Almost every major smartphone brand seems to be in a rat race to bring 5G-enabled smartphones at an affordable price. Realme just recently introduced its new Realme Narzo 30 5G phone in the Indian market for a price under Rs 20,000. But, the Chinese handset maker launched a 4G variant alongside in the sub-Rs 15,000 price segment. While DoT (Department of Telecom) is yet to set a date for the 5G rollout in India, industry experts suggest that 4G networks will take up at least ’50 percent of mobile internet traffic’ till 2026.
Considering the stats, smartphone manufacturers seem to be playing a mix-n-match contest, and perhaps Realme tapped into this demanding segment to compete against Xiaomi that dominates the Indian smartphone market. That said, the Realme Narzo 30 offers decent specs for its budget price. You get a gaming chipset, a fairly high refresh rate panel, and a big battery. But while specs look good on paper, can the new Realme Narzo phone compete against Redmi’s popular budget phones like the Redmi Note 10? Here’s our first impressions of the Realme Narzo 30 4G phone.
Realme Narzo 30 4G key aspects walk-through
The new Realme Narzo 30 phone is encased in a glossy plastic body and has a plastic frame surrounding the perimeters. The design looks appealing at least from the backside, with a reflective stripe running the pill-shaped rear camera module. But while the design catches attention, the rear glossy back cover is good in attracting fingerprints and dust as well. The highlight of the new Realme Narzo phone is its 90Hz display with a 180Hz touch sampling rate that is expected to deliver smoother motion, transition, and run high-end games at a good pace. The panel is adequately bright but I did observe a glaring effect while scrolling through content under the harsh light. The colour rendition is just about decent. For biometrics, the Realme Narzo 30 gets a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, besides facial recognition.
As for the powerhouse, Realme has integrated a MediaTek Helio G95 processor on the new Narzo phone. The chipset is paired with up to 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. Speaking of the performance test, I did run a few casual games like Orbia, Top War for about a 30 minute time frame and I didn’t observe any stutter while playing the games. However, I would like to reserve my opinion until I torment the device with graphic-demanding games.
On the software front, the Realme Narzo phone runs Realme UI 2.0 based Android 11 OS. As with any Realme phone, the new device comes packed with oodles of bloatware or to say unnecessary apps. But thankfully you can uninstall the unwanted Chinese apps (most of them to be precise). Similar to other Chinese phones (Poco, Redmi, or Xiaomi), the software offers a good theme collection that you can use and customise your device.
For photography, a 48-megapixel triple camera array sits at the glossy back cover above the reflective stripe. The primary camera is accompanied by two 2-megapixel macro and depth sensors. The Realme Narzo 30 4G has a tiny punch-hole cutout that houses the 16-megapixel front selfie shooter. The rear cameras are AI-enabled and the camera UI offers a bunch of modes including Pro mode, Night mode, Ultra-macro mode, etc. There’s beautification filter as well for selfie lovers.
The device is backed by a big 5,000mAh battery and it has 30W fast charging support. The new Realme Narzo 4G phone gets a 3.5mm audio jack, a USB-C port, and a mono speaker grill, all of them chiseled at the base.
Realme Narzo 30 4G camera samples
Image resized for Web
Image resized for Web
Image resized for Web
Realme Narzo 30 4G first impressions
As I mentioned earlier, the specs sheet of the new Realme Narzo 30 4G looks decent on paper. For a sub-Rs 15000 price, the phone offers elements that many users look for at this price point. However, if we are to compare, the phone stays a few points behind Redmi Note 10 in terms of display, design. The latter offers a Super AMOLED which is bright and produces vibrant colours, and features a sleek design unlike the Realme Narzo 30 which although isn’t bulky but has a broader frame. The camera is another area where I am a bit disappointed, the output in daylight rendered washed-off oversaturated images. But I would prefer to keep the contretemps on hold until I test the cameras in low light and performance, of course. Whether you should buy the new Realme phone or get the promising Redmi Note 10? Well! You will find the answer in our review soon. So stay tuned.
