Affordable and effective. Those two words might just sum up Realme’s offerings through the years since its launch in 2018. The Realme Narzo 70 Pro 5G is one of the latest entrants and has a lot to offer at its price points.
Design
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro 5G at first glance looks like a flagship adjacent - premium aesthetics. Weighing in at 195g, the phone does have a heft to it but also feels like something likely to survive more than a few accidental drops.
The colour variant I got was a Glass Green, the other option being Glass Gold. This colour caught my eye, without looking too bright or garish. The glossy finish near the camera ring was a fingerprint magnet requiring frequent wipedowns. The smooth matte finish on the rear panel’s glass finish felt like it would be easy to lose my grip over here.
Display
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro features a 6.67-inch OLED 2400*1080 (FHD+) display that supports up to 120 Hz refresh rate as well as up to 2000 nits of peak brightness. The display was clear and vibrant, and I was able to enjoy HD trailers of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra on YouTube with sharp details. Colours were well-balanced and the 92 per cent screen-to-body ratio makes it a great device to enjoy video content daily.
For a budget flagship phone, the Narzo 70 Pro does deliver great sound with its stereo speaker setup. The voices of the late Lata Mangeshkar and AR Rahman in Lukka Chuppi from Rang De Basanti along with the crescendos of the guitar, violin, and tabla were distinct even at higher volumes.
Performance
Sheer performance is where I think the Realme Narzo 70 Pro has truly delivered. It’s powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 7050 chipset which delivers all-round performance. In the AnTuTu benchmark I ran, the smartphone scored 5,89,794 points, sharing space with the likes of the Poco X5 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy A54.
Call of Duty: Mobile ran at smooth 60FPS with medium graphics without any frame drop. The polycarbonate body tended to heat up while gaming, otherwise it wasn’t much of a discomfort considering the performance it’s capable of.
User Interface
The phone runs on realme UI 5.0 based on Android 14 and will get 3 years of software support and 2 years OS security updates.
It’s equipped with air gesture controls, designed to let users manage the phone only through gestures, and without any physical contact. This much-touted feature in reality turned out to be a subpar experience. I struggled to get it to work consistently during the duration of the review, as it was usually a hit-and-miss with system navigation gestures in front of the camera.
Bloatware was at the minimum as well as a decent number of built-in apps. Day-to-day usage was smooth, without much lag.
Camera
The Narzo 70 Pro features a 50MP Sony IMX 890 sensor, an 8MP Ultra-wide Camera, and a 2MP macro camera. While outdoors, the camera was able to shoot photos that reflected the original colour tones of the subject. Daylight shots were rich in detail and contrast along with a natural tone and color to people and objects. However, shots taken at night ended up with a bit of aggressive noise reduction, bringing in color patches across these images.
Battery
The phone features a 5,000 mAh battery which easily lasted me around a day and a half with usage that included a few hours of gaming, phone calls, and short bursts of video from time to time. The supplied 67-watt SuperVOOC charger was able to charge the phone from 0-100 in an hour.
Verdict
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro has a lot going for it with a great display, sound, and an overall premium finish. That’s quite a bit in its favour, especially in the budget segment which is over-saturated with mediocre smartphones. It is better value for money than the likes of Poco X6 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy M52 5G which are competitors in the same price range, as the Narzo 70 Pro offers a great balance of performance and looks considering its affordability.
