Review Summary
Expert Rating
Realme’s Narzo-series now has a new top-end smartphone, dubbed as the Narzo 70 Pro. It’s a mid-range offering with a MediaTek chipset ticking at its core, a crisp OLED display, and a typical 5,000mAh battery, among other things. The handset also comes with a unique Air Gesture feature, allowing you to control the device without touching the screen. But are these reasons compelling enough to purchase the smartphone, or is there more than meets the eye? Read this Realme Narzo 70 Pro review to find out.
Table of Contents
Verdict
If you are looking for a good mid-range smartphone with decent performance, battery life, and viewing experience, the Realme Narzo 70 Pro might be a good buy. The inclusion of the Air Gesture feature appears promising, although it may require some refinement before it becomes truly useful.
Design and display
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro features a new Horizon Glass design, which is slightly different from the company’s recently launched numeric series. The rear panel of the phone sports a dual-tone finish with an arc separating the glossy and the matte finish surfaces. The glossy finish is at the top, where it is less likely to pick up fingerprints and smudges, and it houses a circular camera module that juts out of the frame. I received the review unit in the Glass Green colour variant, which looks quite subtle, giving it a premium look and feel.
The edges of the smartphone are shiny and flat, which tend to get a bit slippery. That said, the handset has been crafted from plastic, making it lightweight and comfortable for extended use. The phone boasts a 3.5mm headphone jack, nestled in the top edge, and a USB Type-C port on the bottom edge. Additionally, it comes with a single bottom-firing speaker, which offers a decent sound output with 50-60 percent volume levels.
As for the viewing experience, the Realme Narzo 70 Pro sports a standard 6.67-inch OLED display with FHD+ resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and 2,000 nits peak brightness. The display quality is fine for its price range, delivering vibrant and bright colours for easy visibility indoors and outdoors. Streaming content from Netflix and other OTT platforms also remains enjoyable, courtesy of the Narzo 70 Pro’s FHD Widevine L1 certification.
Cameras
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro camera setup includes a 50MP Sony IMX890 OIS primary sensor, assisted by an 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP macro unit. For selfies and video calling, the handset relies on a 16MP shooter in the punch-hole setup. Though a bit oversaturated, the picture quality appears acceptable for the price, at least in daylight. The dynamic range is slightly underwhelming, but the images still exhibit appealing with lively colours and respectable details.
The phone also gets skin tones pretty accurately, while the facial details appear good too. In low light, the handset tends to struggle with details. Additionally, the images look a bit grainy even with night mode.
Performance and software
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro’s performance is handled by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 SoC, coupled with vapour chamber cooling tech, 8GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of onboard storage. This chipset ensures smooth performance for everyday use, similar to what we saw on the Realme 12+ (review). Regarding benchmark scores, the handset scored a respectable 611,860 on AnTuTu, while achieving 945 on the single-core test and 2,356 on the multi-core test on Geekbench. Additionally, the smartphone performs admirably on the CPU Throttle test, throttling to just 92 percent of its peak performance while running 50 threads for 30 minutes.
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro also performs well for casual gaming. We tested the smartphone with graphically demanding games such as Call of Duty, BGMI, and Real Racing. After playing each game for half an hour, we observed a steady increase in the phone’s thermal levels, while the battery level decreased by an average of 7-8 percent.
Software-wise, the Realme Narzo 70 Pro runs on Android 14-based Realme UI 5.0 out of the box. The handset comes with some useful third-party apps installed, including Snapchat and Facebook, which can be removed if desired. These are in addition to Google and the proprietary apps, including App Market, Community, and Game Centre. This might make the UI a bit cluttered to those accustomed to a cleaner software experience.
Air Gesture
The key highlight of the Narzo 70 Pro’s software is the Air Gesture feature, which, as the name suggests, allows you to control the device using hand gestures. The feature is disabled by default, but can be turned on from the settings menu. It comes with 10 different gesture types. From launching apps to navigation, typing, and phone locking, the Air Gesture tracking that utilises the front camera to detect your hand movement can handle it all. However, it is a bit iffy at the moment and needs improvement for a more seamless experience.
Battery and charging
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro houses a 5,000mAh battery, which scored a commendable 16 hours and 24 minutes on the PC Mark battery test. In our 30-minute YouTube 4K video playback test with 50 percent volume and brightness levels, the handset consumed just 4 percent battery life. This suggests that the smartphone should comfortably last over a day with regular usage between charges. Speaking of which, the Narzo 60 Pro can be fully charged from 0 to 100 percent within 45 minutes using the 67W power adaptor provided in the box.
Final verdict
The Realme Narzo 70 Pro is priced in India at Rs 19,999, which makes it more affordable than the similarly-specced Realme 12+. The direct competitor of the Narzo smartphone is iQOO Z9, which is also an Amazon exclusive. As observed in the performance comparison, the iQOO smartphone is marginally better than the Narzo 70 Pro. However, it comes with relatively slower charging speeds.
This makes the Realme Narzo 70 Pro offer a compelling package for mid-range smartphone buyers. Its blend of performance, battery life, and display quality makes it a worthy consideration.
Editor’s rating: 8 / 10
Reasons to buy
- The MediaTek chipset ensures smooth everyday usage and casual gaming.
- The handset offers long-lasting usage with fast charging support.
- The display provides an enjoyable viewing experience.
- 50MP primary sensor delivers acceptable image quality, especially in daylight.
Reasons not to buy
- Shiny and flat edges make the phone prone to slipping.
- The Air Gesture feature requires refinement for smoother and more accurate operation.
 | Rs. 19,999.00 | Go To Store |
