realme smart TV launches in the Philippines and here's UnGeek's review

realme, ever-budding tech brand that has taken the country by storm as they hit the number 1 spot in terms of smartphone sales and standing last 2020, is now pivoting towards a holistic interconnected lifestyle by introducing more AiOT products under their belt. They’ve already laid the groundwork late last year with the introduction of the realme smartscale, realme electric toothbrush and the realme 360 cam; this is on top of the realme Watch that and Buds.

Last night realme Philippines unveiled two new addition to the growing number of #TechLifestyle devices from the brand – this time in the form of an updated realme Watch and their first ever foray into large-screen entertainment display, the realme Smart TV.

We gave our thoughts on the realme Smart TV in our feature video but here’s a deeper dive after spending more time on the device.

Geeksthetic

Design-wise the realme Smart TV will sit well with your current entertainment system. It’s simple, light and almost borderless with only 8.8mm thin on the sides with a slightly thicker base to house the quad 24W Dolby-certified audio speakers. This is also where the small realme branding can be seen and an IR receiver for your realme smart remote which you pair upon first use.

The whole realme Android TV weighs approximately 6.8kg or roughly 15lbs only and this includes its plastic stand that you can opt not to use when you want to mount on the wall via a VESA monitor mount.

Best to use an electric screwdriver for this one

We have to say, however, that we were slightly disappointed with the stands provided by realme. In our experience, despite redoing the screws twice, the legs are still wobbling a bit and not as fixed as we’d hope it would be. According to realme, it has something to do with the alignment. The screws need to be aligned exactly right to reduce this –which if you do not have an electric screwdriver, you’re, um, screwed? That being said, because the TV is quite light, we felt that it shouldn’t really prove disastrous in the long run. I’d imagine if the TV is a bit heavier that the legs may give if not screwed on perfectly right.

Binge-Watching Factor

The main focus of the realme Smart TV is first and foremost consuming copious amounts of entertainment on its 32-inch or 43-inch screen. We got our hands on the 43-inch model and we can say that because of realme’s own Chroma Boost technology and the realme Smart TV supporting HDR10 and HLG, binging on Netflix, YouTube and various media is a delight. Admittedly, we were spoiled by having a 4k monitor as the realme Android TV at 43-inch only has a 1920x1080p resolution or a FULL HD resolution.

However, the VA panel on the 43-inch pretty much gave us the right clarity and visual vividness to watch pretty much any movie online. Having 400 nits capable, the realme Smart TV has decent backlight on a fairly lit room.

Having Dolby Audio creates a wonderful surround sound that may tend to be a bit too loud. So, keeping the volume at around 40-55% is fairly sufficient watching movies with a distance of around 6 feet from the screen. If your room is a bit more open and you have a huge distance between you and the TV, this means you can still increase the volume to your liking.

Gaming Prowess

The problems we saw on the realme Smart TV was when we hooked the TV up to our gaming consoles. Because of the multiple I/Os of the realme Smart TV, you can hook up to 3 consoles on this bad boy. We decided to just try the unit with our PlayStation 5 and our Nintento Switch.

Now, granted the 1080p resolution of the TV, we obviously cannot take full advantage of the graphical wonderment of the PS5. Framerate-wise, however, the realme smart TV can keep up and give us a fairly consistent 60Hz refresh rate. All good stuff so far, so what’s the problem?

The glaring issue I have would be the color temperature that the Chroma Boost sets. I had to adjust the brightness and contrast of the screen per game that I load on both the PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. I do wish this could be fixed with an OTA patch, though – or give us more customized settings so we can set the right balance of contrast and brightness per game.

The volume also became a bit of an issue. When we said the realme Smart TV outputs volume LOUD we mean it. In our time with the unit, we had to shift volume down to around 35% unless we wanted to be shouted at by our companions here at home.

So, can you game with the realme Smart TV? That’s a definite yes, however, just be wary of these small hiccups that may irk you from time to time.

Everyday reliability

The realme Smart TV has a bunch of quality of life features that can make your daily experience better – and a little bit more fun. As an Android TV, you can sync your Google Account to the TV and use your realme Smart Remote as a way to communicate with your Google Account via Google Assistant. Ask it for recommendations, check your calendar, check the weather, map a route towards your next appointment or have you open various apps. It’s cute and quirky and the remote makes it seem like your talking to a futuristic transponder (ala Star Trek or some sci-fi show). “Hey Google, open my Netflix account.”

The realme Smart TV also has more connecting ports that my laptop with 9 ports in total. These are 3 HDMI ports, 2 USB ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, an AV out, an optical audio out port, a LAN port and 1 tuner.

The realme Smart TV also has a built-in Chrome Cast so you can cast from your device to your realme TV with relative ease. I actually tried casting my gameplay of League of Legends Wild Rift on the realme Smart TV and there’s hardly any delay.

We did find, however, that we were getting a weird notification on our realme Smart Tv. Notice the letter M on the upper right hand corner? This keeps popping up for some odd reason. We reached out to realme and they told us that this should be resolved via an OTA update and it seems that the issue isn’t as widespread as we first feared it was.

Conclusion/ Recommendation

At the end of the day, the realme Smart TV offers a new way of integrating your realme connected lifestyle experience by creating another hub for you to consume your media with. Aside from the small issues we have with the brand’s smart TV, we were a bit taken aback with the it’s pricing. For a smartphone company that’s been able to consistently price themselves competitively, the realme Smart TV sits a bit on the higher spectrum of 43″ Smart TVs out in the market. Currently the SRP is at Php 18,990 however during the Shopee 3.3 Mega Sale, the price drops down to Php 15,990. At Php 15,990 the realme Smart TV now becomes a competitive choice.

If you wish to take advantage of this promo hit this link and use the code GADGETZONE8. Reminder: The promo ends tonight at midnight (March 3, 2021, 11:59pm).

realme Smart TV (43”) Specs