Nano-SIM cards and a microSD card. You must not sacrifice one for the other. At the bottom of the Realme U1, we have a speaker grille, a Micro-USB port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Again, the lack of USB Type-C port is a little disappointing. Our main problem is the placement of the speaker grille, as it can easily be blocked as soon as you hold the phone horizontally. This means that the sounds are muffled when you play games or watch videos, if you're not careful.
The laminated back of the Realme U1 does not dull very easily, but it attracts a ton of stains.
The 6.3-inch screen of the Realme U1 has a maximum brightness of 450 points, which makes it very readable in bright sunlight. It's an IPS panel with a resolution of 1080×2340 pixels, which means you get sharp images and vivid colors. You also get a basic color temperature setting slider in the Settings application. Realme used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for the facade of this phone, which belongs to a somewhat older generation, but it's better than nothing. The phone also comes with a pre-applied screen protector, and ours detects bumps and scratches quite easily. The screen protector is a huge fingerprint magnet, just like the plasticized back. Keeping the Realme U1 flawless can be a real chore.
The water drop or dew drop notch is pretty and constitutes a minimal obstacle for full screen applications. However, if this bothers you, you can switch a switch in the settings to hide it for individual applications. There is only one camera in the slot, because the listener and a group of sensors are on top. Due to limited space, there is no notification light.
The laminated back has a beautiful visual effect when the light bounces it. We have an "Ambitious Black" unit to review, but you can also get the Realme U1 in "Brave Blue" and "Fiery Gold". The dual camera module at the back is not too protruding and the chrome trim has held up well during our exam period. The fingerprint sensor works well and authenticates quickly. It also has a slightly different texture than the rest of the back, which makes it easy to find. The unlocking of the face is still very fast and the incoming light is weak, the display turns on to compensate for the lack of good light.
The speaker grille of the Realme U1 hangs easily when you hold the phone horizontally
The Realme U1 comes with a 10W AC adapter, a USB charging cable, a silicone case, a SIM eject tool, as well as the usual warranty and boot guides. The quality of the accessories is good and the packaging of Realme also seems to be improved compared to its previous offers.
Realme U1 specifications and software
One of the main assets of the Realme U1 is the new MediaTek Helio P70 SoC, which is a faster version of the Helio P60. According to Realme, this new chip should offer performance up to 13% higher than that of its predecessor. It also has an improved version of MediaTek's AI-on-chip processing engine, which is said to be more efficient.
In the benchmarks, the Realme U1 recorded very good scores. He managed 1,441,661 points in AnTuTu, and in Geekbench we earned 1,573 and 5,828 in the mono and multithreaded tests, respectively. These numbers are better than those found on most tested Helio P60 phones, such as the Oppo F7 (Review) and Oppo F9 (Review), and even some Snapdragon 660 based phones, such as the Realme 2 Pro. The integrated graphics processor gave us an average of 35 frames per second at GFXbench's T-Rex graphics test. It's a bit less than the 39 fps achieved by the Realme 2 Pro during the same test.
Our review unit had 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage, but you can also opt for a variant with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. Other features include 802.11ac dual band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, USB-OTG, FM radio, GPS and GLONASS. Dual 4G with dual VoLTE is supported. The sensors on this phone include a proximity sensor, a gyroscope, a compass, an ambient light sensor and an accelerometer.
ORoaming applications (first left) and Smart Scan in action
The Realme U1 still uses ColorOS 5.2, based on Android 8.1 Oreo, just like the Realme 2 Pro. It also has the relatively recent security patch of October 2018 and, according to the company, we should expect an update of Android Pie "early next year". ColorOS on this phone incorporates new enhancements and features. Realme has finally corrected the tedious two-step process required to reject notifications, and you can now do it in one right-hand pass.
You get the U1 Realme with a bunch of preloaded apps, most of which can be uninstalled if they are not needed. There are gestures for the navigation, the screenshot and the activation of the split screen mode. Smart Scan and ORoaming are two interesting features we have already seen on the Chinese versions of the Oppo phones, which are now supported in India.
Smart Scan now supports Hindi in addition to German, Italian, Spanish, French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Using this app, you can scan a document with Hindi text and convert it to editable text in Hindi. From our experience, this has worked very well and you do not need an active internet connection. However, you need Internet access to use the "Analyze and Translate" feature that translates small text clips between indi and English in real time as you hover over the camera. The function "Shoot and translate" allows you to take pictures of entire pages and convert them into editable text.
ORoaming generates a virtual SIM card on your phone so you can use local data services (without voice or SMS) in the countries you visit without having to change your SIM card or use international roaming . Prices range from $ 11 to $ 21 for a week, depending on the country. ORoaming covers most major countries and regions, but the choice of available data packages seems somewhat limited. The most important package for most countries exceeds 1 GB for a week, with the exception of Australia and Hong Kong, which reach 4 GB. This service is available through a partnership between Realme and Redtea Mobile, an eSIM solutions provider. We could not really test ORoaming to see if it worked or not, as it would require a physical move to one of the supported countries.
