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Realme is a brand which entered the market with an aim to destroy the competition, and to achieve that, it will go to a large extent by remaining in the trend & media from time to time. One of those ways to achieve that is by launching devices like almost every month or so, at least that’s what has happened so far in 2021 Q1.

But for a moment, lets rewind back to September 2020 where Realme announced the Narzo 20 series which included Narzo 20A, Narzo 20 and Narzo 20 Pro which I have recently grabbed for ₹13,000 during the Flipkart sale from April 12 – 15. Thus, this blog post where you’ll get to know the first impressions. Considering its a phone from 2020 and since then tons of phones have launched in this specific price range, thus how it rivals with the new competition and even beyond.

Unboxing Experience

The phone comes in the typical Realme yellow box as to match and embrace the logo’s colour (anyone remembers the red & white boxes from early Realme days?).

Good enough the box wasn’t tampered from anywhere nor any major scuffs. Also, after a few hours noticed on the box that Narzo 20 Pro has a special battery just like the flagships such as OnePlus 8T, OnePlus 9 series and Oppo flagships. Meaning, it is equipped with two batteries – 2250mAh and 2200mAh ones. This is done in order to utilise the 65W charging. By this way, both batteries can charge simultaneously.

The phone was packed pretty tightly in the plastic, which had a hard time taking out of it.

One horror thing that happened – The phone didn’t boot after taking out from the box. But when plugged in, there was indeed 34% battery and for some reason didn’t boot up. Fortunately, no such problem faced till now after 24hrs of unboxing.

Atleast in 2020 brands were generous enough to provide a charging adaptor along with a TPU case. But wait! For the charger alone, people purchase the Realme Narzo 20 Pro – a 65W beast which able to top up the battery in 35-38 min or so from 10-15% to 100%. Probably I land among the group of people i.e. for ultimate charging speeds.

In-Hand Feel

In-hand feel is just fine and good enough for the price, nothing groundbreaking especially if you’re coming from a metal glass phone like me. One thing surely noticed that the plastic on back is pretty solid and looks much better the Samsung M series or the Poco X3 series. Thankfully, frame is matte finish unlike other which have a shiny plastic and endures fingerprints pretty easily.

The ‘V’ design on back is attractive enough and goes in extremely well with the ‘Youngster centric phone” theme that Realme brags about in the marketing materials.

Display

Display is very very good. Despite being LCD, has punchy colours, The “LCD Shadow” effect which LCDs tends to have is quite minimal on the punch-hole and bezels and only visible on extreme angles. Speaking of the punch-hole, it could have been slightly small but not that it matters much.

The elephant in the room – 90Hz display. Still one of the few phones in this range to have it. The experience is really flawless and I think pretty also doesn’t take a big hit. But in the long run that might not be the case. High refresh rate is the reason went for this one despite being LCD. Instagram, Amazon, Twitter all ran flawless with 90Hz.

LCDs are very good too and its just that world has hyped AMOLED too much that makes LCDs seem inferior. Yes, the blacks tend to become greyish-blueish on the high brightness, even compared it with the Zenfone 5z which has a IPS LCD. That’s where flagships 2 year old excel then 2020 midrange phones.

Performance on Narzo 20 Pro

During the first 24hrs of unboxing, just used the phone for installing apps, changing settings, exploring Realme UI and scrolling through Twitter & Instagram. Phone didn’t disappoint at all for these basic tasks and expect not to even when pushing the limits to gaming and heavy tasks.

As mentioned above, with 90Hz everything goes up a level. Which it performed with any issues. No stutters at all. The Mediatek G95 is certainly doing its job.

The phone’s temperature can rise to 38-39 Celsius in temperature even when using the camera for like 5 minutes or downloading apps. But this also factors in the ambient temperature. Even if there’s uncertain heating then well, I was probably prepared for it by keeping in mind the tendency of Mediateks chips to release a bit heat then the Snapdragon counterparts.

Now comes the big question, Realme Narzo 20 Pro/Realme 7 vs Xiaomi Redmi Note 10. I would anyday pick the Realme devices. Due to the reasons –

1. Can’t get hold of cartoon like UI with MIUI
2. The 90Hz refresh rate was sort of priority and no other option then Realme in this price.
3. Mediatek G95 is far better then Snapdragon 678 in terms of raw power

So that were pretty much the factors in getting Realme Narzo 20 Pro over the latest Redmi Note 10. Surprisingly, when ran a poll on Twitter, many people chose the Redmi Note 10 over anything in this price range.

Software Experience (Realme UI)

Had nominal expectations from the UI in terms of fluidity, UX, detailing but was high impressed and went way above my expectations. To get it straight, this UI is probably the best skin in this price. But my top priority would always be stock Android not the Nokia or Moto one but skins like ZenUI or Oxygen OS 10. Nevertheless, Realme UI is brilliant in its place. Oh, and definitely better than MIUI. Attention to detail is awesome too like the wobbly effect when sliding on brightness bar, toggling buttons animation in the UI or even the animation on punch hole when switching to front camera.

But there certainly are shortcomings in the UI which I noticed in the past 24hrs –

1. Unwanted notification (ads) – The aspect which I was worried about, unfortunately came to be true – unwanted and promotional notification from Realme apps! From Realme Browser, Realme Community and Theme Store, all pushed certain notifications in the past 1 day itself.
2. No hide apps – there’s NO option to hide apps or its dug in so deep in the software that I couldn’t find it anywhere.
3. No rotation prompt in horizontal usage – There’s no “rotate prompt” when the auto-rotate is OFF when using the navigation gestures! This was introduced as part of Android Pie update but Realme has skipped it in navigation gestures. Although it is present in 3-button nav and works flawlessly.
4. No Battery graph – The aspect I hate about OneUI is the battery usage UX, which is giving kinda similar vibes in Realme UI too. There’s no battery graph which shows downward trend of the battery percentage.
5. No rotation in Gallery – Can’t use the gallery in horizontal orientation. Only when viewing images and videos. Once you go back to the main albums screen, it switches back to vertical orientation.

Rest, there’s everything you are to expect from an Android skin such as screen recording, call recording (sort of), long screenshot, screen off gestures, dual apps etc.

Not eagerly waiting for Realme 2.0 at this point as presently there’s still so much to explore. But that too indeed has some great features upcoming with the goodness of Android 11. The Realme Narzo 20 Pro might receive the Realme 2.0 update at the end of April or starting of May 2021.

Battery life

A single day use on literally a brand new battery would perform very well, and the same is the case here. Even with switching between 60hz and 90Hz got amazing battery life. This also due to the fact that only 15-20 apps from the Play Store were installed meaning way less background processes.

But even if the battery drains out, the beastly 65W ultra fast charging comes into the play.

Final Thoughts

Realme Narzo 20 Pro is definitely not a slouch in spite of the new launches such as Redmi Note 10 and Realme 8. Its far better in raw performance then Note 10 which gives it an over it and also the high refresh rate display which the Note 10 lacks. Personally my top priority was Realme UI so that automatically cancels out Xiaomi and Poco devices. On the other hand, the stutters and lags on OneUI refrains me from buying Samsung smartphones.

If one is looking for an inexpensive high refresh rate display, powerful phone with above average battery life, Realme Narzo 20 Pro is definitely a great option to go for.

Will try to cover the device for a lengthy period and come up with a full fledged review of the same.