Realme’s Narzo series, introduced earlier this year, was apparently aimed at the young and impatient. In its latest series under the Narzo banner, Realme has a Narzo 20 Pro, which tends to offer the sub-premium gaming experience without spending too much money on users. However, if you are not crazy about gaming, the spectrum of priorities when buying a phone would generally include getting a device that looks good, has a rugged build, offers excellent battery life, and hopefully includes a good one as well. camera on the scale. . This is what Realme seems to have chosen, with the Realme Narzo 20.
The Narzo 20, which sits between the Narzo 20 Pro and the Narzo 20A, is priced at Rs 10,499 and Rs 11,499 in two variants. Both variants offer 4GB of RAM, but include 64GB and 128GB internal storage, respectively. It is powered by MediaTek’s Helio G85 SoC, which is a continuation of its previous mid-range SoC, the Helio G80. It features a 6.5-inch HD + display with a 20: 9 aspect ratio and an 88.7 percent screen-to-body ratio. At the rear, the triple camera is housed in a square housing, of which I am not a huge fan. It offers 48 MP primary units, 8 MP ultra wide angle and 2 MP macro with the camera. The notch on the front houses an 8MP selfie camera, and this is all powered by a 6,000mAh battery with 18W fast charging. Naturally, the phone has some bulk, measuring 208 grams.
So at this price and configuration, the Realme Narzo 20 essentially competes with Motorola’s Moto G9, Vivo U10, and a barrage of offerings from Xiaomi, like the Redmi Note 9 on the one hand and the Redmi 9 Prime on the other. How does it compare to the competition?
Design and ergonomics: bulky but resistant
The Narzo 20’s design is quite impressive for a budget smartphone. Rather than trying to emulate glass, the Narzo 20 offers a matte textured plastic finish on the back, which makes it nice to hold. I also really like the Victory Blue color, which makes the phone look even more premium. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of square camera modules, but Realme has kept symmetry with the triple camera unit by including the flash in it, although the physical fingerprint sensor is a touch too high on the rear: those with smaller palms may have difficulties. to achieve it.
At 208 grams, the Narzo 20 is not a lightweight phone. I kind of like its weight though, and the well-beveled edges add to the grip of the phone. Generally speaking, I quite like the overall design of the Realme Narzo 20 – it looks like a device that costs more than Rs 10,000, which is always a good thing. It could have done a better job of locating the power / volume button and fingerprints to aid ergonomics, but what it offers is still acceptable enough.
Performance and display: passable, but hiccuping
This is where the Narzo 20 is a bit mixed. The Helio G85 SoC that is in charge of performance offers a somewhat consistent gaming experience. While gaming, the Helio G85, coupled with Realme’s gameplay optimizations, offers a pretty streamlined gaming experience. However, sometimes the screen tears and the lack of faster frame rates in games like Call of Duty: Mobile ends up making your movement appear choppy. Games like Asphalt 8 are still more than playable, but screen tearing and lower frames per second rendering mean that the graphical experience remains somewhat basic.
Beyond gaming, when starting up, the Narzo 20 takes a while to load all processes, during which all operations on the phone tend to stay slow for too long. Multitasking isn’t terrible with the Narzo 20, although you can actively switch between your emails and your messages without feeling frustrated. In comparative terms, following the Geekbench CPU benchmark, the Narzo 20 is roughly 40 percent slower than the Narzo 20 Pro, which explains the overall performance scale of this phone. Most general tasks load smoothly. However, scrolling quickly through the menus will show a slight delay. It’s not something you can’t live without, but it’s definitely something you’ll notice in the long run.
The 6.5-inch HD + screen does a good job too. That said, you miss out on a Full HD panel that some of Realme’s competitors have already started offering, and the small issue of color shift and low contrast on the default settings persists. We had pointed out this problem with the Full HD + panel of the Realme Narzo 20 Pro, and the Narzo 20 seems to have similar characteristics as well. The general display produces smooth colors in the default settings and comes with a number of visual effects and eye protection modes, as well as a manual setting to help you get the correct display settings. For the most part, you can watch video in the dark and not feel like the display quality isn’t great. However, if you are watching with two other friends, those around you may not enjoy the images as much as you do.
