realme yesterday released its newest budget smartphone for the Philippine market—narzo 50A. |
narzo 50A! |
Coming from the narzo 30A earlier this year, narzo 50A brings an updated design, a more powerful primary camera, and a newer operating system.
Priced at PHP 7,990 (PHP 7,290 Lazada 11.11 Mega Campaign price), the device brings a 6.5-inch HD+ notch display, 2.0GHz 12nm MediaTek Helio G85 octa-core processor, 4G RAM, 64GB expandable storage, 6,000mAh battery capacity, and a brand new 50MP main shooter.
We have the device today and let's see if it is worth its asking price.
Unboxing/Accessories
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Everything inside the box |
The packaging is simple. It arrived in a bright blue box with a big narzo text and a small print of realme's logo.
Inside, you will find a small box containing the case, paper documents, and the SIM ejector tool. Next, you will see the handset itself with a pre-installed screen protector. Under it, you will find the 18W power brick and the USB-A to USB-C data/charging cable.
Similar to other realme devices, there are no earphones included in the box.
Build Quality/Design
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The back design |
The materials used by realme for the narzo 50A are similar to the previous narzo phones. It has a plastic backplate, plastic camera hump, plastic frame, and a glass display.
Unfortunately, there is no mention of glass protection this time. The SIM card tray has no rubber gasket as well for some sort of water resistance.
In general, this is a nicely built handset. From experience, this kind of body and frame are not prone to light scratches. It won't break easily when dropped as well.
Personally, my only concern is the glass display since there is no mention of Gorilla Glass protection, unlike other realme budget devices. Thankfully, it has a pre-installed screen protector to prevent it from having display scratches.
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With patterns and a large camera hump |
For design, it is obvious that realme is always trying to be unique.
The handset uses the Diagonal Stripe Design with a massive camera square camera hump to house its triple camera configuration, LED flash, the narzo logo, and a fingerprint reader.
It has a two-tone design featuring diagonal line patterns with protrusions helping in the grip of the phone. The other stripe with a darker shade has a textured feel as well.
This back design is not prone to fingerprint smudges.
In front, it is still using a notch design. The bezels on top and on the sides are slim though. The chin bezel is considered thick. While it has a decent screen-to-body ratio of 88.7 percent, it is the same 6.5-inch HD+ display that the company has been using since C3 in March of 2020.
We would have liked it better if it has a punch-hole design and a crisper 1080p resolution like most competing phones at this price point. It's time for a change realme.
On top, the same. It's clear. Below, you will the 3.5mm headphone jack, microphones, USB-C port, and speaker grille.
On the left, you will find the pinhole to access its triple-slot tray (dual nano SIM + microSD card). On the right, it has the volume rocker (up and down) and the power key.
The device measures 164.5 x 75.9 x 9.6 mm and weighs 207 grams. It generally feels nice in the hands with easy-to-reach buttons on the side. You may need a bit of time to familiarize yourself with the placement of the fingerprint reader as it is a bit higher.
Using the phone in a single hand might be hard for most as this is not a small phone.
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50MP triple-cam! |
Going to the cameras, the 13MP camera of the narzo 30A was replaced with a massive 50MP f/1.8 shooter. As usual, this has 4-in-1 pixel binning for better images even in the dark. It is paired with a 2MP 4cm macro and a 2MP f/2.4 Portrait Lens.
The UI is similar to most realme budget phones. It is easy to use and it comes with a built-in handheld Night mode. It also has several Night Filters like Astral, Dazzle, and Modern Gold.
Anyway, let's have a look at the first camera samples we took.
First Camera Samples
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Daylight shot |
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50MP sample |
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100 percent crop |
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1x |
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2x zoom |
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5x zoom |
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Indoor well-lit 1 |
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Indoor well-lit 2 |
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Low light Portrait mode |
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Night mode! |
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Indoor selfie with Portrait mode |
Since it is a budget phone, my expectations aren't high even if it is using a large image sensor.
Crisp primary cam for a budget phone!
BUT, autofocus is fast. Shooting speed also takes less than a second. It shoots images with plenty of details, little noise, rich colors, and decent dynamic range in most of our daylight and well-lit shots. It also has a decent portrait mode. The macro mode works decently in areas with proper lighting. The 2x zoom is also crisp. The 5x zoom will show some grain, but it is still decent.
Since it uses pixel-binning, the default output is around 12MP per photo. This solution helps a lot in conditions with harsh lighting and low light.
But, realme also included the option where you can use its entire 50MP. We suggest using this mode in well-lit places to prevent losing details (pixel binned shots are generally better most of the time) and if you want a higher-res photo for print and cropping.
In low light, this is one of the best in capturing low light images for the price. Yes, the grain will still be visible, but it shoots bright images with decent details and less color degradation.
We also appreciate that it has a handheld night mode (around 2 seconds) that works best for non-moving images.
For selfies, it is not bad as well. The default beauty effect is not too strong. Your skin tone will likely look close to natural.
Of course, we will be trying the rest of its features as well as its video performance on our full review.
realme narzo 50A Specs
Display: 6.5-inch 2.5D curved LCD (LTPS) screen w/ HD+ 1600 x 720 resolution at 269 ppi
CPU: 2.0GHz 12nm MediaTek Helio G85 octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G52 2EEMC2
RAM: 4GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 64GB expandable via microSD card slot up to 256GB (dedicated)
Back Camera: 50MP f/1.8 w/ PDAF + 2MP f/2.4 4cm macro + 2MP f/2.4 Portrait Lens + LED flash
Selfie Camera: 8MP f/2.0
Battery: 6,000mAh w/ 18W Quick Charge
OS: Android 11 w/ realme UI 2.0
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz/5GHz), 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, OTG, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, dual SIM
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: Fingerprint sensor, face unlock, Dirac 2.0, USB-C, Colors: Oxygen Blue, Oxygen Green
Dimensions: 164.5 x 75.9 x 9.6 mm
Weight: 207 g
Price: PHP 7,990
As of the moment
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narzo 50A initial AnTuTu and Geekbench scores |
For the PHP 7,290 Lazada 11.11 promo price, the realme narzo 50A is a decent offering. The build is nice, the design is unique, the performance is respectable, the battery life is strong, and it has one of the better cameras at this price point.
But for the PHP 8K SRP, the competition is extra fierce. We've seen devices with 1080p 90Hz screens, punch-hole designs, larger RAM size, and bigger storage options. The general upgrade is not that noticeable (except for the 50MP cam) coming from the more affordable narzo 30A (PHP 6,490).
The company is claiming that this has a more optimized real-life performance than a lot of similarly priced though. Let's see.
Watch out for our full review.
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