Realme C1 Review - The new standard of entry-level smartphones?
Ever since its launch, the Realme C1 wowed the crowd with it bang-for-buck features for just PHP 5,990!
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| Meet the Realme C1 |
After a few weeks of using it here's our full review! Let's see why it set the tech world abuzz.
For our review part 1: Realme C1 Unboxing and First Impressions
Display Quality
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| Realme C1 6.2-inch display |
Realme C1 sports a 6.2-inch 2.5D curved display. It has Gorilla Glass protection, In-Cell IPS screen with HD+ 1440 x 720 resolution at 260 ppi. It has a slim notch enough to house a single selfie camera, sensors and earpiece.
It has almost no size bezels and very small chin bezel. At first look it will make you remember of the OPPO A3S because they look very much alike.
On paper you might be worried it's pixelated, but in real life usage it is not. It is one of the better performing screen resolution at this price point. It has punchy yet accurate colors, good contrast, and nice viewing angles. It has nice sunlight legibility.
There's no option to hid the notch.
It has 5 points of multitouch, capable enough for typing and playing games.
Audio Quality
This smartphone is equipped with single loudspeaker placed at the bottom along with the micro USB and 3.5mm headphone jack ports.
It has unnoticeable lows, but it has decent mids and highs. Overall it has crisp details, it can go quite loud but you can notice the sound distortion. But the sound is decent for the price.
For headphones, quality is average and decent. But do not expect it to compete with smartphones with dedicated HiFi chips.
Microphone quality are okay for calls and decent performance for audio recordings as well.
Battery Life
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| Unreal benchmark! |
This smartphone's main highlights is the 4,230mAh of battery. At PC Mark battery test, we got a score of a whopping 20 hours and 4 minutes!
Whopping battery, unreal hours!
For the real life usage, we were able to use it for straight 2 days under light to moderate usage. Our usual usage include using a lot of social media apps like Facebook, taking photos and selfies, watching YouTube videos, and more.
Charging time is more than 2 hours which is tolerable for a smartphone with large battery capacity.
Camera
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| Realme C1's dual rear camera |
The Realme C1 features a dual rear camera setup of 13MP f/2.2 + 2MP f/2.4 with AF and LED flash.
It has the camera features like HDR, portrait mode, panorama, bokeh, and face beauty. You can also choose the aspect ratio for your shots easily. It has no pro mode.
C1 has fast focus and shooting speed for the price. It can take nice macro shots in daylight even without the bokeh mode.
Related: Realme C1: First Camera Samples
For daylight shots, it can capture images with plenty of details. It also has lively colors with decent punch and contrast. Dynamic range is also fairly wide most of the time except for against the light shots.
HDR works decently but not that HDR compared with smartphones twice its price. For lowlight, it shoots nice photos but expect it to be grainy. The LED flash can help soften and take better night shots.
In case you don't know, AI Beauty 2.0 is a beautification tech which can automatically give you beautified yet still a bit natural looking selfies with good exposure and colors. It also has HDR, filters, portrait (bokeh) mode, and screen flash for selfies.
Even tho it has only 5MP front camera, Realme C1 can shoot highly detailed selfies with good exposure and nice colors. The AI Beauty 2.0 can over-beautify you but you can turn it off and adjust the level depending on your preferability.
It can also take nice bokeh selfies under daylight and lowlight. You may opt for the screen flash when taking selfies under lowlight.
Overall, it is one of the better taking selfies for the price.
Related: Realme C1: First Camera Samples
For daylight shots, it can capture images with plenty of details. It also has lively colors with decent punch and contrast. Dynamic range is also fairly wide most of the time except for against the light shots.
HDR works decently but not that HDR compared with smartphones twice its price. For lowlight, it shoots nice photos but expect it to be grainy. The LED flash can help soften and take better night shots.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Daylight |
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| Close-up |
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| Indoor |
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| Indoor 2 |
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| Lowlight 1 |
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| Lowlight 2 |
For selfies, it is equipped with a single 5MP f/2.2 which supports AI Beauty 2.0.
