Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch review: Good for first time Android TV buyers

According to market surveys and researches conducted over the last few years, two of the most popular TV screen sizes that consumers in India prefer are: 32-inch and 43-inch. Realme probably understands the market trend and wants to capture as many consumers as possible with its latest offerings consisting of Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch and Realme Smart TV 4K 43-inch.

Realme entered the smart TV segment in India last year and within such a short span of time the company already offers a range of smart Android TVs to consumers. The latest Realme Smart TV 32-inch TV is different from the older 32-inch model. The new one offers a Full HD viewing experience at a relatively cheaper price tag. The smart TV comes at a price of Rs 18,999 and can be purchase either from Realme.com, Flipkart.com or other offline stores across the country.

With the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch, the Chinese tech company aims to take on the likes of competition devices from brands such as Xiaomi, Samsung, TCL, LG, among others. I have been using the Realme Smart TV 32-inch since the last one month and it is surely one of the best options to consider if you want to buy your first ever Android TV.

Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch price in India: Rs 18,999

Design and build

Most smart TVs at this price segment look just the same, and the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch is no different. As far as the design is concerned, the 32-inch Realme Smart TV looks like any other smart Android TV available at the price segment. While the smart TV doesn’t look all that bad, there’s also no wow factor attached to the design as well. Despite packing a plastic build, the smart TV offers a good build quality, which is rarely available at this price point.

The Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch looks decent in black paint and slim bezels on the sides add to the overall design. The bottom chin includes the “realme” brand logo. On the back, the smart TV includes some ports right in the middle including HDMI x 3, USB x 2, AV, LAN, digital audio output and ANT. The TV also comes with support for WiFi and Bluetooth 5.0.

The Realme smart TV can either be placed on the table or a flat surface or hanged on the wall. I placed the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch on a glass surface in my drawing room and was able to reach the ports easily. If you hang the TV on a wall, you should still be able to reach the ports easily. The good thing is, despite pricing it so affordably, the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch ships with two stand to place it on a flat surface.

I could easily setup the TV on my own and didn’t require a technician, which is a good thing is these tough COVID-19 times. Another good thing is about the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch is its light weight.

How to setup

Setting up the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch is extremely easy, and anyone can do it. The smart TV comes with a table stand, so if you wish to place it on a flat surface you can simply fix the two stands with the TV. It is going to take around 5 minutes. Ensure to fasten the screws tightly so the stands do not get detached at any point. If in case you wish to hang the TV on your bedroom wall, you will need to buy a hanging stand separately, which is readily available on both online and offline stores.

Once the setup is completed, power on the Android TV with the help of the remote that comes bundled. The remote has minimal buttons, which makes it easy to use and understand. It includes buttons like Netflix, Prime, Google Assistant, Settings, YouTube and more that lets you move from one platform to another in just a click.

To set it up, you will need to turn on the device and then wait for a few seconds for it to boot up. To start the setup process of the Android TV, you will need to connect it to a stable WiFi network and then login with your Google account to fetch your details. To add these details, simply click on the setting option in the remote and all the required details. If you have an active cable connection, connect the HDMI cable and head to Live TV option displayed on the home screen.

The Realme TV comes pre-bundled with OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. If you want to watch content on any other OTT platform, you can simply head to the Google Play store and install the app and login with your credentials to get started.

Display

The Realme Smart TV comes packed with a 32-inch Full HD LED display with resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. As per the Chinese tech giant, the smart TV comes packed with Chroma Boost Picture Engine, which “focuses on improving brightness, color, contrast, purity, and clarity to provide a premium visual experience.”

After spending around a month using the smart TV, I believe for the price it offers decent viewing experience but not as good as the 32-inch Mi LED TV 4A Pro. When compared to the Mi LED TV 4A Pro 32-inch, the picture quality that the Realme Smart TV offers look more on the saturated side and colours mostly popup and appear to be too vibrant. There’s surely a way to adjust the colour tone and display setting as per your taste and requirement, just head to the Settings menu.

Performance and UI

For the affordable price tag, what Realme is offering is a lot on paper. The Realme Smart TV is powered by a MediaTek quad-core processor with built-in ARM Cortex A53 CPU and Mali-470 MP3 GPU coupled with 1GB DDR3 RAM and 8GB Flash ROM. The company claims that the smart TV offers a “smoother, faster experience for you when opening multiple apps on the Android TV.” In real life usage, the smart TV offers a decent performance but lags in various instances.

Switching between one app to another and one screen to another isn’t all that easy. There have been instances wherein, the smart TV screen went completely blank suddenly and took few minutes to get fixed. In such a situation, I often had to turn off the Smart TV and then turn on to fix the problem. Possibly, Realme should take a note and fix such lagging issue via an OTA update soon.

As for the audio experience, the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch shines. The smart TV comes packed with 24W Quad Stereo Speakers consisting of one full-range speaker and one tweeter with support for Dolby Audio. It gets loud enough in just 50-70 percent for everyone in a three bedroom flat to listen to the music being played on YouTube. The Realme smart TV offers good heavy bass but the soundstage is not as good as I expected it to be. While watching movies or web series, the vocals and dialogues often tend to get mixed up and sometimes do not turn out to be clear.

Similar to all other Android smart TVs available in the market across price points, the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch offers a clean Android TV experience. It comes packed with OTT platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and other apps such as YouTube, Google Play store, Google Play Music, among others. Since the company has been in the TV business for over a year now, I strongly expect the brand to soon bring its own custom skin on top of Android TV just like Xiaomi Mi TV’s PatchWall. If you are new to the Android TV world, this Realme Smart TV should be easy to use. In case you want a better and rich content, Realme needs to work a lot on that.

Verdict

Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch offers a impressive specifications on paper but in real life there’s a lot more work to be done. The smart TV delivers a usual design, a sturdy build quality, clean user interface, and an impressive audio experience at an affordable price tag. It is easy to setup as well but surely needs improvement in terms of performance. The device lags in various situations, especially while switching from one platform to another continuously.

Overall, that the Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch is good for first time Android TV buyers but if someone is looking for a smoother experience at a budget, there are other options available in the market from brands like Xiaomi, Samsung, LG, among others.

The post Realme Smart TV Full HD 32-inch review: Good for first time Android TV buyers appeared first on BGR India.