Realme U1

Realme U1 enters the fierce competition of becoming the tremendous mid-range marvel with the Selfie King Oppo’s tagline. Realme U1 may not come with a significant change, but it has a lot going for it to make it a genuine mid-range delight. Arriving with the expected brilliant selfie camera, the Realme U1 pairs it off with an excellent processor, fast-charging battery, and decent rear cameras. All of these factors combine to make Realme U1 a well-rounded low mid-range pleasure.

Realme U1 Price in India

Realme has always amazed the users with quality features and stunning performance with affordable price tags. Realme U1 is yet another smartphone brand which has turned many heads around the Indian smartphone market. This pocket-friendly smartphone has been launched with three variants. The base variant has been stuffed with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage under the price tag of Rs.8,499, the mid-variant featuring 3GB RAM and 64GB internal storage has been priced at Rs.9,499, and the final one which comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB RAM is available at Rs.10,499. Subject to the availability, this smartphone can be purchased from the official site of Realme and other online stores like Amazon and Flipkart etc.   

The Realme U1 appears quite similar to the Realme 2 Pro, which was in itself a well-designed phone. The matte finish makes it grippy to hold without slipping out, and the rounded edges sit well in the palm without digging in. The display is a slightly raised from the body, and hence, it does not blend seamlessly. The same thing happens with the laminated back panel. The back does not pick up fingerprint smudges, which is quite an impressive factor for the phone. The Realme U1 is not too heavy, rounding off at 168g, and it is not to thick either at 8mm, therefore making it easy to hold and control. The buttons are placed ergonomically and were within easy reach. At the bottom, the phones boast an old Micro-USB port, the speaker grille, and the 3.5mm headphone. Though not as effective as a gradient look, the back does shine against light, and this makes the phone look quite premium.

The camera setup does not form a bulge at the rear panel, and the fingerprint sensor works fine too. The Face unlock is quick to detect faces, and during low-light situations, the display lights up to provide a good bit of light. There is no notification LED though.

Realme U1 comes with a 6.3-inch IPS LCD with FHD+ display, which is around 1080×2340 resolution and has a brightness of 450 nits at its peak. It comes with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 which makes the display quite recent. It means that the phone is legible outside even in direct sun. The colours are quite sharp and vivid. The screen is covered with the Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which prevents it from scratches.

However, the screen does pick up fingerprint smudges a lot. Since the phone comes with a dewdrop notch and minimal bezels, you get a lot of screen space to work with. The screen to body ratio goes up to a beautiful 90.8%. The viewing angles are decent too, without creating any colour distortion in hard angles.

Realme U1 has a processor that is its main highlight – the new MediaTek Helio P70 chipset. It is a more capable version that the Helio P60 and, according to Realme, provides a 13% better performance than its predecessor. In benchmarks, the phone got a score of 5828 for the multi-core test, which is quite impressive and better than Helio P-60 based models like Oppo F7’s 5553 points and beating Snapdragon 660-based phones like Realme 2 Pro which gets 5511 points.

The performance regarding apps was pretty good, with app switching being fast and efficient. The processor was also able to go through graphics-intensive games too without entering into a lag mode. Games like PUBG could run on this phone in high-settings without a problem.

Oppo Realme U1 tries to keep the mark of the Selfie King and comes with a 25MP front camera with an f/2 aperture. In ideal light conditions, the selfie camera performs marvellously, producing detailed photos which preserve the right colours and skin tone. AI beauty mode does not make artificial alterations either. If you enter Super Vivid mode, you can find highly saturated colours on the phone. Depth mode works well and does an excellent job with the blurring of the background. Low-light shots struggle, as the selfies appear grainy and the edge detection turns faulty.

The primary 13MP camera on the rear panel comes with an f/2.2 aperture. It does a great job when used under natural light though the autofocus is not the best.

There is also another 2MP depth-sensing camera which does an excellent job in edge detection. However, in low-light, the performance plummets. The autofocus starts hunting a lot more, and there is a bit of visual noise creeps in.

Regarding videos, the rear camera is not able to shoot 4K videos despite having such a powerful processor. The footage is not too noisy at 1080p. But there is no electronic image stabilisation, so handshakes become prominent.

Realme U1 arrives with a 3500 mAh battery which can easily make the phone last for an entire day. An HD video running on loop found out that the phone was able to run for a whopping 14 hours and 56 minutes, which is an excellent score. It does not come with fast charging, but can charge fully in one and a half hours, which is impressive for a phone without fast-charging.

The Realme U1 is a mid-range phone but comes with significant assets. It has a potent chipset, which comes along with a long-lasting battery life. The selfie camera is as fantastic as Oppo boasts about it – but its low-light performance does plummet a lot. The phone does not come with a striking design or display. If you are a selfie-enthusiast, then this phone can be an excellent mid-range acquisition. But if you are someone looking for better internals, then going for Redmi Y2 will be an ideal choice.