Realme Narzo N63 review: looks good, charges fast

The Realme Narzo N63 is the brand’s latest entrant in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment. The phone subverts expectations with some thoughtful features that are quite rare in this segment, particularly its 45W fast charging support, a vegan leather rear panel, and support for Air Gestures. The question remains if the smartphone manages to eek out a spot for itself in the competitive budget segment, so let’s find that out in this Realme Narzo N63 review. 

Verdict

The Realme Narzo N63 may not be a standout device in its segment, but it excels in several key areas. It features a sleek design with a vegan leather back, reliable battery life with quick recharging, and smart features like Air Gestures and Riding Mode, which make it a worthwhile option to consider at a starting price of Rs 8,499. The lack of 5G support and low brightness levels, however, might not work in its favour. 

Design & display

The smartphone comes in two colour variants: Leather Blue (vegan leather) and Twilight Purple. I received the vegan leather variant, which elevates the in-hand experience of the smartphone. The faux leather back minimises fingerprints and smudges and feels good to touch. The flat edges can slightly dig into the palm of your hands, but personally, they didn’t bother me as much.

The camera island takes a page from the design philosophy of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, with three large circular rings for the camera and flash units. The camera deco and phone edges have a blue tint to harmonise with the rest of the design. The smartphone also comes with IP54 water and dust resistance, which is something to appreciate. 

There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom edge, the volume button doubles as a fingerprint sensor and has a swift response time. The smartphone features a 6.74-inch IPS display with HD+ resolution (720 x 1,600), 560nits of peak brightness, and 90Hz refresh rate.

The panel has thin bezels with a slightly protruding chin at the bottom and a drop-notch which houses the selfie camera. The display experience is quite standard for the price segment, with decent viewing angles and sufficient brightness level for indoor use. The brightness feels lacking for outdoor use, especially in the scorching noon in Delhi.

The smartphone claims a minimum brightness level of 1nits, and sure enough, the brightness level can go down quite low, which was quite useful while reading e-books at night. The 90Hz refresh rate ensures smooth browsing and streaming. However, the phone only has a mono speaker, which somewhat diminishes the multimedia experience.

Cameras

The Realme Narzo N63 comes with a 50MP AI rear camera with an aperture size of f/1.8 paired with an 8MP selfie camera with an aperture size of f/2.0. The low-light photography on the Narzo N63 is a bit limited, with a visible level of softening and loss of detail. The selfie camera sings a similar tune, with satisfactory daylight results. In low light, the selfie lens tends to smooth out the skin with poor edge detection and blurry results. The camera takes acceptable images in daylight conditions with a sufficient amount of detail and balanced colours.

Daylight image comparison

Here’s a comparison shot with the Moto G24 Power, which offers slightly better dynamic range and captures better details compared to the Realme Narzo N63, though with slightly boosted colours. The Realme Narzo N63 instead has a more natural colour reproduction, maintains better exposure and showcases the clouds in the sky, whereas the Moto G24 fails to do so.  

We also compared the daylight images taken by the itel P55 and the Realme Narzo N63 to gauge the differences. In the image slider below, the Narzo N63’s shots have better dynamic range with overexposed shadows, and a warmer colour profile, while the itel P55 maintains a balanced colour profile and preserves shadows better, which adds more depth to the picture. The level of detail is on par in both images. 

Low-light image comparison 

In order to test out the low-light photography capabilities, we put the Realme Narzo N63, itel P55 and Moto G24 Power to the test. The first shot is a comparison between the Realme Narzo N63 and the Moto G24 Power. With night mode enabled, the Moto G24 Power takes the clear lead, with better sharpness, lower noise levels and better details compared to the Narzo N63.

The itel P55’s lowlight capabilities are slightly better than those of the Realme Narzo N63. It offers more clarity and better edge detection compared to the Realme Narzo N63 and was also able to preserve the clouds in the sky, which are not visible in the latter’s image. 

Selfie comparison

We also compared the selfie prowess of the Realme Narzo N63 with Infinix Hot 40i, which comes with the sole 32MP selfie lens in the segment. The Narzo N63’s selfie has better exposure and a warmer tone, which makes it look more appealing to me than the cooler tone of the Infinix Hot 40i, but the story changes when it comes to details. The Infinix Hot 40i delivers a more faithful recreation of the skin texture compared to the Realme Narzo N63, which slightly oversharpens the image. The former also maintains a better shirt texture, and you can observe the knitting more closely.   

Performance & software

The Unisoc T612 chipset powers the smartphone, paired with up to 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is further expandable with a microSD card. There’s also up to 4GB of virtual RAM extension available. The device’s performance is satisfactory given the price segment and works best for day-to-day use and casual gaming. There’s occasional lag when browsing, and the device can struggle if you register a lot of commands. It’s best to tame your expectations if you’re planning to play some graphically demanding games. Here are some benchmark numbers against prominent rivals: 

The smartphone comes with Realme UI based on Android 14 out-of-the-box, and there are a few pre-installed third-party apps, including some random games, which can be uninstalled if you wish to. I was pleased to see that the device comes with Air Gestures support, a feature lacking in the higher-priced Realme Narzo N65.

The gestures include swiping up and down in the air to switch between videos and swiping up and holding gestures to answer or mute incoming calls. They work well enough and can come in handy if you’re a little distance away from your device. The power button can also be configured to perform different actions. There’s a dedicated Riding Mode that pauses notifications except for incoming calls if you’re on the move. The brand promises one major OS upgrade and up to 2 years of software updates for the Narzo N63. 

Battery & charging

A standard 5,000mAh battery with 45W SUPERVOOC fast charging support powers the Realme Narzo N63. The smartphone registered a score of 13 hours and 30 minutes on the PCMark battery test, which is comparatively low for the segment. The smartphone logged an aggregate battery drain of 23 percent during our 2 hours of intensive tests, which is an acceptable result and should last most users for an entire day.

The 45W fast charging support takes around 1 hour and 10 minutes to recharge the battery from 20 to 100 percent capacity, which is an impressive result for the price segment. Here’s how much time the Narzo N63’s competitors take to recharge from 20 to 100 percent capacity:

Final verdict

The budget segment is filled with some great choices, and the Realme Narzo N63 manages to mark its own spot. The smartphone comes in a sleek package that feels quite premium, offers good daylight photography capabilities, a decent battery life that shines thanks to its 45W fast charging support and some nifty software features like Air Gestures, a dynamic power button, Riding mode and more.

At a starting price of Rs 8,499, the chief competitors of the device include the Moto G24 Power (review), itel P55 4G (review), and the Infinix Hot 40i (review). The former features a larger 6,000mAh battery and near-stock Android experience. The itel P55 offers higher on-board RAM capacity at 8GB and long battery life, while the Infinix Hot 40i features an excellent 32MP front camera which takes great images for the price segment. 

There are a few caveats with the Realme Narzo N63 to consider, namely the performance output that feels quite limited with only 4GB of RAM, the insufficient brightness level for outdoor use, and no 5G support. If these are aspects that don’t matter much, the Realme Narzo N63 is a device that would suffice for most entry-level users. 

Editor’s Rating: 7.5 / 10 

Reasons to buy:

• The Realme Narzo N63 is a good-looking smartphone with a vegan leather back.
• The device offers a reliable battery life with fast charging speed.
• The Realme Narzo N63 comes with some nifty software features, like Air Gestures.  
• The smartphone comes with IP54 water and dust resistance.  

Reasons not to buy:

• The outdoor brightness could have been improved. 
• The smartphone does not come with 5G support. 
• The Realme Narzo N63 only comes with a mono speaker.

Tests conducted by: Aditya Pandey