This is a very important phone, the last RealMe 1 tried seriously to shake-up the budget phone market and declaring war on brands like Xiaomi with their Redmi line-up. Two months later at a price tag of just under 10,000/- its time for round two or the RealMe 2. NOTE:- This is not an upgrade or successor to the RealMe 1.
Design & Build
The call it the diamond cutting design with a prominent light source. It does look a little bit like just plain black but when there is a light it scatters in a really clever way to give the illusion of depth and diamond like cuts and edges. The glass back is scratch resistant and no flexing whatsoever which is a luxury in this price range, but don’t expect wireless charging or IP rating. It is a light phone even after housing a colossal 4230mAh battery, for such a low power requirement hardware.
At the bottom you’ll get 3.5mm headphone jack, yeah thankfully and microsUSB slot. The one USP or the only unique thing about this phone is the 6.2’inch display, which is tall and makes the phone look pricey and tall. The display quality is not so good, brightness is nice, but viewing angle could’ve been better, but for the price of 8,990/- this can be neglected. The notched display is used in a good way with a software tweak, the display can be used to the full and even screen recording is possible with it.
Camera
Its got a 13-mp (f/2.2) and 2-MP (f/2.4) depth sensor on the rear and on the back it has got an 8-MP (f/2.2) selfie camera which also supports HDR. In terms of taking portrait mode shots the camera does a good job, edge detection is nice too. General photos under day-light and good lighting, look nice with punchier color and good sharpness but under low-light this camera struggles a lot.
The Beauty mode is impressive and frightening too, the software smoothens the skin texture too much, it can be controlled by a toggle, males can avoid this one. The selfies comes out nice too, the skin looks smooth without seeming artificial and pretty detailed but sometimes overexposed.
OS and Power
The phone is powered by Android Oreo 8.1 and COLOR OS 5.1, while not many like the UI but it feels developed and fully fledged. You get tweaks like app cloning, private safe and even dedicated kid mode built in the default launcher. Powering this device is the Snapdragon 450 with 3GB with 32GB storage or 4GB of RAM with 64GB of storage with dedicated microSD card slot. The phone lags a bit when multiple apps are working, some heavy games or even downloading in the background is going on, this can be blamed on the UI too.
Most of the games are playable but on lower frame rates plus this phone is not built for gamers too. ‘Raise to wake’ feature uses the motion detection to know when lifted up the phone and turns the screen on, its not much accurate all the time. There is a fingerprint scanner at the back which is surely an upgrade from the RealMe 1, and its fast and secure too.
Conclusion
RealMe 2 stands out in its budget bracket of under 9,000/- with notched display, beautiful design, fingerprint scanner and the huge battery. Watch out for the upcoming Redmi 6 series which is priced around same price.
