Realme Narzo 70 5G review: a performance-oriented phone with an impressive display
Check out our detailed Realme Narzo 70 5G review to find out if this is the best phone you can buy in its price range
Review Summary
Expert Rating
Realme recently added two new phones to its Narzo series in the form of the Narzo 70 5G and the Narzo 70x 5G (review). While we’ve already reviewed the Narzo 70x, it is time now to shift attention to the Narzo 70 5G. In case you are wondering what the slightly higher-priced Narzo 70 brings to the table in comparison, I’ll give you a brief overview before jumping into the detailed review. And let me give you a heads-up that things are not as straightforward as you might think.
The Narzo 70 5G boasts an upgraded processor, a higher-resolution selfie camera, and an on-display fingerprint sensor (compared to the side-mounted one on the Narzo 70x). These were the changes one might anticipate, given the price difference. Now, let’s talk about some unexpected changes. The Narzo 70 comes with a smaller display (6.67 inches) compared to the Narzo 70x (6.72 inches). While the Narzo 70x supports Bluetooth v5.3, the Narzo 70 supports Bluetooth v5.2. Finally, the Narzo 70 storage can be expanded up to 1TB (via an SD card), while the expandable storage on the 70x is up to 2TB (via an SD card). These are some confusing downgrades that are hard to digest on a phone priced higher by Rs 4,000. However, let’s just put this aside and figure out how the Narzo 70 5G performs as a daily driver.
Verdict
With the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset, the Narzo 70 can handle even demanding tasks efficiently. In its price range, the phone offers one of the best displays and a decent camera performance. However, it does struggle with capturing skin tones accurately and the selfie camera performance in low-light situations has room for improvement. Overall, this phone is a good buy for the price if your priority is performance.
Design and display
- In terms of design, the Narzo 70 5G is nearly identical to the Narzo 70 Pro and the Narzo 70x 5G.
- You get a dual-tone matte and glossy finish on the rear panel with the top half being glossy and the bottom half matte.
- The camera setup is placed in the top middle with the camera sensors placed symmetrically in a circular housing. There is an LED flash at the top of the camera module.
- Despite the camera module protruding a little, the phone doesn’t wobble even while lying on a flat surface.
- The phone comes in Ice Blue and Forest Green colours. I received the Ice Blue unit of the phone, which looks pretty decent in my opinion.
- The handset comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is still common in this price range.
- The USB Type-C charging port, speaker grille, and SIM card slot are all located at the bottom of the phone while the volume rocker and the power key are present on the right spine of the handset.
- The phone measures 7.97mm in thickness and weighs 188 grams. This means it is easy to use with one hand and can be easily carried around without feeling bulky.
- Moving on to the display, you get a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ screen resolution and 120Hz refresh rate.
- One of the most unique aspects of this phone’s display is that it offers up to 2000 nits of peak brightness, which results in good visibility outdoors. With an AMOLED display and such high peak brightness, the phone offers an impressive contrast ratio.
- With thin bezels on all sides of the display, I found that watching videos on this phone was a rather immersive experience and in this price range, this is one of the best display panels you can get your hands on.
- Thanks to the high refresh rate, you get smooth visuals while playing games on this phone and even general navigation feels pretty fluid.
Cameras
- The Narzo 70 ships with a 50MP AI camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a 5P lens, and a sensor size of 1/2.76 inches. The primary sensor offers a field-of-view of 77 degrees.
- The primary camera is assisted by a 2MP Mono camera with an f/2.4 aperture, a 3P lens, and a sensor size of 1/5 inches. The primary sensor offers a field-of-view of 88.8 degrees.
- The handset offers Night Mode, Photo Mode, Street Mode, Portrait Mode, High Pixel, Professional Mode, Panoramic view, Super Text, Super Group Portrait, Tilt-shift, and Long Exposure Photo.
- As far as video recording is concerned, you get the regular Video mode, but then there are some other modes on offer too – Movie Mode, Slow Motion, Time-lapse, Dual-view video, and Tilt-Shift Video. The handset supports 720p videos at 30fps/60fps, 1080p videos at 30fps/60fps, and even 4K videos at 30fps. In the Slow Motion mode, it supports 720p videos at 240fps and 1080p videos at 120fps.
- I liked the details captured by the phone’s primary camera and even indoors, it managed to perform really well.
