Realme released its 11 Pro series of smartphones just a few days back, and is now already back with its Narzo series – Narzo 60. Priced at Rs. 23,999, Rs. 24,999 and Rs. 27,999 (the one I tried), it comes in direct competition to realme’s own 11 Pro+, Poco F5 and Moto Edge 40.
Let’s try and see if there’s really anything new here worth your consideration.
Design: Realme Narzo 60 Pro follows a very familiar design we have seen from Realme. With a flashy orange vegan leather back and copper-ish looking sides, the phone doesn't look and feel cheap at all. It doesn't have any creaking sounds or bends anywhere. The same copper look follows at the back's circular camera module. The front has a 6.43-inch curved display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on top and symmetrical slim bezels around. On the right, you get the volume buttons and the power/lock key near the middle, while the left side is all plain. The bottom carries the dual SIM card tray, USB Type-C, primary mic, and one outlet for loudspeakers. The phone weighs under 185 grams and measures about 8mm in thickness, meaning it doesn't feel too bulky to carry around considering the display and the 5,000mAh battery inside. The vegan leather back has so far held up well, but I can't say how well it will be three months from now when it comes to dust and smudges from hands and otherwise.
Display: There's a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED FHD+ (1080x2412) display in place here that supports refresh rates of up to 120Hz and a peak brightness of about 1000 nits. I found it usable under direct sunlight and responsive to touch. The display is vibrant and provides good black levels for content. For HDR10 content (which doesn't play on Netflix), I found its contrast and color calibration to be okay but not entirely satisfying in terms of shadows. However, it still holds fine considering the price tag. For viewing high-resolution images and full HD videos, the phone doesn't disappoint and delivers the color-rich output that you might expect from Realme by now.
Camera: You get a 100MP (f/1.75) main camera with OIS and a 2MP (f/2.4) portrait camera. The main camera can capture shots where you can zoom in at 2x and still have some details and colors intact. The shots, in general, came out well-stitched with decent dynamic range. However, portrait shots leave a lot to be desired and struggle even in good lighting and with a still subject like your tea/coffee mug. You can shoot 1080p videos at 120FPS and 4K at 30FPS. The camera is snappy to use, and there's not a huge shutter lag while using different modes and filters. The 16MP (f/2.45) camera takes slightly skin-smoothened shots, but you can switch off filters and beauty modes completely to get shots closer to the actual scene.
Performance and software experience: The Narzo 60 Pro is equipped with the MediaTek 7050 chipset (octa-core processor clocked at up to 2.6GHz, Mali G-68 GPU) along with 12GB of RAM and 1TB of storage (also available in 8GB + 256GB or 128GB options). It runs on Realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13 with the June security patch. Due to recent reports, Realme has switched off Enhanced services by default (used to be one of the first things I turned off when setting up a Realme device), but there are still similar sets of third-party apps pre-installed here, pushing notifications left, right, and center. You have to spend a little time switching these off, as well as personalized search in the app drawer. The phone handles day-to-day tasks without breaking a sweat. Though there can be a few frame drops every now and then when scrolling between images in apps such as Twitter and Realme's own Photos app, it did get better with the last OS update. Realme Narzo 60 Pro doesn't heat up too much, and in terms of handling a game such as CoD: Mobile, the phone handled it on the highest settings and showed high frame gameplay consistently. The OS has improved RAM management compared to previous versions, and it also handles the opening of apps and switching between tasks with no compromises. One bug I found was that when unlocking the device after pressing the power/lock key only once, it would start the Google Assistant even though the press wasn't long, but this happened maybe once a day or so.
Battery life: You get a 5,000mAh battery unit in the phone and a 67-watt SuperVooc charger in the box. I found the phone to last about a day even with two SIM cards inserted. With a couple of hours of hotspot switching between 5G and 4G, the phone doesn't heat up too much. With two email accounts, brightness at about 40%, an hour of video playback, and a lot of scrolling inside Twitter, Instagram, and Telegram, the phone doesn't give up before a day. It charges from 1% to full in about 50 minutes using the same charger.
Other stuff: The phone's 5G and 4G connectivity is top-notch. I especially noticed that switching from one 4G SIM card to another 5G-enabled SIM card wasn't a hassle, and it latched on to the respective network without a huge delay. The loudspeakers on the device are loud, though not as clear as the ones on the 11 Pro+. However, they still get the job done for watching videos or playing games when alone. WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth performance here are nothing to complain about, providing the transfer speeds and stable connectivity that you would expect. On the other hand, the in-screen fingerprint scanner is okay for frequent use.
Verdict: All in all, the Narzo 60 Pro seems like another value-for-money device from Realme that offers a lot of performance, a great display, a decent camera experience, and reliable battery life that doesn't disappoint despite putting it to the test. I would tell the Realme team to keep tweaking and refining the RealUI, but then again, that isn't new. So, if you're looking for an Android device under Rs. 30,000 and prioritize battery life and display, the Narzo 60 Pro is a contender worth checking out.