Battery life – that’s why you buy this phone for
While the overall performance has things to criticize, the battery life is what defines the Narzo 20 and underscores its strength. The 6,000 mAh battery is a beast, and if you’re not into gaming, you can last two comfortable days without even thinking about charging the phone. If you want to use the Narzo 20 as a backup phone, and the number of notifications you get is comparatively limited than on a main phone, you can practically last five days – the Narzo 20’s standby battery life is absolutely excellent.
Even playing for a couple of hours every day and receiving a constant stream of emails, messages, and work notifications, the Narzo 20 lasted me close to two days without breaking a sweat. If you are a power user, you can certainly drain this battery in less than two days. You’d have to really twist your neck though – many hours of gaming, endless video streaming, a heady stream of calls, messages and emails, music streaming in the background, and good use of GPS would also drain this battery in no time. more than a minute. day. For most other phones, such use would mean a mandatory charge at noon, and this really brings out the real strength of the Narzo 20, in bold type.
The only thing I wish Realme included in the Narzo 20 is a faster charging standard. While a 6,000 mAh cell takes much longer to charge, the Narzo 20 takes more than two hours to fully charge. The charging speed slows down as you cross the 70 percent battery level, and Realme has its own set of battery algorithms to preserve battery life, so the slower charge speed could keep the battery alive for more years. What’s good to note, though, is that the Narzo 20 took 17 minutes to charge up to 12 percent, at which point I was able to take it out for about four hours. The slow battery drain means that even lower amounts of charge last longer than on other phones, and the Narzo 20 is a clear winner when it comes to battery life.
Camera – really takes great photos
Another pleasantly surprising strength of the Narzo 20 is its camera performance. While the Narzo 20 Pro’s 8MP ultra-wide unit couldn’t take good photos, the Narzo 20 does the exact opposite. Overall camera operations are smooth and uncluttered, and both the 48MP main unit and the 8MP ultra-wide unit take pretty good pictures. There’s a decent amount of detail, though a tint of pixelation persists in anything beyond the lit frames.
The ultra-wide camera is particularly fun to play with. Since it doesn’t completely remove contrast levels and colors, you can use it for landscape and monument shots. The 2MP macro unit does a decent job in photography too, and videography performance isn’t bad either. It even has a 60fps videography mode at 1080p and 720p HD resolutions, which is a more responsive feature than choppy 4K videos.
Software and security: quite optimized
The Realme Narzo 20’s fingerprint sensor on the rear is accurate and nimble, and would actually have been the primary biometric medium to use if it had been easier to access. Even those with larger palms would find it difficult to reach. Beyond that though, facial recognition works quite well, although it does feel a bit slow. It also tends to recognize your face even when the phone is not pointed at you, or when your eyes are closed, which is a loophole.
Realme’s user interface, as we noted in our review of the Narzo 20 Pro yesterday, has matured over time and is pretty well organized at the moment. Most of the settings are where they should be, and the sidebar shortcuts make things easy to get to. To a large extent, it offers you everything comfortably in the right places, so the general-purpose ergonomics is quite good.
Verdict: one for the battery
Bottom line, you should consider the Realme Narzo 20 if battery life is one of the areas you just don’t want to compromise on. The Narzo 20 offers a good camera too, and that should also put this phone on your list of budget devices priced at around Rs 10,000. Overall performance isn’t great, and even the screen could have been better. But, the screen doesn’t break your back and unless you’re an avid gamer and have light use of communication services, you can still settle for that. At Rs 10,499 for the 4 / 64GB variant and Rs 11,499 for the 4 / 128GB variant, the Realme Narzo 20 rivals Xiaomi’s Redmi 9/9 Prime, Motorola’s Moto G9, Vivo U10, and more. Should those be your considerations for a budget smartphone instead of the Narzo 20? If performance is key, no doubt. If battery life is what you want more than anything else, the Narzo 20 is worth a try.
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