Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: scores high in style & battery life

Realme has launched the next in their entry-level Narzo Series in the country. After launching Narzo 50, 50A, and 50i, now comes Narzo 50A Prime. The device launched in Indonesia some time ago and now it has gone official in India.

The smartphone claims to be a blend of unique design and fast performance as it comes with Kevlar Speed Design and Unisoc T612 chipset. It is priced under 15k and comes in 2 storage models. Although Realme claims it delivers value for money performance true to what Narzo Family is known for, can this be the one for you? Read our review to decide.

Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: Design

Realme Narzo 50A Prime comes with a Kevlar Speed Texture Design which gives it a very premium look. The back panel looks like it’s made of glass and it seems to be glowing when you first look at it. There are racing car-like stripes at the back panel with a camera module and Realme branding at the top and bottom respectively. Although the phone looks good from the back one major issue that arises is the back panel being a fingerprint magnet. Yes, it does attract loads of fingerprints even with a touch which don’t look good when seen from close quarters.

Let’s talk more about the design, build and form factor. The phone is slim and light making it feel in hand comfortable. There are slight bezels at the front which make it a little problematic to operate the device with one hand. The selfie camera is placed in the middle of the screen at the top front of the device. The backside has a rectangular camera module that houses 3 rear camera lenses and an LED flash. Apart from that one can find Narzo branding too on the backside.

The right edge has the power button cum fingerprint sensor whereas the left side has volume rockers and a SIM tray. The top edge is left vacant whereas the bottom edge houses USB Type-C charging port, speaker grille, 3.5mm headphone jack, and microphone. Overall, I felt Realme did have something new to offer with Narzo 50A Prime in the design department, as it looks different from previous Narzo devices. For an entry-level device, the smartphone looks fresh and elegant.

Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: Display

Narzo 50A Prime features a 6.6-inch FHD IPS LCD screen which is one of the largest displays in this price range. The display does live up to its expectations as the visuals look vibrant and detailed when viewed in HD quality. The screen is large enough to deliver a good movie or series-watching experience.

The device has a peak brightness of 600 nits which made sure that the screen is visible even under harsh sunlight whereas the 180Hz touch sampling rate made the touchscreen experience responsive. The only thing that this display lacks is a high refresh rate. Narzo 50A Prime comes with a 60Hz refresh rate which can be felt while browsing as the letters on the screen did seem blurred for a few seconds when scrolled swiftly.

There is an option to choose between dark and light mode, enable night light, and lower resolution while gaming to save battery as well. Display Size allows you to make items on your screen smaller or larger depending on what you like. Video Display Enhancement allows for making video quality better while there’s also gives options of- Standard, Warm and Cool for color display on the screen. These smart features make the viewing experience slightly better but a higher refresh rate was surely a must-have.

Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: Battery

Realme Narzo 50A Prime packs a 5000mAh battery under the hood. The battery easily lasts for a day and a half with moderate usage. My usage included streaming YouTube videos, listening to music on Spotify, browsing Instagram and Twitter, a few short gaming sessions, and browsing the web for tech news. With this kind of usage, the battery easily lasted for about 34 hours for me. If you are someone who loves long gaming sessions, you will need to charge the device once daily.

With Realme Narzo 50A Prime, the company has decided to go without a charger in the box norm. Although the device supports 18W fast charging which can charge the device from 0 to 50% in 42 minutes and 100% in about an hour and a half, you will have to purchase the charger on your own. Realme has given a media statement regarding this move saying this is their step towards environmental sustainability. All their other products would still continue to have chargers in the box.

Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: Camera

Narzo 50A Prime has a triple camera setup at the back. It includes a 50MP main camera and two 2MP Macro and B&W lenses. The 50MP camera is the one which is found in the brand’s flagship Realme GT 2 as well.

The Camera UI is simple and user-friendly. There is a round shutter in the middle and options like HDR and flash at the top of the camera UI. The settings menu has options like picture quality, camera sound, add time watermark, picture size, countdown duration, and more. Smile shutter can be enabled which was last seen in Moto Edge 30 Pro which was a flagship device from Motorola.

The main 50MP camera works well in daylight. The shots taken are bright, clear, and colorful. The pictures replicate natural colors and the sky looked beautiful. Shades of greens, browns, and whites look nice. Shots taken in the darkness of a cinema hall were bright and precise too, which was good.

What I especially liked about the main camera sensor was its picture quality in the late evening. I took some pictures at a time when there was neither sun nor darkness and thus it was tricky to click photographs then, but Narzo 50A Prime’s camera captured those shots decently. The colors were bright and the pictures were clear despite there being no proper light.

Photos clicked in artificial lights were detailed and captured the essence of the subject well. There was no artificiality in those shots and the colors looked vibrant and cheerful. The only problem with the main camera of Narzo 50A Prime is the time it takes to process an image. After clicking the shutter to capture a shot, it tells you to wait for 1-2 seconds for the image to get processed and if you move your hand during that time, shots get blurred and distorted. This can be annoying when you want to click images in quick succession.

Close-up shots taken by macro lens were strictly average as their focus tends of fluctuating and even the color reproduction is not up to the mark. Using this lens can be avoided easily.

There is an 8MP selfie camera which does its job well as the selfies are detailed and focused on the subject. Natural skin tone is not altered by any filters and the background is blurred so that the subject gets highlighted.

Realme Narzo 50A Prime Review: Performance

Realme Narzo 50A Prime is powered by Unisoc T612 Processor which is powerful enough to give good speed to the device. Combined with 4GB RAM the SoC allows swift loading and closing of apps. Multitasking is possible but if you try to switch between apps constantly you might notice some lag. It has a 128GB storage capacity giving adequate space for keeping audios, videos, photos, documents, and more.

The device has a snappy fingerprint sensor that can secure your private information as it has a faster unlocking speed. Gaming is ok on the device. I played BGMI with medium frame rate and HD graphics enabled and the experience was decent.

Thermal performance is something I liked as the device never heated up. Whether it was long gaming sessions or back-to-back benchmarking tests, the device did not heat up. Here are the results of those benchmarking tests-

Coming to the OS, the device runs Realme UI R based on Android 11 which feels slightly outdated as Android 12 has already made its way now. The R Edition of Realme UI is made for budget smartphones and gives a clean UI experience.

There are no ads on the device but loads of bloatware can still be found. Apps like LinkedIn, Amazon Prime Video, Spotify and more come pre-installed but you can uninstall them as per your need. There is a good amount of space between app icons and options for personalization as well. Options like choosing a live wallpaper allow you to customize the display the way you like.

The call quality is above average while the sound from the speakers is loud and clear.

Should you buy the Realme Narzo 50A Prime?

Realme Narzo 50A Prime is a smartphone that comes with a different design and a big display. It has a capable processor and a large battery with a good main camera sensor. However, low refresh rate, useless macro camera, and absence of a charger inside the box are its biggest drawbacks, but these can be ignored if you want a smartphone under the 15k price range.

The device runs Android 11 and has bloatware as well, but that can be uninstalled. In terms of gaming, it delivers decent thermal performance. There’s also a snappy fingerprint sensor. All in all, it would be suffice to say, go for Realme Narzo 50A Prime if you want a budget entry-level smartphone for your everyday needs.