realme narzo 50 (Speed Black, 4GB RAM+64GB Storage) Helio G96 Processor | 50MP AI Triple Camera | 120Hz Ultra Smooth Display

After using the phone for a day, I feel corners have been cut in various areas:

JN1 sensor is not that great in low light. Color is typical samsung style with oversaturated greens. Interesting to note that JN1 is also being used in Samsung’s new F23.

Thermal management is very poor. Device heats up in normal usage within minutes if the screen brightness is high. Same is the case when camera app is opened/simple games on flipkart gamezone are played. There are reports on youtube of narzo50’s camera shutting down on hot days.

Above scenarios and 120Hz adaptive refresh rate also drain battery like crazy.

Speaker and earpiece do not have crispiness (upper treble), instead sound like white noise. Earpiece volume is low. So is the speaker volume when on call. On the other hand, speaker volume is decent while playing back videos.

Flashlight is half as bright as normal smartphones. I don’t really know if company did cost cutting here, or its a software bug.

No fm radio and secondary mic.

Minor features I missed if shifting from miui to realmeui – e.g. the gallery app is not as good as miui one, requiring more taps for basic opeeations like viewing whatsapp images folder.

Mediocre ram management with realmeui 2, android 11.

To be fair, I could not find any major bug in realmeui 2.0 so far. The lcd display is fantastic, and very well calibrated with relatively cooler white point, as opposed to yellowish 5500-6500k super amoled. There was no green or purple tint. Touch response was excellent. Screen protector, case, fast charger, usb c cable were present. The phone feels much slimmer than my bulky F22 due to its thin body, 10gm less weight and sleek case. Camera app has full fledged manual mode, something absent from Samsung’s F22.

Disclaimer: Above impression has been made after using 4 smartphones over last 8 years: Asus Zenfone 5, Redmi 4, Redmi 7A, Samsung F22.

Strongly consider other current alternatives too, like Redmi note 11, Poco m4 pro, Poco m4 pro 5g, Redmi note 10t 5g, Samsung F22, Samsung F23, Moto G42 before buying Narzo 50.

More info: Do not fall for bloatwares like glance when setting up the phone. Check as few check boxes as possible before blindly clicking ‘I agree’. Turn off content recommendation by going to the Settings -> Additional Settings -> Get Recommendations and switch the green toggle off. To remove bloatwares that cannot be uninstalled usual way, follow excellent guide by youtuber ‘tech office’ mentioning all realme app names required for adb commands. I was able to uninstall hot apps/games this way.

UPDATE:
Detailed camera comparison between Samsung F22 and Narzo 50:

Samsung’s HDR algo seems more sophisticated, narzo unnaturally brightens some shadows too much, there is also some oversharpening.

Both cameras choose cool auto white balance, which results in bluer skies but lifeless greeneries even in ‘golden hours’. However, narzos colors become more ‘hue accurate’ after choosing 6000-6500k white point in ‘expert mode’, whereas samsung still delivers bluish green foliage colors at cloudy white balance. Narzo strangely does some weak auto hdr even in ‘expert mode’, but samsung fully turns it off in ‘pro mode’, resulting unusable photos.

However, when using night mode, narzo’s photos appear more cleaner but less saturated at night. Gcam 8.5 for narzo is not optimized properly and gives noisy night photos with greenish cast and crushed shadows, much worse than realme’s night mode. On the other hand, thereas no gcam and no camera2api support for F22. At night, you can take long exposure shots (upto 8/16/32secs) through ‘expert mode’ by manually choosing shutter speed in narzo, something you can’t do in F22. This however requires tripod support and whenever done properly, the results are very good.

You have manual ‘film’ mode in narzo, whereas you can’t even manually set white balance in F22’s video mode, as samsung’s lower end galaxys don’t have ‘pro video’ mode.

Good

Battery backup lasts for 1 day

Camera 4.7/5
Battery 4.7/5
Performance 4.5/5
Display 4.5/5
Value Of Money 4.7/5
All Over Rating 4.5/5