Realme P1 5G review

Realme has launched a new mid-range smartphone soon after launching the Realme 12+ in India. The Realme P1 5G is the first in its new P-series smartphones and offers a compelling set of specifications in a competitive sub-R. 20,000 price range. Discerning smartphone enthusiasts will also notice that the phone shares some of the same specifications as the Realme 12+, with some key differences allowing the company to sell it at a slightly lower price. We spent some time with the Realme P1 5G to see if it’s worth the money.

Realme P1 5G India price

Realme P1 5G price in India starts at Rs. 14,999 for the 6GB+128GB model. The company also sells an 8GB+256GB model – I received a device with this configuration for review – priced at Rs. 16,999.

Apart from the Realme P1 5 G, you also get a transparent TPU protective case, SIM ejection tool, USB Type-A to Type-C cable, and a 45W charging brick. The phone is available in two color options: Malachite Green and Phoenix Red.

Realme P1 5G review: Design

Realme P1 5G has a mature design. The Phoenix Red color scheme I reviewed has a rear panel covered with brush-like strokes, which doesn’t look too fancy. The iQoo Z9 (review) has a similar one-stroke design, but it’s not as subtle or subtle as the one on this smartphone. The shape and design of the rear camera module is almost identical to the Realme 12+, except for the ridge-like finish that extends from the center of the camera island.

Realme P1 5G has a circular camera island

The power button and volume button are located on the right side of the realme P1 5G, with flat edges and slightly rounded corners. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack and a speaker at the top, while the bottom edge houses a second speaker, USB Type-C port, and SIM card tray.

Thanks to the flat design of realme P1 5G, the phone is quite comfortable to hold. The screen is a bit tall for one-handed use, but you can enable the Realme UI setting to lower the interface to the lower half of the screen, making it easier to reach with your thumb. It’s also nice to see an IP54 rating at this price point, and the included TPU case comes with a cover to cover the 3.5mm port and USB Type-C port.

Realme P1 5G review: Specs and software

Like the company’s recently launched Realme 12+, the Realme P1 5G is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset. The octa-core processor features two Arm Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.6GHz and six Cortex-A55 cores with a peak clock speed of 2.0GHz. The phone comes with up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM and you are better off opting for the model with 8GB of RAM.

The phone runs Android 14 out of the box with Realme UI 5.0. Most Realme phones are priced under Rs. It promises to provide two years of Android operating system upgrades and three years of security updates to 20,000 people. Most smartphone manufacturers in this price range offer similar software support, with the exception of Samsung, which promises four operating system upgrades and five years of security updates for the Galaxy M15. I found the in-display fingerprint scanner to be mostly accurate, recognizing my fingerprints even when my fingers were slightly damp.

Connectivity options on Realme P1 5G include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, 5G, 4G LTE, GPS, and USB Type-C port. However, you won’t be able to add a card for contactless payments, as the phone doesn’t support NFC connectivity. The phone is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery and supports 45W charging via the adapter that comes with the phone.

Realme P1 5G: Performance

The MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chip on the Realme P1 5G is a powerful mid-range chip that can handle most tasks with ease. This includes browsing the web, using various social media apps, capturing images and videos, and playing several popular games (in addition to blockbusters like Genshin Impact).

I tested four games on the Realme P1 5G: Asphalt 9, Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), Call of Duty: Mobile, and Sky: Child of Light. I had to manually switch to the high-quality graphics preset for some of these games, but I didn’t notice any lag or stuttering. There was no thermal throttling after about 30 minutes of gaming, which is nice.

Realme P1 5G Benchmarks

Realme P1 5G scored 570,926 points on AuTuTu v10, 956 points and 2,369 points in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests respectively. I also ran the PCMark 3.0 benchmark, and the phone scored 13,319 on the Work 3.0 test.

I also ran GFXBench tests – Car Chase (21fps), Manhattan 3.1 (39fps) and T-Rex (60fps) – on the Realme P1 5G. Meanwhile, in 3DMark’s Wild Life and Wild Life Unlimited benchmarks, the phone scored 2,292 and 2,253 points respectively. It scored 5,132 points on the Sling Shot test and 4,075 points on the Sling Shot Extreme test.

The iQoo Z9 scored 6,654 points in 3DMark’s Sling Shot test and 5,766 points in the Sling Shot Extreme test. It also scored 4,126 points and 4,205 points in the Wild Life and Wild Life Unlimited benchmarks, respectively. Meanwhile, iQoo’s mid-range phone scored 6,058 points (108fps) on the GFXBench T-Rex test, while it scored 3702 points (60fps) on the Manhattan 3.1 benchmark and a lower score of 1,954 points on the Car Chase test (33 frames/second).

