When Oppo first announced the launch of its sub-brand Realme along with the Realme 1, it was clear that it wanted to take on Xiaomi on the budget phone market. Realme 1 did get noticed although it didn’t exactly create a stir.

This time with the release of the Realme 2, the company once again wanted to compete again Xiaomi, who is currently the segment’ dominator. So is it going to be a good buy?

Oppo Realme 2 was introduced when the Indian market has already flooded with smartphones with a similar price tag. The phone comes in two versions, the 3GB RAM at Rs. 8,990 and the 4G RAM at Rs. 10,990, with three different colors: Diamond Black, Diamond Blue, and Diamond Red. Realme 2 launch date in India was set on September 4, 2018.

Display

Realme 2 keeps most of its predecessor’s design cues. The diamond-cut back cover which is made from glass now comes in other colors. At the back, there is a fingerprint sensor. The dimensions of the Realme 2 and Realme 1 are almost identical.

Realme 2 is just a bit thicker since it has a larger battery. There’s a silver accent around the camera unit as well as the fingerprint sensor, making it looks more premium compared to other devices in the same price range.

Realme 2 features a 6.2-inch HD+ display which has a screen-to-body ratio of 88.8%. The phone offers a 1520 x 720 resolution, a 19:0 aspect ratio, and supports up to 16.7 mil screen colors. The brightness is adjusted through the Auto-Brightness feature for both indoors and outdoors.

Despite this, the screen still has great viewing angles and color depth. So the lower resolution isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker.

The Night Shield setting helps reduce the blue light which is emitted by the screen. The display remains looking almost the same in different viewing angles. The colors of the display are sharp and vivid but not too strong. Overall, the display of the Realme 2 is something in between, it is not remarkable but isn’t disappointing either.

Chip

 The Realme 2 phone is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 450. It can handle basic day-to-day tasks like streaming YouTube videos, taking photos, light web browsing, and scrolling through social media platforms. With intense workloads, the smartphone does struggle slightly with keyboard lags and occasional slowdowns. You can still play games like Asphalt 9. However, there will be occasional dropped frames. On the other hand, under duress, the phone does not geat up.

Benchmark scores are fairly average. In AnTuTu, the phone scores 76,929. For Geekbench’s multi-core and single-core tests, Realme 2 manages to score 3,882 and 793 respectively.

The phone offers a Realme Game Space setting for lag-free gaming with the assist from features including No Disturbance, Gaming Acceleration, and Network Protection. The phone can handle high-end games with no lagging even though its back cover gets heated up quite a bit.

The phone contains several user-friendly features such as Screen Multitasking feature, Smart Call, Assistive Ball, Smart Assistant, and Smart Driving. There is a Clone Phone setting which can be used to transfer data in one phone to another. With the Clone Apps feature, it's possible for users to use two different social media accounts at the same time from one phone.

Some secure login options of the phone include passcode, face unlock, and fingerprint sensor. Besides, there is a Smart Lock feature for setting up trusted locations like their houses, offices where their devices will be kept unlocked.

RAM – Internal Storage

With the Realme 2, there are two variants available. One with 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage. The other one has 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage.

Battery Life

According to the company’s claim, the phone can last up to two days with its 4,230mAh battery. However, in reality, the phone did not meet that claim. After a full day of handling tasks like taking photos, playing games, surfing the internet, and browsing social media, the phone has only 30% remaining battery at the end of the day.

If users take on heavy titles such as PUBG Mobile, it is likely the battery will even run out much quicker. The phone doesn’t have a fast charger so it will take a long time for a full charge.

Camera

At the back, the phone houses a dual camera. On the back, there is a 13+2MP one with an aperture lens of f/2.2. The secondary sensor is for depth sensing. On the front is an 8-megapixel one with an aperture of f/2.2. The camera relies on AI-Beautification algorithms from Oppo for image enhancement.

The image quality is almost the same as the Realme 1. The phone can take good clear shots in daylight. Depend on what you are shooting, the HDR mode will be automatically turned on.

The camera can still deliver quite clean images indoors. The colors remain fairly accurate although the light source gets a bit overexposed. The dynamic range of the camera iss poor. And it struggles to get the exposures right.

However, in low-light settings, the camera has a hard time. The images shot in these backgrounds don’t have many details and it is easy to spot noise in the images.

The camera app offers different modes like Time-lapse, Panorama, and AR Sticker. You can choose from 28 AR stickers. The feature can be used with both the rear and front cameras.

The portrait mode, compared with Xiaomi phones, isn’t as good. The selfie camera is equipped with AI to detect gender, age, skin type, and skin tone, thus optimizing settings accordingly. According to Realme, in its database, there are 8 million beauty reference points.

In low-light conditions, the front camera of the smartphone also struggles quite a bit. However, in a favourable light, it manages to deliver decent images. Using software algorithms, the sensor can produce bokeh shots. Facial features are really softened by the AI beautification to the point that there seems to be overly photoshopped.

Bot the front and the rear cameras can record videos at 1090p. However, videos lacked detail as well as stabilization.