Realme P1 Review: The Best Bang for Your Buck?

Xiaomi’s Note series and Realme’s Number series have been dominating the 15K to 20K segment for years now. But their recent pivot to the sub-30K segment left room for some new smartphones to take over. This is where the Realme P series comes in.

The first iteration of the new series, the Realme P1 is a performance and design-focused device that’s powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chip. In this review of the Realme P1, I’ll delve into every detail of the device, from its design and display to its performance and camera capabilities. 

I’ll also tell you how it fares in real-world usage alongside synthetic benchmarks. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the Realme P1 and see if it lives up to the hype.

Realme P1 review

Realme P1 Review: Design and Build

As for the design, the Realme P1 will not leave disappointed with its frosted finish of the rear in both the Phoenix Red and Peacock Green variants. 

I received the Phoenix Red variant, and I must say that the design looks gorgeous and feels great in the hand.

Speaking of, the phone neither feels bulky nor lightweight. Its actual weight is 188 grams, and its thickness is 7.97mm. On the bottom, you’ve got a USB-C port, the speaker grill, and the SIM card tray that can accept a nano SIM card + a micro SIM card or microSD card.

On the top, there’s a headphone jack and microphone, in addition to the earpiece and the proximity sensor beneath. The power button and the volume rockers are on the right-hand side of the device. The left-hand side is spotless and flat. 

The display and frame of the phone are also flat. The edges are sharp, which might make it uncomfortable to hold the phone for longer periods.

The phone’s frame and back are also made of polycarbonate, which is standard in this price segment. 

Realme ships the phone with a pre-installed screen protector. There is no mention of Gorilla Glass protection for the display, though. Moreover, the Realme P1 has an in-display fingerprint sensor that’s fast and fairly accurate for the price. 

Realme mentions the IP54 dust and water resistance, which protects the phone from accidental splashes and dust.

Realme P1 Review: Display

The Realme P1’s display is a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. The colors are vibrant, but you can tune it to display natural, cinematic, or brilliant colors. However, I noticed strange artifacts when viewing solid colors on YouTube.

The bezels are minimal, giving you a screen-to-body ratio of 92.65%, which means more screen and less distraction. Although the side bezels are fairly thin, the forehead and chin may seem thick.

In terms of brightness, the Realme P1 can reach 600 nits under normal conditions and an impressive 1200 nits with High Brightness Mode (HBM). 

When viewing HDR content, it can even peak at 2000 nits. In our testing, the display was reasonably bright outdoors, even under harsh sunlight. 

The Realme P1 supports HDR and Widevine L1, delivering the best viewing experience for HDR content.

You can choose between a standard 60 Hz refresh rate or crank it up to 120 Hz for a smoother experience. I recommend sticking with 120 Hz for the best experience. The display can also automatically switch between 6 levels of refresh rate.

The display is also packed with Rainwater Touch protection, which means you can use it when tiny droplets of water are on the screen. Unfortunately, the feature did not work for me as expected.

Overall, the display on the Realme P1 offers a perfect balance of everything, making it one of the best displays in its class.

Realme P1 Review: Audio

The audio experience on the Realme P1 is top-class in its segment. In fact, it is one of the only phones in its segment with a stereo speaker setup. The speakers are loud, and the sound is balanced at moderate volume levels. 

The earpiece acts as a second speaker when playing media. The loudness difference between the earpiece speaker and the bottom speaker is minimal.

The device supports audio codes, including SBC and LDAC, for a great listening experience on your Bluetooth headphones. If you have a pair of Realme earphones, you can manage most of their settings from the Bluetooth settings themselves.

Realme P1 Review: Performance

The Realme P1 boasts a MediaTek 7050 chipset, a powerful option for its price range. It is built on TSMC’s 6nm advanced process and features a Mali-G68 GPU, Cortex-A78 @2.6GHz, and Cortex-A55 @2.0GHz.

While the haptics are not exceptional, they get the job done. For memory and storage, the Realme P1 offers configurations with up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

Benchmark scores are impressive, with AnTuTu scoring 586K, Geekbench single-core scoring 931, and multi-core scoring 2208. Detailed Geekbench scores can be found here. In 3D Mark Wildlife, it achieved an average FPS of 13.5, with a score of 2253.

The storage performance is also impressive, with a speed test showing sequential write speeds of 2080MB/s and read speeds of 1870MB/s, thanks to its UFS 3.1 storage.

As for real-world performance, the device feels smooth and did not lag in any of my testing. Realme claims that this smoothness will be retained for a full four years; I have no comments on this.

Since this is a performance-focused device, it wouldn’t be fair not to play some gaming. We tested two popular titles: BGMI and CODM.

In Call of Duty: Mobile (CODM), the Realme P1 allows you to set the graphics to MEDIUM or HIGH and the frame rate to VERY HIGH. With the HIGH graphics and VERY HIGH frame rate setting, you can expect a stable frame rate of 55 to 60 FPS during gameplay sessions. 

As for BGMI, you can crank up the graphics to HDR + Ultra. When I played at these settings, I consistently got 30 to 40 FPS, even when there was a lot of game tension.

