realme Narzo 50A Prime smartphone review – Full HD and fast memory for little money

The realme 50A Prime is the sister model of the realme Narzo 50i Prime which we recently tested. The dimensions of both devices are very similar, but realme has reduced the thickness of the Narzo 50A Prime by a few tenths of a millimeter; the weight is a bit higher at 192. 5 grams.

Looking at the characteristics, it quickly becomes clear that the Narzo 50A Prime is the significantly better-equipped phone in the family: with 64 GB of mass storage, a Full HD display, and WiFi 5, it is clearly above the Narzo 50i Prime . What is still missing, however, is NFC, so no mobile payment apps can be used either. The SD card reader is in addition to the two SIM slots and proves to be a bit slower than in comparable smartphones, for example, in the copy test with our reference card Angelbird AV Pro V60.

The casing is, as in the 50i Prime , rather angular. The back is covered with a reflective glass panel and features a “Kevlar Speed Texture Design” underneath, which is reminiscent of carbon fibers but is of course made of simple plastic. The area around the camera module is visually separated and refracts the light for a special effect.

Interestingly, the color “Flash Black” looks rather dark blue; a light blue is available as a second color variant. The smartphone looks high-quality for its price range, but it strongly attracts fingerprints. The edges are partly quite noticeable, but the Narzo 50A Prime still feels quite comfortable in the hand.

The smartphone can hardly be twisted and does not creak. You have to do without 5G capabilities in this price range, but the Narzo 50A Prime at least offers some 4G frequencies. It is not enough for international use worldwide, but you can use the mobile Internet without problems in Central Europe.

The reception is rather on a low level during our test, but never completely breaks down. The phone comes with WiFi 5 and can thus compete with other phones in its price range, such as the Galaxy M13 or the Redmi 10C . The transfer rates are also quite stable in our test with the reference router Asus ROG AXE11000.

Realme’s UI R-version is reduced in some functions, for example, there is no gaming mode. The system of the Narzo 50A Prime is still based on Android 11, although Android 13 is already in the starting blocks. Our test device received an update to the latest security patches from July 2022 within the test period, although quite recent patches from June 2022 were already installed before.

Realme thus seems to at least bring its updates to the phone quickly. The touchscreen can be operated reliably, but it does not feel as smooth as faster screens due to the 60 Hz frame rate. The fingerprint sensor is integrated into the standby button on the right side of the case.

It unlocks the phone quite quickly and reliably even from standby. 2D face recognition is also possible, but you should make sure that the surroundings are well-lit. On paper, the real Narzo 50A Prime offers three camera lenses on the back, but in reality, you will probably only use one of them most of the time: the main camera with 50 megapixels usually only take pictures with a quarter of the resolution, but is still much more accurate than, for example, the macro camera with only 2-megapixel resolution.

Sure, it is sufficient for a cursory glance at the phone’s screen, but the extreme close-ups are hardly useful beyond that. The third lens is only intended to support blur effects and cannot be used for own pictures anyway. The main camera takes quite passable pictures in itself, whose detail sharpness does not turn out bad at all.

At the same time, the color reproduction in the surrounding image is quite strange: the sky looks heavily desaturated and quite grainy in large areas. In very low light, hardly any details are visible in dark areas. Videos can be recorded in 1080p and 30 fps at most, and you can only use a digital zoom.

The light meter works quite accurately, while the autofocus needs a bit now and then to set the right focus. The front-facing camera offers a resolution of 8 megapixels. It takes passable selfies in good light, but you should not enlarge them too much or details will be lost.

A Full HD screen is also offered by others in this price range but by far not all phones. With its 528 cd/m² on average, the display of the realme Narzo 50A Prime is also quite bright and offers a decent contrast ratio of 1385:1, which makes colors and dark tones look bit richer and deeper. We did not notice any PWM flickering, but a slight blue cast is visible in the grayscale.

The color accuracy measurement shows that blue tones are displayed most inaccurately. The Unisoc Tiger T612 is used in many of realme’s low-priced cell phones and offers good performance rates for the class, especially in the processor area. Meanwhile, the graphics unit falls a bit behind, especially on the high-resolution screen.

The system basically runs smoothly in everyday use as long as you do not have too many apps running in the background. However, you have to reckon with occasional stutters. The fast UFS 2.

2 storage is no longer completely uncommon in the price range, and the Redmi 10C for example, also offers it. Nevertheless, it is nice to see that even inexpensive phones now offer a decent storage speed that shortens loading times. The case heats up very well even under heavy load and is not alarming with a maximum of 38.

4 °C, at least at room temperature. The small mono speaker on the phone’s lower edge struggles a bit to produce a really full sound. It will sound too thin and too treble-heavy for most demands in music and movie sound.

Nevertheless, you can basically use it to listen to a piece of music or watch a video. However, speakers or headphones that are connected via a 3. 5 mm port or Bluetooth naturally sound better; aptX HD is supported, but the modern aptX codecs are not.

The phone can be charged with a maximum of 18 watts, but a charger is not included with the realme Narzo 50A Prime. It takes a good 2 hours at full charging power to completely fill the 5,000 mAh battery. According to our WLAN test, it does not last quite as long as other phones in this price range, but it is still a long-runner with 14:34 hours that can even survive two workdays without charging.

If you cannot or do not want to spend a lot of money on your smartphone, you will get a decent overall package with the realme Narzo 50A Prime: a bright Full HD display, sufficient system power for everyday use, fast storage, user-friendly runtimes, and software that is updated quite frequently, at least at the moment. The mediocre speaker and a slight blue cast on the screen are also found in other inexpensive phones. The fact that no charger is included, the smartphone does not have NFC, and the operating system is still based on Android 11 are points that should be considered in the purchase decision.

The realme Narzo 50A Prime offers a good equipment package at a very low price. Since the prices of the 50A Prime have already dropped significantly, there is hardly any reason to still go for the Narzo 50i Prime with much worse equipment. The Galaxy M13 comes with Android 12 and NFC but lags behind in terms of performance.

The realme Narzo 50A Prime is available directly from the manufacturer at 170 Euros. At the time of testing, there is a promotion on the website with a 20 Euro discount. You can save even more at some Internet retailers, for example at our loaner notebooksbilliger.

de where the phone is already available for 136 Euros at the time of testing. Also, Cyberport and amazon. de also have smartphone on offer.

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