Another month, another new smartphone from the house of Realme but this time it’s a new series they are launching – P series, with the new P1 and P1 Pro. I have been using the P1 for a few days now, and this is how the Rs 14,999 phone performed:
The phone looks and feels in the hand like other recent Realme devices. With rounded corners, rounded watch-like camera setup on back and punch-hole front camera on the display – pretty familiar. But the device has a nice patterned back in Peacock Green (also comes in a Phoenix Red option) that I tried. The right side has the volume buttons and power/lock key but there is nothing on the left side. The top houses the 3.5mm audio jack, one outlet for loudspeakers and secondary mic; and the bottom houses the dual SIM card and microSD hybrid card slot tray, USB Type C and primary mic. The phone measures just under 8 mm in thickness and slightly under 190 gram in weight and is a decently comfortable device to carry around for a 6.67-inch display.
Speaking of that 6.67-inch full HD+ (2400x1080) AMOLED display, it’s a bright enough display that doesn’t struggle to be readable under direct sunlight. The display is fairly sharp and has punchy colours with smooth touch response and no major issues to report. YouTube videos in 1080p don’t lose out on much details though HDR output is strictly average, and text is sharp and readable whether for messages or email.
The phone boasts of a dual camera system on the back – 50MP (f/1.8) main camera, a 2 MP (f/2.4) black and white camera. The phone takes sharp and detailed shots in good lighting conditions with a little over-saturated shots at times. The low-light performance is expectedly not too great, with the photo looking grainy and the subject losing out on details quite frequently. An added mode called Street Mode gives you 27mm and 54mm shots. The front-facing 16MP (f/2.45) camera can take sharp but too smoothened selfie shots, switching filter and beauty mode off does help, but we have seen from better front cameras from Realme than this.
Running on Realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14 with the March security patch, the phone is equipped with MediaTek 7050 chipset (up to 2.6Ghz octa core processor, Mali G68 MC4 GPU) along with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 internal storage (base model has 128GB). The phone handles day-to-day tasks quite well and doesn’t show any slowdowns with little gaming thrown in. Games like CoD can be played at medium settings but don’t expect more than that. Playing full HD YouTube videos, with multiple Chrome tabs opened in the background and having a few other apps in the recent apps list didn’t trouble the phone’s experience. The software experience out of the box has been tweaked a bit with fewer apps pre-installed, but you be uninstall most of the remaining ones without much fuss. Realme has said two major OS updates and three years of security updates for the device, which isn’t bad compared to most other phones in this price range.
The device is powered by a 5,000mAh battery unit, which lasted me a day regularly, and the phone didn’t show any unusual battery drainage issues. The bundled 45 watt SuperVooc charger charges the device from 1 per cent to full in about 75 minutes. The overall battery experience is surely one of the best parts about using this device.
The dual speakers are loud enough for your gaming and video playback needs. 5G reception on the phone is on par with other devices in the price range with reliable network reception on the move, including for Wi-Fi hotspot. The optical fingerprint scanner is reliable and quick enough for daily use, something a lot of smartphones at this price point can struggle with.
In brief, the new P1 from Realme seems like a good offering for those who want a good design, refreshing colour, reliable day to day performance but aren’t into gaming much. You might have expected a little better camera performance in what’s otherwise a phone with a good battery experience.
