Realme Narzo 30 5G Review – You Are Just Paying For 5G

Smartphone makers in India have been releasing 5G-powered smartphones in India left and right. It all started with flagship phones and now, there are a few smartphones in the budget segment that bring 5G in your palm. After releasing Realme X7 5G, Realme 8 5G, Realme Narzo 30 Pro 5G, the Chinese smartphone maker Realme has moved towards Realme Narzo 30 5G that brings 5G along with an IPS LCD panel, a beefy 5,000 mAh battery, and more on-board. It shares many of its specifications from a rival Poco M3 Pro 5G.

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Well, specifications may look spicy on paper, however, it is perhaps imperative to actually try out the phone. However, you cannot simply try all the phones you are interested in because not all phones are available on display. That is why we have hands-on reviews and this one is for the Realme Narzo 30 5G so read along.

The price tag fetched by Realme Narzo 30 5G is Rs 15,999/- for its sole 6GB+128GB variant. You can choose between Racing Blue and Racing Silver colour variants. Apparently, this is the same price tag fetched by Realme Narzo 30 Pro 5G which has a faster processor. Anyhow, the Realme Narzo 30 5G is available on Realme India online store and Flipkart India where the latter is offering up to Rs 15,000/- off on eligible devices under its exchange program. There are other offers on both of these platforms so do check it out.

Before we talk in detail about the Realme Narzo 30 5G let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 16.51 cm (6.5 inch) Full HD+ 90Hz Display
• Processor: MediaTek Dimensity 700
• Storage: 6GB/128GB
• Software: realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11
• Rear cameras: 48MP + 2MP + 2MP
• Front camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh, 18W Type-C Quick Charge
• Weight: 185g
• Dimensions: 162.50 x 74.80 x 8.50 mm

Realme Narzo 30 5G is a refashioned Realme 8 5G. Design-wise, I loved the design, to be honest. At the back, you get a decent shimmery-looking racing strip that is off-centred and passes through the rectangular camera bump on the left side of the back panel. The panel is made up of polycarbonate plastic which is sturdy and lightweight and seems a bit premium, unlike usual panels.

The racing strip I mentioned above is out-of-the-box as it shows downward directing arrows similar to how you have arrows carved on race tracks showing the way ahead. It shimmers and reflects light in different directions making all these arrows produce a sort of optical illusion of moving as you start to shake the phone a bit. The camera bump on top of the stripe has glass protection and there’s nothing else on the back panel except Narzo branding on the strip. However, the back panel is a certified (metaphorically) fingerprint magnet.

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The frame is plastic as well although it is matte and curved on both left and right sides that enhances grip on this giant smartphone. The bottom and topsides are flat that house a few I/O ports and more. There’s no ingress rating here which is usual at this price tag.

I am talking about a loudspeaker, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a mic, and a USB-C port at the bottom while the top has a secondary mic. There’s a power button cum fingerprint scanner on the right and finally, a SIM card tray and volume rockers on the left side of the frame. Every button is tactile and feels good.

On the front, there’s a giant display (of course) plus thin bezels around the top, right, and left sides while the bottom chin is a bit thick but understandable.

Realme Narzo 30 5G enjoys a giant 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. The display has a 1080×2400 pixels resolution producing 405 PPI along with a 20:9 aspect ratio. According to Realme, the display produces 480 nits of typical and 600 nits of peak brightness.

Realme Narzo 30 5G uses a giant display with a 90Hz refresh rate and that’s good. It has a punch-hole on the top-right corner that won’t eat up the screen real estate; however, it is huge as well. The bezels around the bezels are sufficiently thick but I guess it is as per the price segment. Finally, the chin is massive and that’s something you will have to deal with on a budget phone.

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You can use the auto-refresh rate option to dynamically update the refresh rate based on the content being displayed. Social media, the UI, and a few other compatible apps are available at 90Hz while videos, games, and a bunch of other apps are locked at 60Hz. Since you have set the RR to auto, you won’t have to toggle it every time you want a standard or high refresh rate.

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The display is quite bright and easily viewable during daytime in broad sunlight. However, it isn’t extremely bright so you will still end up struggling to view the display based on the lighting conditions outside. About the colours, the display shows wholesome and punchy colours thanks to DCI-P3 colour space. There’s Widevine L1 support with Realme Narzo 30 5G that allows users to stream content in 1080p which includes OTT platforms like Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Realme Narzo 30 5G packs in a Dimensity 700 5G octa-core chipset clocked at 2.2GHz of max frequency. The chipset is made on a 7nm node and comes with a Mali-G57 MC2 graphics unit or GPU. There are two storage configurations available i.e. 4GB/128GB and 6GB/128GB.