In case you don't know, AI Beauty 2.0 is a beautification tech which can automatically give you beautified yet still a bit natural looking selfies with good exposure and colors. It also has HDR, filters, portrait (bokeh) mode, and screen flash for selfies.
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| Realme C1's 5MP selfie camera |
Even tho it has only 5MP front camera, Realme C1 can shoot highly detailed selfies with good exposure and nice colors. The AI Beauty 2.0 can over-beautify you but you can turn it off and adjust the level depending on your preferability.
It can also take nice bokeh selfies under daylight and lowlight. You may opt for the screen flash when taking selfies under lowlight.
Overall, it is one of the better taking selfies for the price.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Daylight selfie |
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| Indoor selfie |
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| Add caption |
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| Lowlight selfie |
Video Samples
Performance
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| Realme C1's benchmark scores! |
Inside, the Realme C1 is equipped with 1.8GHz 64-bit Snapdragon 450 octa-core processor along with Adreno 506 GPU, 2GB RAM, and 16GB expandable memory via dedicated microSD card slot up to 256GB.
The processor of C1 is above-average for the price. It is basically higher than most MT6750, Snapdragon 430/435, and Snapdragon 435 found on other brands.
Although it's an under PHP 6K smartphone, because of its nice processor, C1 is snappy and can even play some games like PUBG mobile on low settings with high frame rates properly.
Our only gripe is that it has only 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. BUT, it is still one of the smoothest as long as you don't install huge apps and open a lot of apps all at the same time.
Realme C1's thermal management is nice, it gets hot but not to the point of an alarming one.
Going to the software side, Realme C1 runs on the Android 8.1 Oreo with ColorOS 5.1. It doesn't have too much bloatware apps. Most of the pre-installed apps are intended for optimization.
The face unlock is snappy and fast even in lowlight, but Realme C1 has no fingerprint scanner.
Overall, connectivity and telephony experience is also nice. WiFi is stable, 4G LTE signal is strong in areas with strong LTE, GPS works, and it has dual SIM slots.
This smartphone has USB OTG support and gyroscope for VR and AR applications.
Pros - Modern design, huge screen, nice processor for the price, stellar battery, good cameras
Cons - No LED notification light, no fingerprint scanner
Speediest processor for the price!
The processor of C1 is above-average for the price. It is basically higher than most MT6750, Snapdragon 430/435, and Snapdragon 435 found on other brands.
Although it's an under PHP 6K smartphone, because of its nice processor, C1 is snappy and can even play some games like PUBG mobile on low settings with high frame rates properly.
Our only gripe is that it has only 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. BUT, it is still one of the smoothest as long as you don't install huge apps and open a lot of apps all at the same time.
Realme C1's thermal management is nice, it gets hot but not to the point of an alarming one.
Going to the software side, Realme C1 runs on the Android 8.1 Oreo with ColorOS 5.1. It doesn't have too much bloatware apps. Most of the pre-installed apps are intended for optimization.
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| Realme C1 UI |
The face unlock is snappy and fast even in lowlight, but Realme C1 has no fingerprint scanner.
Overall, connectivity and telephony experience is also nice. WiFi is stable, 4G LTE signal is strong in areas with strong LTE, GPS works, and it has dual SIM slots.
This smartphone has USB OTG support and gyroscope for VR and AR applications.
Pros - Modern design, huge screen, nice processor for the price, stellar battery, good cameras
Cons - No LED notification light, no fingerprint scanner
Verdict
Realme C1 can be the new standard of entry-level smartphones given its features and price. It looks really good paired with its unreal battery, good and capable cameras, plus its price!
It has few weaknesses but it is still one of the best for under PHP 6K smartphones!
Build/Design - 4.5
Display - 3.75
Audio - 4
Battery - 5
Camera - 4
Performance - 4.5
Average - 4.29/5
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