Xiaomi and Honor have been dominating the market of affordable range smartphones. But Realme brand has once again made the race interesting. A recent report claimed that Realme has become a fast-growing company in India due to its aggressive pricing and rapidly growing portfolio.

Realme has added a new series to its portfolio and the first smartphone of this series is Realme U1. This is also the company’s first selfie pro smartphone. It seems that Realme, which was once a sub-brand of Oppo, wants to repeat the same strategy of its old company. There is no doubt that Oppo’s F series has been extremely popular. Apart from having a high-resolution front camera, this handset is the first smartphone to come with Helio P70 processor. This processor is claimed to be more powerful and capable than Helio P60.

In the market, Realme U1 will compete with Xiaomi’s Redmi Y series which is known for selfie smartphones. Other than this Asus ZenFone Max Pro M1 And Xiaomi Redmi Note 6 Pro There will also be a challenge. Is Realme U1 a smartphone worth buying? Let’s find out…

Realme U1 design

Realme U1 looks very much like the recently launched one Realme 2 Pro As it seems. There is no harm in this. Due to the curved edges, the grip remains good and due to the matte finish, it does not slip in the hands. The display is slightly protruding from the body of the phone. Similar is the condition of laminated back. The good thing is that there were no scratch marks on the back of this phone during the review. With a thickness of 8 mm, Realme U1 is comfortable to hold in hands and 168 grams cannot be considered too heavy.

Position of buttons is good. During the review, we did not face much difficulty in reaching the power and volume buttons. The SIM tray on the left side has separate slots for two nano SIMs and a microSD card. At the bottom of the Realme U1, there is a speaker grill, micro-USB port and a 3.5mm headphone socket. Once again disappointed to not see USB Type-C. We have a complaint with the position of the speaker grill. Holding the phone horizontally blocks it easily. This means that the sound will not be clear while playing games or watching videos.

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The 6.3-inch screen comes with 450 nit brightness level. For this reason, there is no problem in reading the screen in sunlight. It is an IPS panel and the screen resolution is 1080×2340 pixels. Pictures look sharp on the display. You will also get the facility to control color temperature in the Settings app. Realme has used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 which is a bit old. But something is better than nothing. A screen guard is already present on the phone. It got scratch marks easily. Fingerprints also easily fall on the screen guard. Similar is the case with the laminated backpanel. In such a situation, it will not be easy to keep Realme U1 always clean.

Waterdrop or dewdrop notch is beautiful to look at. If you want, you can also hide the notch. There is a camera on the front panel. There is also an earpiece and selected sensors above it. There is no notification LED due to limited space.

Laminated back gives great visual effect when light bounces. We received the Ambitious Black unit for review. You also have the option of Brave Blue and Fiery Gold. The bulge of the dual rear camera module is not too much. The fingerprint sensor is capable of fast identification. Its texture is slightly different from the texture of the backpanel. Therefore the sensor is easy to find. Face unlock is also fast and the display lights up in low light so the phone can be easily unlocked with the face.

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The Realme U1 handset comes with a 10W power adapter, USB charging cable, silicone case, SIM ejector tool, and some documentation. The quality of the accessories is good.

Realme U1 software and specifications

One of the important features of Realme U1 is the MediaTek Helio P70 processor. This is a faster version of the Helio P60 chipset. According to Realme, this chipset gives 13 percent better performance than its older variant. It claims to have an improved version of MediaTek’s on-chip AI processing engine. Realme U1 achieved good scores in benchmark tests.

We have reviewed 4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage variants of this phone. By the way, you also have the option of 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. Other features include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, USB-OTG, FM radio, GPS and GLONASS. Dual 4G dual VoLTE support is available. Proximity sensor, gyroscope, compass, ambient light sensor and accelerometer are part of this phone.

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Like Realme 2 Pro, Realme U1 has ColorOS 5.2 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. It has the security patch of October 2018. The company says that the phone will get the update to Android Pie early next year. It also has some new software features. Realme has finally removed the two-step process to dismiss notifications and replaced it with a single right swipe.

