Realme U1 (Ambitious Black, 3GB RAM, 32GB Storage)

nice mobile of its time

I have divided the review into certain categories for a better idea of the phone !BUILD :- It is having a very good build quality .- It is not metal , it is a polycarbonate plastic .- The back is prone to scratches so use that silicon case given in the box- Although it is a plastic back but it still is a shiny and attractive backpanel .CAMERA:-My first trial with the phone is the camera .- This phone is literally a champ in front camera , the images are detailed enough and the AI BEAUTY mode makes it the best selfie out there.- But i am disappointed with the Back Camera , they could have used a good pair of sensors for the back camera , i know its a selfie phone but doesn't mean back cam cannot be good .DISPLAY:-Display is literally sharp enough , colours looks good and panel is also a charm to look at .-The Dew drop notch is my Fav and this implementation by realme is my favourite .BATTERY :-Battery easily lasts me for a day as the processor is the champ for less battery consumption .PERFORMANCE:-It is powered by Mediatek Helio P70 chipset which is a beast in terms of performance .- It easily go through every application or even any game eg. PUBG MOBILE very smoothly .CONCLUSION:If you are finding a phone for Selfie , Gaming and great immersive Display and can manage with the back cam this is for you .

Although this phone is being marketed as selfie expert, I personally am not a fan of selfies. I am just a casual user who uses different apps and services like social media, swiggy, urban clap, mobile banking etc. I take photos occasionally but I I extensively use my phone camera for taking pics/scanning business documents, letters, visiting cards etc. I don't play games except hay and Plants vs Zombies 2.I am coming from an iPhone 5s and I purchased 5s around 2014 by paying 60k+ for a 32GB storage. It was a flagship phone at that time. Towards the end of 2014, Indian market got flooded by chinese OEMs with extreme race to the bottom competition. I started using Xiaomi Mi 4 as my secondary phone since 2016 (Yes its Mi 4 2014 model).So in a way I do have quite a bit of experience with MIUI, Android and also iOS. However, both 5s and Mi 4 do not support VoLTE and 5s had terrible phone reception from day 1. Even battery life of 5s was not so great. Screen size is small. Mi 4 on the other hand offered amazing battery life, had great reception and MIUI offered lot of useful features especially built in call recording. I like native call recording feature because it allows me to listen to the phone calls whenever I note down important information. It can be quite useful feature if you talk to lot of people and have to remember lot of things.Overall, I decided to buy Realme U1 because I already used Xiaomi for 3 years and really wanted to give Realme a chance.Anyway, for me the following are the upgrades with Realme U1:VoLTEDual SIM4GB RAM (Mi 4 had 3 GB)Powerful processor (Mi 4 and 5s had processors with almost equal horse power)Bigger Battery (Mi 4 had 3000 mah while 5s had 1500 mah)Bigger Storage (64GB Vs 16/32GB of Mi 4 and 5s)Huge Screen (Almost 40% bigger than Mi 4 and 150% bigger than 5s in terms of area)Amazing Front CameraMicro SD SlotFace UnlockLouder SpeakerDowngrades/ConsNo 4K Recording (2014 Mi 4 had 4k recording feature)Ok-ish back cameraNo Video StabilizationNo Dual Band WifiStill Micro USB portPlastic BuildHeavier BuildReview:As you can see my review, you might have understood the type of user I am. So coming from 2013/2014 phone, this phone although costing only 12k felt like a huge upgrade. That shows much far smartphones have come during the last 5 years.The biggest surprise for me about this phone was the display. I was literally blown away by the quality of display this phone had. I mean, I just couldn't believe how good the display was at first. It felt so premium. I know lot of people are going to come up with lot of stats about colour accuracy and stuff but trust me if you show the display to a lay man, they will surely get surprised. Since, I haven't used any newer phones for a long time, I don't know if other phones are also offering such good quality displays.Next biggest surprise for me was front facing camera. I read many reviews stating that front camera is bad and it is not up to mark. Yes, I do agree with this because this phone is being marketed as selfie expert and people would certainly have high expectations regarding selfie camera. If you remove the tag of "selfie expert" and are only looking forward to make video calls or day light selfies or may be casual selfies, I think this phone is more than sufficient. I think Realme should reconsider its marketing strategy regarding this phone. They shouldn't have called it Selfie Expert.Coming to the performance, during heavy usage, I did find little bit of tiny stutters in some specific apps but absolutely butter smooth performance 99% of the time. I am starting to think that it is the fault of apps which are not properly optimized by the developer. In simple words, the phone is a beast. The fault lies with some crappy apps.Next is games performance. Many reviewers stated that gaming performance is good. I got carried away by the reviews but I will be honest, even after using realme's game space (the app which optimizes games performance) I could find significant performance boost but the performance is nowhere what the reviewers said about this phone. There are many frame drops in asphalt 9 on highest settings but game performs well on medium graphics with very rare frame drops (I don't play pubg) but apparently pubg (according to some) runs fine on medium graphics when launched in realme's game space app (i.e. with graphics boosters and optimizer). In simple lay man terms, this phone can handle things only on medium level graphics/medium settings.One of the biggest things I loved about this phone overall was its heat. The phone doesn't heat up as much as my Mi 4. This phone does heat up but very less. It has very good thermal optimization.One more thing I observed is that this phone doesn't throttle the chipset much which means you won't find ups and downs in performance. It performs