Apparently, the Dimensity 700 5G SoC is currently being used by too many smartphones in the budget segment. Poco M3 Pro 5G, Redmi Note 10 5G, Realme 8 5G, are all using it and now, it is Realme Narzo 30 5G. When tested on GeekBench, the device scored 569 and 1784 points on single-core and multi-core tests respectively. Although the scores do fluctuate a bit, these scores fall almost in the lap of Realme X7 5G which has a Dimensity 800U SoC.

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Day-to-day tasks on Realme Narzo 30 5G is pretty straightforward as the chipset can handle it all. Be it browsing on the internet, calling, or toggling between multiple apps, you can do it. The device has a Dynamic RAM expansion feature that uses 5GB of internal storage to create RAM out of it when needed so you are talking about 11GB of RAM which is insane.

Talking about playing games, I played BGMI in India which is technically PUBG Mobile on Balanced graphics and Ultra frame rate and it ran without a hitch. You can yank up the graphics to Medium although you would notice some frame drops here and there so you will have to cope up with it.

About the optics, Realme Narzo 30 5G has a similar rear camera setup as that of Poco M3 Pro 5G. It packs in a 48MP primary plus 2MP depth and 2MP macro camera. There’s a 16MP selfie snapper at the front.

If you think you have seen these camera specifications somewhere, this is because Narzo 30 5G is a refashioned Realme 8 5G and thus, it has the same camera tech comprising of a primary camera at the back with two decorative sensors and a fourth cam at the front which is larger than the same priced Poco M3 Pro 5G.

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Talking about the primary rear camera, it snaps using 4-in-1 pixel binning technology that creates 12MP shots. The sensor was able to grab photos noise-free with ample details and sharpness at daytime including a decent dynamic range. The phone’s camera doesn’t compare to Narzo 30 although both the 4G and 5G variants share the same camera setup.

You can snag photos using 2x and 5x digital zoom where the former preserves most details. However, as you move ahead, shots turn into oil paintings so that’s the kind of giveaway you get with Narzo 30 5G.

You have two 2MP sensors for macro and depth. The macro sensor lets you take decent usable macro shots with a decent amount of details in each shot. However, the colours did skew a bit when compared to the subject in real life. Also, the cam has a fixed focus thus making it difficult to get perfect shots if you have shaky hands.

The depth sensor is without any doubt an accessory to the primary camera as it facilitates portrait shots which is well-balanced and subject separation is good.

Luckily, the phone has a twice larger sensor at the front than Poco M3 Pro 5G (and same as Realme 8 5G) which captures quality shots. Even portrait shots using the front camera showed ample details, subject separation is average and the shots were well-exposed.

Talking about nighttime photography, well that’s where the cameras suffer the most. Night Mode does add a bit of usability but depending upon the lighting conditions, the shots can be slightly useful to not usable at all. I don’t mean the low-light photography is bad but it is limited in many ways.

Realme Narzo 30 5G is equipped with a beefy 5,000 mAh battery which is above average. Since 5G is still a distant dream, the phone should last for more than a day. I was able to keep the battery afloat for a day and a half but it solely depends on use cases. For example, an HD video loop test on Narzo 30 5G ran for over 18 hours and 36 minutes before the battery completely drained. This is far better than the Poco M3 Pro 5G which has the same battery size and the same charging speed to go with it.

Yep, Narzo 30 5G has an 18W charging tech that takes about 2 hours to completely charge from flat to full. This is the usual time that an 18W battery would take to juice up a 5,000 mAh battery. It is slow but at the end of the day, you are paying for a budget phone which has 5G support so there are several cutbacks here and there.

Realme Narzo 30 5G packs in a single bottom-firing loudspeaker. Yep, it’s a single speaker setup and it is loud. Although it doesn’t get all the notes on-point, it does get your job done with a single loudspeaker which is undoubtedly what the majority of smartphones offer. It scores “Good” in our loudness test just like its sibling Realme 8 5G.

Realme Narzo 30 5G supports a myriad of connectivity features including a 3.5mm headphone jack, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac support, Bluetooth v5.1 with A2DP and LE, GPS, USB-C 2.0 port, and more. There’s no NFC here.

You can use two 4G SIM cards on Realme Narzo 30 5G. I have been using Jio 4G for a while and the connectivity is on-point with little to no call drops and issues when connected on a call. 5G is still a long way ahead so let’s not add a timeline here.

Well, as usual, you have access to PIN and Pattern unlocking mechanisms as safeguards. You can use the 2D Face Unlock that uses software-based facial recognition for authentication. Or you can go for a side-mounted fingerprint scanner which, according to me, is more handy and convenient than a rear or under-the-display solution. Also, it is far more secure than Face Unlock and makes the job much easier as you would need to tap the power button to use Face Unlock which becomes much of a hassle. But hey, you are free to use any of the solutions mentioned above.

Pros 

• 90Hz refresh rate screen
• MediaTek Dimensity 700 chipset
• Superfast 5G connectivity
• 5000 mAh battery
• 18W fast charging
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor

Cons

• No IP rating
• The wide-angle camera is missing
• IPS LCD display