Realme smart TV 4K review: An affordable option

Over the years, 4K smart TVs have now reached a stage where they are not completely out of the range of an average consumer.

Those days where 4K smart TV were present only in the homes of a select few as it was considered out of reach for most middle-class consumers are long gone. A lot of the credit for that goes to Chinese consumer technology brands. After smartphones, if the Chinese consumer technology brands have been able to dilute the prices of any product segment, it is smart TVs.

BBK-owned brand Realme has been quite aggressive in expanding its portfolio in categories other than smartphones. The recent offering is the Realme Smart TV 4K.

The Realme Smart TV 4K boasts support for Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos sound — making it the key features of the device. We spent some time with it and here is our review:

Design
In terms of looks, the latest smart TV from Realme is quite simple looking. It has slim borders on all sides adding to its minimalistic look. This smart TV is similar to the last couple of offerings from the brands in terms of its looks.

While the company has two models, we got our hands on the smaller size variant, which is 43-inch. We would recommend you to consider this size only if you are looking to add it to a small room only. This is because, for an average size bedroom and typical living areas, the 55-inch may be able to deliver the cinema experience you may be looking for.

The back of the TV is made of plastic and houses all the connectivity ports. Overall, we were quite satisfied with this Realme TV in the design department.

Performance
The device offers Ultra-HD (3840×2160 pixel) resolution and brings in support for various HDR formats including HDR10 and HDR10+. The TV is able to auto-detect Dolby Vision content and enables specific settings to suit the content. For audio, the TV has a 24W four-speaker system with support for the DTS HD, Dolby Audio, and Dolby Atmos formats.

While all this is great on paper, the overall experience turns out to be a little bittersweet. This is because while the audio performance was impressive, the visual experience doesn’t leave you too satisfied as the colours seem a bit overexposed at times especially with warm colours such as Red and Orange.

The Realme Smart TV 4K runs on Android TV 10 and offers a stock Android TV launcher — keeping it fuss-free and easy to use. You get a couple of pre-installed OTT apps and others can be downloaded from the Google Play Store as the process is as easy as it is on Android smartphones.

Powering the Realme smart TV 4K is MediaTek quad-core processor and for connectivity, it offers three HDMI ports (one of which supports HDMI ARMC), two USB ports, Bluetooth 5, and dual-band Wi-Fi.

Remote
The minimal look of the device is also spotted in the remote as it is sleek, lightweight, compact and functional. It only has essential and basic buttons.

Verdict
The Realme smart TV 4K is a reasonably good option. Depending on the size of the room you will have to select the size of the TV, but with features like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, the bigger size should be ideal as a small screen device is not able to utilise it to its full potential. However, that model is a little pricier for what it brings to the table.

The two models of the Realme smart TV 4K are priced at Rs 28,999 for the 43-inch model and at Rs 39,999 for the 50-inch model.

In terms of competition, you may consider looking at Xiaomi Redmi Smart TV X Series (available at Rs 34,999 onwards) or the OnePlus TV U1S (available at Rs 37,999).

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