Performance, cameras and lifespan of the Realme U1 battery
The Realme U1 did not leave us any unpleasant surprises during its daily use and it worked as expected. Cleaning fingerprints is a tough battle for this phone. If you are the capricious kind, we suggest you use the supplied case. The display is alive and the viewing angles are also very good. We had no problem with the quality of the calls either, and the phone works pretty well.
The Realme U1 supports two Nano SIM with dual VoLTE 4G and a dedicated slot for a microSD card
The Helio P70 has easily chirped in most games and has been able to offer solid processing frequencies. Asphalt 9: Legends did not seem to bother him a bit, even with the "Top" graphic presets. PUBG Mobile also worked smoothly, but in the "Middle" setting. The thin contours of the screen and the small notch allow you a better immersion in your content, which is nice. The phone heats up slightly when you play or use a lot of camera, which is normal.
Most of the most popular audio and video file formats work perfectly. The stock music player supports Dirac Research sound enhancements, which can be activated if you use a wired headset. The speaker is also quite noisy, but we would have exchanged his place with the headphone jack because it is easily blocked when the phone is held in landscape mode.
Since this is a selfie phone, let's start with the front camera. This is a 25 megapixel Sony IMX 576 sensor with an f / 2 aperture, which we have already seen in the Oppo F7. In the light of day, the Realme U1 captures detailed selfies, with good skin tones and good colors in general. The beauty mode of AI is not too aggressive and mostly smoothes your skin.
You might like Super Vivid mode if you like very saturated colors. You can activate the effect of depth, which makes the background blur. In the latter mode, the camera uses a four-in-one binning technique to give you better details by swapping the resolution, so you get an 8-megapixel photo. When shooting against the light, you get a real-time preview of the HDR version of your image.
Tap to get real size images of Realme U1 camera samples
In low light, the camera has trouble capturing sharp, detailed photos. Surprisingly, it still fires at the full 25 megapixel resolution rather than going through the pixel binning technique. As a result, the selfies have a grainy appearance and the HDR is not a great help because the bright lights in the background seem exhausted. Edge detection is not too accurate under dim lighting in Depth mode. Realme announced that an update intended to improve the camera 's bokeh mode before will be released from here the sale of this phone.
The 13 megapixel main sensor at the back has an aperture of f / 2.2. He does a pretty good job with the details in natural light, but struggles badly in low light. The autofocus is not the fastest, because this camera should search about a second before locking the focus. The Super Vivid mode is handy in some situations, especially when you want a little more "pop" in the colors. HDR also works satisfactorily and you get standard shooting modes such as anorama, Timelapse, Professional and Portrait. The latter also works well on objects, thanks to the dedicated 2-megapixel depth sensor.
Shot in Super Vivid mode on the Realme U1
Tap to get real size images of Realme U1 camera samples
The video recording is at maximum at 1080p and there is no electronic stabilization to mitigate hand tremors. The quality is correct, but as the autofocus is not very fast, we noticed a little hunting when we moved. The framerate is pretty solid though, and the low light sequences are not too noisy. Despite the powerful system-on-chip, the rear camera does not shoot 4K video, which is a shame because many phones in this segment can do so. According to Realme, this resolution was left out because the sensor does not support it.
The 3500mAh battery easily lasts a full day with a single charge. We also had a good performance during our HD video loop test, where the U1 broadcasted a non-stop HD video for 14 hours and 56 minutes. There is no fast charge, but the included 10W adapter helps to speed up the charging process a little bit.
Verdict
The Realme U1 starts at a price of Rs. 11,999 for the variant with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage. This is not bad, considering that its SoC is quite powerful and that it offers a very good battery life – a winning combo that few people in this segment have managed to obtain. Its price is much the same as that of the 4GB version of the Xiaomi Redmi Y2 (Review), but since the front cameras of both phones have more modern design and internal challenges more powerful.
The version of 4 GB of RAM that we tested is priced at Rs. 14,499, which places it in front of Realme's Realme 2 Pro (Review) base variant. The latter has a better rear camera and supports 4K video, so if it's your priority, we recommend it to U1. At the time of publication of this review, none of the Realme 2 variants were in stock. The company told us that the phone would continue to be sold despite flash sales every Friday, but it did not say if that meant all variants would still be available. We just want the Realme U1 to have similar or better cameras than the Realme 2 Pro. At about this price, you also have phones like the Redmi Note 6 Pro (Review) and Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 (6 GB) (Review), which offer good overall performance.
The Realme U1 omits certain things like video stabilization and low-light performance from its front and rear cameras are at best average. On the other hand, it has many advantages such as a powerful processor, good battery life, a clean screen and aesthetic aesthetics. It also takes good pictures in the light of day, which is worth recommending.
Is Realme U1 essentially composed of Redmi Note 6 Pro and Steroids? We discussed it on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, to which you can subscribe via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode or simply click the play button below.
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