You will find many apps pre-installed. Most of these can be uninstalled. Gestures are provided for navigation, screenshot and split screen mode. This phone has useful features like smart scan and roaming.

Smart Scan now supports Hindi. Using this app, you can also scan a Hindi document, after which the image will be converted into text format. It works well and does not require an active internet connection. However, you will need internet for ‘Scan and translate,’ which does real-time translation.

Realme U1 performance, camera and battery life

Realme U1 never surprises in daily use. Performance was as expected. Removing fingerprints from this phone is a very difficult task. We would suggest you to use the cover provided with the phone. The display is lively. Viewing angles are also quite good. We also have no complaints with call quality. The phone remained cool on most occasions.

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The Helio P70 processor handles most games with ease. There is no drop in framerate either. Asphalt 8: Legends also ran well in the High graphics preset. PUBG Mobile ran smoothly at medium settings. The phone definitely gets hot when gaming and using the camera for a long time, which is normal. Most popular audio and video formats played fine.

Since this is a selfie camera smartphone, let’s start with the front camera. It has a 25-megapixel sensor with F/2.0 aperture. In daylight, Realme U1 captures selfies with detail. Skin tones remain good and colors appear good. AI beauty mode is also not very aggressive. It smoothes your skin in most cases.

If you like more saturated colors then you will love the Super Vivid mode. If you want, you can activate the depth effect or portrait mode, which do a good job of blurring the background. In portrait mode, the camera uses four-in-one binning technology. You get better detailed photos, but the resolution remains the same as 8 megapixel shots. You also get a preview of the HDR version when shooting in bright light.

Tap to view Realme U1 camera samples in full size

In low light, we found that the camera was having trouble capturing clean and detailed shots. The surprising thing is that the camera here shoots in 25 megapixel resolution. Not in pixel binning technique. This leads to selfie granny. HDR mode doesn’t help much either. In this, the bright lights in the background appear burnt out. Edge detection is also not very accurate in low light and Bokeh mode.

There is a 13-megapixel camera on the rear which has F/2.2 aperture. It captures detailed photos in natural light, but lags in low light. Autofocus is also not very fast. It consumes a few seconds before locking focus. Super Vivid mode is a useful feature. HDR also works satisfactorily. You will get modes like Panorama, Timelapse, Professional and Portrait. Portrait shots are good due to the 2 megapixel depth sensor.

Shot using Super Vivid mode on the Realme U1

Tap to view Realme U1 camera samples in full size

With this phone you will be able to record videos with maximum resolution of 1080 pixels. But there is no electronic stabilization. Quality is good, but autofocus doesn’t work fast. The framerate is very solid and even low-light footage is not very noisy. Despite having a powerful processor, the rear camera cannot record 4K video. This is disappointing, because many phones in this price segment are equipped with this feature.

The 3500 mAh battery easily lasts a whole day. In our HD video loop test, the Realme U1’s battery lasted 14 hours 56 minutes. There is no fast charging, but the 10W adapter helps in fast charging.

our decision
Realme U1 price starts at Rs 11,999. This price is for 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage version. Considering the powerful processor and battery life, the price seems aggressive. At this price you will get Xiaomi Redmi Y2 4 GB variant will be available. But keeping in mind the performance of the front camera of both the phones in low light, according to us Realme U1 is a better option. Because it comes with the latest design and more powerful processor.

The 4 GB RAM variant we tested is priced at Rs 14,499. In a way, it challenges the initial variant of Realme’s own powerful Realme 2 Pro. The Realme 2 Pro comes with a better rear camera and support for 4K video. If both these things are primary for you then we would suggest you to buy the Pro model. Our expectation was that the camera performance of Realme U1 would be equal to or better than that of Realme 2 Pro. In this phone market, there will also be challenge from Redmi Note 6 Pro and Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1 (6GB) which give good performance in every department.

This phone of Realme also has some shortcomings. There is no video stabilization and the low light performance of both camera setups is very average. But the powerful processor, strong battery life, good camera performance in daylight, sharp display and beautiful design make this phone a good choice.

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