Realme 2 First Impressions: An Upgrade or a Downgrade?

The first Realme smartphone was a surprise success in the Indian market, thanks to its value for money features and unique design but it did have a number of flaws. The Realme 1 did not have a fingerprint scanner, the cameras were average and the design too had a few issues. Well, Realme (branched out of Oppo) has just launched the Realme 2 in India at a starting price of Rs. 8990 and it seems like a phone that brings a number of improvements over the Realme 1, while also packing a few downgrades. We have the Realme 2 here with us, so here are our Realme 2 first impressions:

Realme 2 Specs:

Design and Build Quality

The biggest change that the Realme 2 brings over Realme 1 is the notch. Yes, the notch is something Realme has been teasing all along, and it’s real. I know not a lot of people like the notch, but this means the Realme 2 has a slightly bigger 6.2-inch IPS LCD display. While the display is bigger, the resolution is lower but I’ll get back to the display later on.

On the back, the Realme 2 features the same diamond pattern design that was the defining thing about the Realme 1. It is striking and unique and I like it.

Plus, as you can see, there are some changes here. The Oppo branding is now gone and there’s a fingerprint scanner. Thank god for that. My biggest issue with the Realme 1 was the lack of a fingerprint scanner, so I am glad the Realme 2 fixes that. The fingerprint scanner looks a little weird but it seems pretty fast, so that’s cool. There’s also the dual camera setup here, which I will get to later on.

Other than that, the Realme 2 has the same design as the Realme 1. The edges of the display still feel a little sharp, there’s the usual buttons here, the dual SIM slot, which by the way is not hybrid, just like the Realme 1 so that’s great because you can two SIM cards along with a microSD card. There’s also the microUSB port and the 3.5mm jack. Also, if you are wondering if there’s dual VoLTE support, well, we checked and yes, it does have dual 4G VoLTE support.

It’s clear that the Realme 2 brings some design improvements. The display is larger, the fingerprint scanner is here and the diamond pattern design still looks great.

Display

As I mentioned, the Realme 2 brings a bigger 6.2-inch display but the resolution here is HD+ (1520×720 pixels) and that is a downgrade from the FullHD+ display on the Realme 1. From the looks of it, the Realme 2 seems to have a decent display but ya, I am not sold on the lower resolution. There’a also no Gorilla Glass or any other tough glass here, which was the case with the Realme 1 as well. Anyway, the display is not the only thing that’s downgraded here.

Performance

The Realme 1 packed in the MediaTek Helio P60 chipset, which performed even better than the Snapdragon 636 when it comes to benchmarks but the new Realme 2 comes with the lower end Snapdragon 450 processor. As you can clearly see from the benchmark scores below, it’s a big downgrade from the Realme 1.

Now, I am not sure why Realme decided to downgrade the processor but it’s definitely a disappointing move. Having said that, the Snapdragon 450 is a decent processor, so we will have to wait and see how this phone performs. So far, it has been decent with the apps launching quickly, games working fine but ya, I have noticed some lag at times, and that I think is due to Color OS on board here.

Software

The Realme 2 comes with same Color OS 5.1 with Android 8.1 Oreo and if you have used it, you’d know that it’s feature packed. Personally, I don’t like it much due to sluggish animations, weird icons and weirder color scheme but yes, it comes with all the features you can think of.

There’s Face Unlock, which seems decently fast and accurate. There are also navigation gestures, you can swipe up from the center to go home, swipe from left bottom to open the recents screen and swipe up from right bottom to go back. It’s fine but there’s no way to switch between apps, so that’s a bummer. There are a ton of other features, like app locker, private space, Game Space and a lot more.

Cameras

Moving on to the cameras, the Realme 2 brings a 13+2MP dual camera setup, which is an upgrade because the Realme 1 had a single camera sensor. On the front, there’s an 8MP f/2.0 selfie camera and so far, I like it. You can check out some camera samples from the Realme 2 in the video below at 4:10.

We will be testing out the Realme 2 cameras more in the coming days to get a better idea and we will give our final verdict in our full review, so stay tuned.

Battery

The cameras on the Realme 2 seem like a decent upgrade but the best thing about the Realme 2 here is the battery. The phone comes with a huge 4,230 mAh battery. I mean, the Realme 1 with a 3410 mAh battery offered decent battery performance, so things should be great with the Realme 2. To be honest, the battery performance should be pretty great on this phone. Apart from that, if you are wondering if it supports fast charging. Well, it does not.

Realme 2: An Upgrade or a Downgrade from the Realme 1?

Well, the Realme 2 at a starting price of Rs. 8990, which is the same as the Realme 1, the phone does seem like a downgrade. Sure, the Realme 2 brings improvements like the bigger display, larger battery and a fingerprint scanner but the phone also brings a number of downgrades like the lower-end processor and a lower resolution display. If the phone had been priced right, this could have been a decent phone but at this price, the Realme 2 does seem more like a downgrade rather than an upgrade. Having said that, this is definitely not our final verdict, so stay tuned for our full review of the Realme 2.