Home Mobiles Realme C55 review: an attractive buy

Realme C55 review: an attractive buy

Here's my take on Realme's new C-series offering - the Realme C55

By Ashish Kumar -

Published On: April 4, 2023

Review Summary

Expert Rating
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The Realme C55 is an interesting proposition that many would find right up their alley. Priced starting at Rs 10,999, the latest addition to Realme's C-series of smartphones promises a sleek design, powerful performance, and cutting-edge features such as fast charging, camera modes, and a mini capsule on the display which appears to have drawn inspiration from the iPhone 14 Pro's dynamic island. In this review of the Realme C55, we'll examine whether the smartphone lives up to its lofty promises. Let's delve in to find out.

Verdict

The Realme C55 has a lot going for it. The handset features an attractive design, is a decent performer, and has capable primary and selfie cameras for daylight photography. The mini capsule looks interesting and has the potential to be a game-changer. However, the phone falls short in a few areas, due to which it isn't an easy recommendation.

The lowdown

Design-wise, the Realme C55 is a stunning smartphone, despite its plastic build. It boasts a premium look and feel, with a dual-tone finish on the back panel and a glossy accent around the cameras. The matte surface with a fine texture not only adds to the visual appeal but also provides a comfortable grip. The phone has flat edges and curved corners, which fit snugly in the hand, making it easy to hold for extended periods without experiencing any fatigue. At just 189.5 grams and 8.1mm thickness, the Realme C55 is impressively lightweight and slim. Realme claims it's the thinnest phone in its C-series range, which is impressive considering the good battery life it delivers.
The Realme C55 comes in a couple of colour variants: Sunshower and Rainy Night. I was sent the Sunshower variant for review that exudes different shades when light hits the surface. It is a good colour variant to look at and flaunt in public. The matte finish also ensures that the surface stays free of fingerprints and smudges. The handset is also quite stable while lying flat on a surface. It won't be a fun typing experience, but you will get the job done. The volume rocker and power button are placed on the right spine of the phone and stay well within the thumb's reach, while the USB Type-C port for charging can be found sandwiched in between the 3.5mm headphone jack and speaker grille at the bottom edge. All-in-all, the Realme C55 is a well-designed phone for its price, although I wish the rear camera rings weren't as ginormous as they are.

On the front, the Realme C55 boasts a 6.72-inch IPS LCD display with a centred punch hole. The screen has a 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling rate, and a peak brightness of 680 nits. Although it is a typical budget panel, the high resolution makes up for it by delivering an enjoyable viewing experience while gaming or streaming TV shows and movies. The colours and details are pleasing to the eye, but the viewing angles are not the best. Nevertheless, the 680 nits brightness ensures comfortable outdoor viewing, except under direct sunlight. The touch response and animations are fluid, and while the bezels are not razor-thin, they are acceptable for the price. The punch hole is a regular size and does not significantly affect the viewing experience. Additionally, the punch hole can be transformed into a mini capsule using software wizardry, which we will discuss later.

At the core of the Realme C55 is the MediaTek Helio G88 SoC, which was first introduced in 2021 and has been featured in several other smartphones since then. While the chipset does not perform any better than those found in other devices, it also doesn't fall behind. In other words, the Realme smartphone's performance is on par with its competitors, thanks to the Helio G88. The phone handles almost everything thrown at it with ease, providing a smooth user experience with only a few instances of lag or stuttering. While the device is not meant for heavy-duty tasks, it can run moderately heavy games such as Subway Surfer and Hill Climb Racing without generating much heat. The Realme C55 comes with three RAM and storage options: 4GB+64GB, 6GB RAM+64GB and 8GB+128GB. The storage is further expandable up to 1TB using a microSD card that fits into a dedicated slot. You can use a portion of the phone's storage to add up to 8GB of virtual RAM.

In the optics department, the Realme C55 is equipped with dual rear cameras comprising a 64MP primary unit and a 2MP depth unit. Up front, it features an 8MP snapper inside the punch-hole setup for selfies and video calling. The camera performance during daylight is impressive. The 64MP sensor captures sharp and detailed shots with vibrant colours, and the highlights around the shadows are well-managed. The same can be said for the front camera, which, although not as detailed as the primary camera, delivers decent selfies with natural-looking skin tones in bright lighting conditions. In low light, the phone manages to capture images with reasonable accuracy even though the sensors lag a bit. Additionally, there is graininess in the shots and a minor reduction in the vibrancy of colours and the brightness of highlights. The handset has a dedicated night mode to mitigate some of that noise. The Realme C55 also features a portrait mode, which gets the job done but it is not very accurate with edge detection.

The Realme C55's battery can last a full day with casual usage, including browsing, gaming, and social media. However, it's not the best in terms of battery life, as the phone's 5,000mAh battery only scored 10 hours and 25 minutes on the PC Mark battery test. With moderate to heavy usage, such as using Google Maps for navigation throughout the day, the battery may not last until the end of the day. Fortunately, the device supports 33W fast charging, which can fully charge the battery in under an hour and a half. For security, the phone comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which isn't very reliable. The scanner occasionally requires multiple attempts to detect the fingerprint. Moving on, the phone's single bottom-firing speaker is average at best. The audio output is neither crisp nor loud.

Software-wise, the Realme C55 runs on the latest Realme UI 4, which is based on Android 13. However, the custom Android skin is similar to previous iterations in terms of bloatware and ads. Additionally, the software includes some annoying notifications. Despite this, there are several new features such as dynamic widgets, flexible windows, large folders, and auto-pixelate, which can blur or pixelate sensitive information. One exclusive feature of the Realme C55 is the mini capsule, which is currently in testing. To enable it, you need to go to Realme Lab in the Settings app. Once enabled, a small pill will appear around the punch-hole whenever there is a notification for charging or battery information. Realme claims that it can also show data usage and steps taken in a day. However, the notifications can only be glanced at, and there is no option to interact with them, unlike the dynamic island feature on the iPhone 14 Pro. Additionally, there are new wallpapers available with the Realme UI 4.

Final verdict

The Realme C55 price in India is set at Rs 10,999 for the 4GB RAM variant, while the 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM variants cost Rs 11,999 and Rs 13,999 respectively. The competition includes a couple of Infinix devices, namely Note 12i and Hot 20. The latter is 5G-capable, while the Infinix Note 12i packs an AMOLED panel with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. If you are not after those features and can handle a sub-par portrait mode, a finicky fingerprint scanner, and software with bloatware and ads, then the Realme C55 will serve you well.

That said, It may not make sense to get the top-end variant of the handset unless your primary concern is storage since you can get a more powerful Realme 10 (review) that offers better specs and capabilities for the same price. The 4GB and 6GB RAM variant appears to be better value for money.