- In the portrait mode, the phone offered good edge detection and produced some decent shots with good background blur.
- However, I found the primary sensor to be struggling when it comes to skin tones. For some reason, the phone added a red tint to almost all skin tones, which made the pictures with faces look a bit inauthentic.
- In low-light conditions and at night, the phone captures decent shots, especially with the Night Mode, which is automatically triggered. The phone doesn’t overexpose the subjects in the absence of ideal lighting, which some other phones end up doing in this segment.
- To get a better understanding of the phone’s camera performance, I compared it with the Moto G64. In the comparison, as you can see below, the handset managed to click the image with more details in comparison with the Moto handset.Realme Narzo 70Moto G64
- While the handset packs a 16MP selfie camera, I didn’t like the low-light/indoor pictures shot with its front camera. Be it details or edge detection (in portrait mode), the phone’s selfie camera performance was underwhelming. I also faced issues with focus when clicking images with the front camera on the Narzo 70 5G. Having said this, in good lighting conditions, the selfie camera can take some good shots.
Performance and Software
- The Narzo 70 5G has been pitched by the company to be the best performer in its segment. While this claim would have been firmer if the handset was still available under Rs 15,000 (which it was at the launch with a Rs 1,000 discount coupon), currently we are talking about a phone priced at Rs 15,999.
- The phone ships with a 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset, which is an octa-core processor with two Cortex A78 cores clocked at 2.6 GHz and six Cortex A55 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz. The graphics are handled by Mali-G68 GPU.
- Realme Narzo 70 is available with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of built-in storage (expandable up to 1TB via an SD card). There is an additional 8GB of Dynamic RAM, which makes 16GB of memory available through software for demanding tasks.
- I didn’t face any stutter or lag issues while playing even demanding games on the handset and app load times were pretty good too. With the 120Hz refresh rate and no frame drops, playing on this phone was a fun experience.
- The phone offers you an option to extend memory by turning storage into RAM by up to 8GB.
- In the AnTuTu benchmark, the handset managed to score 584952, which is pretty good for the price.
- While running the Geekbench benchmark, the handset got a single-core score of 955 and a multi-core score of 2394. The performance scores for the phone are pretty much in line with the Realme P1, which has probably been the best-performing handset at this price point so far.
- In the Burnout test, the Narzo 70 throttled to 76.1 percent of its peak performance, which means it handle load reasonably well.
- The handset runs Android 14-based Realme UI 5.0 out of the box and comes with 53 pre-installed apps out of the box, which is on the higher side.
- Some of the more useful features offered by the phone include Split View (displays two apps on screen at once for easier multitasking) and Flexible Window which enables you to turn apps into floating windows. There is also a Quick Launch feature that lets you easily launch your favourite apps with ease. You need to touch and hold the fingerprint sensor while unlocking till the icons appear, and then without lifting the finger, slide it to an icon and then release it to launch that app.
- One feature worth highlighting is Smart Sensing, which lets you scan a code by simply tapping twice the sensor on the back of the phone while on the home screen.
Battery and charging speeds
- The Narzo 70 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery and supports up to 45W SuperVOOC fast charging.
- The handset took around 52 minutes to charge from 20 to 100 percent in our charging test.
- In the PCMark battery test, the phone managed to last 14 hours and 49 minutes. In this price range, this is a decent score.
- In my regular use, the handset easily provided around 7 hours of screen-on time and charging was a fairly convenient task too, given it ships with a 45W charger in the retail box itself.
Final verdict
In summary, the Narzo 70 is a capable smartphone that offers reliably solid performance across the board. The handset offers an impressive display with up to a whopping 2,000 nits of peak brightness and comes with 45W fast-charging support, which makes it extremely convenient to use on a daily basis. While the phone’s rear camera is capable of clicking detailed shots (both in ideal and low-light conditions), the phone is not able to capture accurate skin tones. The selfie camera also struggles in low-light conditions. At its current price, the phone is a decent buy but if you can go slightly higher with your budget, you can get even better performers in the form of iQOO Z9 (review) and Vivo T3 (review).
Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10
Reasons to buy
- The phone offers reliably solid performance.
- The handset offers an immersive display panel with high contrast ratio.
- 45W fast-charging support comes in handy.
Reasons not to buy
- The selfie camera struggles in low-light conditions.
- The phone’s primary camera doesn’t capture skin tones well.