equally at all times (unless you turn on battery saver). This is something apple introduced with iPhone 6 (I think) and continued. Many phones boast of performance but have poor thermal handling capacity and often these companies use throttling mechanism to maintain the temperature of the devices. I observed this in many reviews and also experienced it in few phones I tried before. Some of the phones have such a poor thermal handling capacity that we keep hearing about phone being blasted. Fortunately, realme has done amazing (I mean it), really fantastic job in terms of thermal handling and also throttling.I also urge all users to chose phones with heat handling capacity because we are currently in summer and most of us use our phones outside. So, don't compromise on heat handling capacity for few shots of performance boost. Too much heat may lead to phones catching fires or even blasts. Irrespective of what phone you use, don't play games outside and also use the phones without cases when charging or heavy tasks.Finally, coming to back camera. One of the biggest disappointments is lack of Image stabilization. Although I was able to scan documents using scanner apps crystal clear with back camera, I couldn't help but notice the lack of video stabilization. If you plan to shoot something with walking around (like a park or something), get ready to watch the shakiness. For some reason, even Honor decided to remove Image Stabilization feature in their latest update. I think these companies are purposefully doing these gimmicks to convince users to buy more expensive phones.Even though there is dual camera on the back, I personally didn't feel the camera to be impressive but I am not saying that the camera is unusable. Its just that it takes decent pics but not great ones. If you have little patience, you can actually take great pics with the camera. If you are a casual user who occasionally uses camera, this camera would be fine.Coming to low light, I came to the conclusion that this is one of the only areas where flagships really rule. My advice is that if you are serious about the camera, do yourself a favor and get a DSLR. I am not saying this to defend this phone or bash other phones. Its true that smartphones cameras are getting better and better each year but they are still nowhere near DSLRs in many aspects.If you are someone who travels a lot, that's the only reason to a buy a smartphone with excellent camera. For social media use, any camera works just fine because most of the websites compress images until they loose all details before they get uploaded on your feed. Added to that there are filters. So, in the end, all images become crappy. However, if you are serious about photos but do not travel a lot, get a DSLR.Finally coming to battery life, I am easily able to get more than 1 day battery life. If I use the phone casually (not for gaming or downloads), I was easily able to squeeze 1.5 days of battery life. Of course if you plan to use lot of maps mobile data, location services and GPS, battery drains fast but would easily last 7 hours at least.I think lot of people who are complaining about battery life are either gaming heavily on this phone or some app in the background is eating up everything. From my experience of 10+ years of using smartphones from budget to flagships, 90% of the times smartphone batteries do well but the main culprit of battery life are rogue apps which run on background and eat off all battery life without the knowledge of user. I have experienced both good and bad days of battery life even on flagship phones like S2, S4, 5s, Lumias etc. and 90% of the times, like I said, the culprits are rogue apps.Finally, the last but not least. Face unlock was completely unexpected, It is working blazing fast. I tried to fool it with photos and tried different tricks but none of them actually worked. Initially I thought face unlock feature is waste but after using face unlock on this phone. It has hard to go back to fingerprint or pattern lock. Most of the times many features sound great on paper but work really bad in real life but I have to hand it to realme, they have done excellent job in this. Even fingerprint sensor recognition is super fast.Verdict:I can easily recommend this phone to any casual user like me who uses apps a lot but less games or camera. However, if you are a gamer, all I can suggest is go for a higher end phone because as far as reviews are concerned, no other phone offers any significant performance boost compared to realme u1 at this price range. So, better make your budget 15k.Finally about the camera, if all you with your photos is upload them to social media, this phone will be great job (not because it takes great pics but because social media compresses image until they lose quality any way). So, if you are looking purely from non-gaming perspective, this phone is a must buy but keep your expectations in check.

Good durability fell osam lag free performance charging speed 🚄 goodDisplay resolution nice looking

In 2019, I purchased my first mobile phone with my hard-earned salary. Prior to this, I didn't have a good phone, and this was my first experience with an Android device featuring a generous 32GB of internal storage - which was more than enough back then.I used this phone diligently until 2021, and then passed it on to my father. He also enjoyed using it for the next two years without any issues. The phone continued to serve us well, and we have now given it to our family's guard, who is overjoyed to have it.A Reliable Companion:This mobile phone was truly a "beast" - it delivered exactly what it was designed for. Throughout its journey with me, my father, and now our guard, it has proven to be a reliable and long-lasting companion. Despite its modest specifications by today's standards, it has stood the test of time and remained a valuable asset to our family.The sentimental value of this phone goes beyond its technical capabilities. It represents my first major purchase with my own money, and the joy of owning a device that catered to my needs at the time. The fact that it has continued to serve our family for several years is a testament to its quality and durability.