realme launched the narzo 60 Pro, the company’s top-end smartphone in the narzo series, in India earlier this month. The phone has an improved screen, faster SoC, better camera, and faster charging compared to the narzo 50 Pro.
This is also the first phone in the price range to come with a whopping 1TB of storage. Is this a worthy successor to the narzo 50 Pro? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- realme narzo 60 Pro 12GB + 1TB version in Cosmic Black color
- 2-pin 80W SuperVOOC fast charger (USB Type-A port)
- USB Type C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- User Guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The narzo 60 Pro sports a 6.7-inch (1080 x 2412 pixels) Full HD+ curved AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate and 394 PPI, same as the realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+. This is a major upgrade compared to the 6.43-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen with 90Hz refresh rate in the narzo 50 Pro.
The phone has a 2160Hz high-frequency dimming technology. In dark environments (brightness below 90 nits) where DC dimming can’t work, the phone will automatically switch to 2160Hz PWM dimming mode to maintain accurate colors on display with a more comfortable eye experience, said the company.
The phone has ultra narrow bezels. Thanks to COP Ultra packaging technology, the phone has 2.33 mm ultra-narrow chin. The side bezels are as thin as 1.41 mm. It has X-axis linear vibration motor.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole on the left that houses a 16-megapixel camera, same as the narzo 50 Pro. Above the display, there is an earpiece on the top edge that doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is on the top. The phone doesn’t have an expandable storage. Audio from the stereo speakers is good.
Coming to the design, the Cosmic Black has a plastic finish and is reminiscent of the vast expanse of space. The phone also comes in Mars Orange colour variant has a vegan leather finish and is inspired by the vast orange Martian desert.
Camera
- 100MP main camera with Omnivision sensor, f/1.75 aperture, OIS
- 2MP macro camera with f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.45 aperture
It has Pro mode, Panorma, Flim, Slo-mo, Time-Lapse, Dual-View video, text scanner, starry mode and tilt-shift. There is Dynamic bokeh and Bokeh Flare portrait option for photos. You only get Bokeh Flare portrait option for video. The rear camera offers 12MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 16MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, thanks to the 100MP sensor, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. There is AI mode which recognizes different photo scenes and automatically adjusts camera settings to make boost the colours. 2X is good, and the portrait mode is decent since it has a dedicated 2MP sensor for it.
Low light shots are better than the narzo 50 Pro, but there is still noise. The night mode is useful, but it takes a few seconds to process. There is also a pro mode in night mode for manual tuning. The front camera also does a good job in daylight. It lacks an ultra-wide camera, which was present in the narzo 50 Pro.
Check out the camera samples
It can record videos in up to 4K 30 fps, slow motion 1080p at 480fps, 720p at up to 940 fps, which should converted, and the front camera can record 1080p 30fps videos. Portrait video mode is limited to 720p, but the Bokeh Flare portrait offers 1080p output. There is also AI mode and ultra-wide video shooting, but these are limited to 1080p 30fps.
There is OIS and EIS which does a good job. It has an ultra-steady mode which is limited to 1080p 60fps. This doesn’t have the ultra-steady max that was present in the Pro+ since it lacks an ultra-wide camera.
Software, UI, Apps and Connectivity
It runs Android 13 based realme UI 4.0 out of the box. It has Android security patch for June 2023. The phone should get 2 Android updates and 3 years of security updates.
Out of 12GB LPDD4X RAM, you get 11.29GB of usable RAM, and about 7GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has DRE or dynamic RAM expansion feature, which uses the built-in storage as RAM. This has up to 12GB of additional RAM expansion. Out of 1TB, you get about 939GB of free storage.
The phone uses UFS 3.1 storage, an upgrade from UFS 2.2 in the narzo 50 Pro, and we got sequential read speeds of, 1927.82 MB/s, better than realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+ which has 256GB UFS 3.1 storage.
The phone has Widevine L1, so that you can play HD content on Netflix and other streaming apps. It supports HDR content on YouTube, but this doesn’t work on Netflix.
The narzo 60 Pro has support for n1/n3/n5/n8/n28A/n40/n41/n77/n78 Network Bands in India, same as the realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+, and comes with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4GHz + 5GHz), VoWiFi / Wi-Fi calling support, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS / GLONASS / Beidou. It has OTG support, doesn’t have NFC support. Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud.
The realme narzo 60 Pro’s body SAR is 0.532W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.146/Kg, which is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India. This is also the same as the realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is powered MediaTek Dimensity 7050 6nm SoC, which is just a rebranded Dimensity 1080 used in several phones. This is a minor upgrade to the Dimensity 920 used in the narzo 50 Pro. It has 2 x A78 CPUs clocked at up to 2.6GHz, 6x A55 CPUs clocked at up to 2GHz. It has Mali-G68 MC4 and up to 12GB LPDDR4X RAM.
The company didn’t mention if it has any cooling. The performance is smooth without any lags, and it also offers smooth gaming performance even in graphic intensive games. When you play graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, it gets a bit hot, but it doesn’t get too hot to handle. It reached maximum 44º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, which is similar to the realme 11 Pro and 11 Pro+, but this might vary outdoors in 4G or 5G.
That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
It tops the charts in AnTuTu, and in Geekbench the scores are similar to the realme 11 Pro series phones.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, same as the narzo 50 Pro. It lasts for a whole day with Wi-Fi, but with 4G or 5G and dual SIMs. I got close to 6 hours of screen on time with over a day of use on Wi-Fi and in 120Hz.
Compared to 33W SuperVOOC Charge in narzo 50 Pro, the narzo 60 Pro gets a 67W SuperVOOC Charge. It can charge up to 50% in about 18 minutes and up to 100% in 47 minutes with the bundled 80W charger. This doesn’t show the battery health option.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 23,999 for the 8GB + 128GB, this is the same as the realme 11 Pro just under the narzo name. The 1TB storage is a unique proposition that you don’t see in a mid-range phone, so if you really need a large storage under Rs. 30,000 price range, this is the only option you have right now.
As mentioned in the realme 11 Pro series review, we hope the company takes care of the bloatware problem, and use a better cooling system for smooth gaming experience.
Pricing and availability
The realme narzo 60 Pro 5G is priced at Rs. 23,999 for the 8GB + 128GB, Rs. 26,999 for the 12GB + 256GB and the 12GB + 1TB model is priced at Rs. 29,999. It is available from Amazon.in and realme.com.
Pros
- 120Hz Curved AMOLED display is brilliant
- Smooth performance
- 1TB of storage
- Attractive design
- Good battery life with fast charging
Cons
- Bloatware
- Heats up quickly on intensive gaming
- No ultra-wide camera