You can also play the game at Smooth + Extreme settings, where I consistently got 60 FPS, even when there was a lot of tension in the game. The phone did not overheat during my one-hour gaming session. 

Speaking of overheating, the device’s thermals are really good. Thanks to the 7-layer 3D VC cooling system inside, the device mostly stays cool. 

As for the throttling, I ran a 15-minute, 20-thread CPU test, achieving an impressive 88% performance retention and an average GIPS score of 200K. In a more extended 30-minute, 20-thread test, it throttled to about 93% of its max performance with an average GIPS score of 191K. 

The bottom line is that the Realme P1’s performance will surely impress you for a phone priced under 15K. The MediaTek Dimensity 7050 processor, LPDDR4X RAM, UFS 3.1 storage, and a 7-layer 3D VC cooling system ensure smooth and efficient performance.

Realme P1 Review: Software

The Realme P1 ships with Realme UI 5.0, based on Android 14. The device runs smooth and lag-free, although a few aspects could be improved. Firstly, it comes with a lot of ads and bloatware, which is not a good thing to begin with.

During the initial setup, you’ll encounter ads, recommendations, and several pre-installed apps. Thankfully, most apps can be uninstalled, and system apps like the App Market can be disabled from the settings.

The device also prompts you to sign in using your Realme account, which I am not a fan of. Glance for Realme and app scanning are also supposed to “enhance” your software experience.

Realme has trimmed down software features such as AOD customization, fingerprint animation customization, and app opening/closing animations. While these are not uncommon omissions in smartphones in this price range, including these would have been a welcome addition.

Aside from the things that I mentioned, there’s so much to love about the software like the File Dock, which can be used to copy-paste images and files between apps, or the Link to Windows feature that allows you to connect your phone to your PC for a seamless experience. 

Realme P1 will get two years of OS updates and three years of security updates, which is a standard in this price segment. Also, Realme has a good track record of delivering updates, so rest assured.

Realme P1 Review: Battery and Charging

The Realme P1’s battery life is excellent. During my review period, I consistently got 7 to 8 hours of screen-on time on a single charge. The idle drain is also a respectable 1.2% per hour.

When you are out of juice, the device supports 45W SUPERVOOC fast charging (charger included in the box), which can charge the device from 0% to 100% in just over an hour. As far as I could test, there is no support for PD charging.

Realme P1 Review: Cameras

Let’s talk about the cameras now. The Realme P1 has a dual camera setup on the rear—a 50 MP Samsung S5KJN1 1/2.76” main sensor and a 2 MP B&W sensor. For selfies and video calls, the front camera has a 16 MP HYNIX 1/3″ sensor.

The main 50 MP captures good-looking shots in bright daylight with great detail, high dynamic range, and good contrast. Additionally, it has a 2x toggle for you to capture closer shots of your subjects, which is essentially the regular shot cropped in.

The phone captures photos at the 27mm focal length by default, and outputs images at a resolution of 12.5 MP. You can, however, capture photos using the 50 MP mode for more detail. The shutter speed is fast per se and the processing time is minimal.

Since there is no OIS, the camera tends to struggle to capture photos as the light diminishes. The Night Mode, which kicks in automatically in low light, does help a bit but you can still notice the noise, lack of detail, sharpness, and lens flare. The sensor is tiny, so don’t expect much from it.

Fortunately, you can tweak the ISO and other settings in the Pro mode of the camera app for more control over your photos. Speaking of modes, the Realme P1 offers a portrait mode, which captures decent portrait shots. However, the edge detection in portrait mode and the bokeh drop-off could be improved for better results.

Selfies taken with the Realme P1 have a pleasant appearance, but the phone tends to apply some smoothing to faces and mess up skin tones very often. The HDR performance is not something to ride home about. The front camera also features a portrait mode, which, unfortunately, has poor edge detection.

As for the video, the Realme P1 can shoot up to 4K at 30 FPS without EIS and up to 1080p at 60 FPS with EIS or Ultra Steady mode. The videos are stable and have a good dynamic range if you are shooting at 1080p. 

Although the 4K video has more detail, it also suffers from stabilization and dynamic range issues. The videos may seem decent in daylight, but they tend to get very noisy in low light even if you are shooting at 1080p.

Videos from the front camera share a similar story, with decent video quality, to say the least. You can record videos up to 1080p at 30 FPS from the front camera.

Overall, the cameras on the Realme P1 fall in the does-the-job category, where you can capture decent photos and videos in daylight.

Review Verdict: Should You Buy The Realme P1?

Realme P1 offers a compelling package with its MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chip, 120 Hz AMOLED display, impressive battery life, and 45W fast charging, all at an affordable price. 

The design is attractive, and the phone feels well-built. Performance is smooth, and gaming is enjoyable. However, there are some downsides, such as ads in the software and average camera performance.

Some competitors are the POCO X6 Neo, Vivo T3x, moto g64, and the Samsung F15.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a budget-friendly phone with solid performance and features under INR 16,000, the Realme P1 is worth considering. I would recommend getting the 6 GB + 128 GB variant for the best value.