Realme UI 5.0 also seems to be optimized for this smartphone and the animations are smooth. There’s nothing to complain about in terms of RAM management, but it’s worth remembering that I tested the top-of-the-line version with 8GB of RAM. You can easily switch between 4-5 apps without the phone having to reload them into memory.

It’s worth noting that the phone comes with some pre-installed apps that can be removed, and Realme’s built-in app store will notify you about apps and try to “scan” apps installed from the Play Store. I also can’t completely disable the Top Apps and Top Games folders from the app drawer.

Realme P1 5G comes with some bloated software apps

The smartphone comes with a 6.7-inch AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate. The screen is responsive and there is no lag when playing games, which comes in handy when playing games such as BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile. Realme says it can hit 1,200 nits in high-brightness mode, and visibility is decent — unless you’re outdoors in the middle of the day, and it’s pretty bright.

The phone also has an algorithm that allows you to use the screen when it’s wet or your hands are wet—I tested both of those conditions, and typing and scrolling worked exactly as the company claimed. At the same time, Mini Capsule 2.0 has been upgraded to provide music playback control. It also displays calendar reminders if you’re on your phone, and occasionally expands briefly to show how many steps you’ve taken during the day.

The apps I used the most on Realme P1 5G were WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Chrome and the games I tested. The phone’s 5,000mAh battery lasted about 6 hours and 17 minutes of screen time before I connected it to a charger with only 5% left. In our HD battery video loop test, the P1 5G ran for 18 hours and 36 minutes. When connected to a 45W charging brick, the battery level increased from 52% in 30 minutes to 95% after 1 hour.

Realme P1 5G review: Camera

There are two rear cameras on the Realme P1 5G: a 50-megapixel camera with a 1/2.76-inch Samsung ISOCELL JN1 sensor, f/1.8 aperture and 77-degree field of view, and a 2-megapixel secondary monochrome camera with f/2.4 aperture and a camera with an 88-degree field of view. For taking selfies and making video calls, there is a 16-megapixel camera with f//2.45 aperture housed in a centre-aligned punch-hole cutout.

Realme P1 5G main camera sample (click to expand)

In fact, there is only one reliable camera on the Realme P1 5G, and that’s the 50-megapixel main camera. It can capture decent images when there’s enough natural light and your subject is nearby (such as flowers or pets). The camera app also offers 2x mode, which allows you to capture detailed images without losing a lot of details. Switching between these modes does not affect color tones when taking images of the same subject.

The camera app has street mode that lets you click images with 27mm and 54mm focal lengths. If there’s enough sunlight, the Realme P1 5G once again captures decent images. In less than ideal conditions, you’ll notice some noise and grain when shooting images using this mode. You can also use the dedicated Pro mode to save RAW images and adjust ISO, shutter speed, focus, white balance and exposure values ​​before capturing them.

Realme P1 5G night mode camera example (click to expand)

In low-light scenarios, the Realme P1 5G’s default camera mode waits for a second before capturing an image to improve quality. You can click this button to disable this feature. There’s also a dedicated night mode, but almost all images taken with this smartphone have been heavily noise-reduced and smoothed, resulting in a lack of detail.

The 16-megapixel selfie camera has Beauty Mode (filter) enabled by default, which instantly erased my dark circles, but it can be easily disabled for slightly clearer (and more realistic) images. You can record video in 4K//30fps using the main rear camera, but the “Super Steady” mode is only available at 1080p/60fps and below. Even with stabilization enabled at 1080p, there’s still some jitter in parts of the video.

Realme P1 5G review: Conclusion

The Realme P1 5G aims to be an affordable mid-range phone that focuses on performance and reliable battery life. It has a nice AMOLED screen. Across all three, the phone is good value for money and may undercut the company’s own Realme 12+ 5G, which has the same chipset and battery capacity but faster charging.

The company is positioning the phone as a fast performer priced at around Rs. For 16,000 marks, the Realme P1 5G is easy to recommend if you’re looking for a phone that delivers great day-to-day performance. It’s also suitable for playing games like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile, and can handle most applications with ease.

However, the camera on the Realme P1 5G leaves a lot to be desired and isn’t the phone’s strongest point. If your budget allows you to expand to Rs. At the 20,000 mark, you can consider the Realme 12+ or the iQoo Z9, both of which offer better camera quality. You could also consider the Samsung Galaxy M15 5G – it’s not as powerful as the Realme P1 5G, but it’s more affordable and promises two more years of software support.