Realme C1 Review | Best Budget Phone?

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The Realme C1 is a great budget device and comes with a big screen which makes it a great companion for media consumption. Also, the battery is huge and provides great battery life so you won’t have to run for a charger at the end of the day. Let’s take a closer look at the C1 and see what makes it a great budget smartphone in our Realme C1 review.

Realme C1 Design

The Realme C1 looks quite similar to the other realme smartphones. From the back, it resembles the Realme 1 due to the lack of a fingerprint scanner. Upfront, it resembles to the Realme 2 because of the notch. The back of the device is made out of plastic which has a glossy finish to it. Yeah, it is not premium but it’s far from bad also. The C1 is available in only two color options-Black and Blue.

Picking up the device, you will immediately feel that the back feels plasticky, however, the device is pretty easy to handle due to the compact dimensions. It is not the slimmest at 8.2 mm but the weight of 168 grams is pretty decent for comfortable usage. The phone is not IP certified which is acceptable for the price tag at which the phone comes in.

The buttons on the Realme C1 are clicky and tactile with Volume keys on the left and Power key on the right. Upfront is a tall display with a notch. The notch houses an earpiece along with the front camera and proximity sensor. At the bottom, there is a single bottom firing speaker, headphone jack, primary mic, and Micro USB charging port. There is nothing on the back except the Dual camera setup placed horizontally in the top left. Overall, the device feels pretty solid but lacks water resistance and wireless charging, which are acceptable. However, what’s not acceptable is the absence of a Fingerprint scanner.

Display

One thing that we really liked about the Realme C1 is the display. While the entry level phones have small screens, C1 is different. It comes with a 6.2 inch display which has a resolution of 720 x 1520 and a pixel density of 271 pixels-per-inch. While the display isn’t the sharpest, the bezels are slim but there is a considerable chin below the screen. Also, it is protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.

The screen on the realme C1 is one of the biggest in the segment, however, the screen resolution is low which means the display isn’t sharp enough. If you look closely, you can immediately pick up individual pixels on the screen but from a normal usable distance, the screen is pretty much OKAY. It’s a vibrant LCD panel with good viewing angles but the sunlight visibility is average. The screen size is pretty big which makes it great for media consumption. Overall, it’s is a great display which makes it a great entry level device for watching movies and stuff.

Realme C1: Performance and Software

With Realme C1 comes the Snapdragon 450 which is an entry-level SoC. It is an Octa-core chipset which is based on 14-nanometer architecture capable of reaching the max frequency of 1.8 GHz. For graphics, it comes with Adreno 506 GPU which is incapable of handling heavy games and apps. The use of weak SoC is immediately noticeable when scrolling through Social media app or playing demanding titles like PUBG.

The performance is smooth and lags free while performing basic tasks, however, the limits become visible when movie to some intense tasks. The apps take time to load and scrolling through the UI isn’t always smooth either. Yeah, it can play PUBG at low graphics setting and even then that gameplay is not totally smooth. However, the performance is acceptable for the price segment. The device also comes in only a single variant which includes 16GB of onboard storage and 2 GB of RAM. Although, the memory is expandable using a Micro SD card up to 256GB. Overall, you can do basic stuff with it like web browsing or watching movies etc but Realme C1 is incapable of playing heavy games.

The Realme C1 comes with Color OS 5.2 on top of Android Oreo 8.1. It’s a heavily themed skin which looks dated because of the big icons. The software feels unoptimized as the notch cuts up some of the content in various apps which is a disappointment. There are some useful features like Gaming mode, split screen, etc. Also, these OS comes with Minimal bloatware and the ones that do come preinstalled can be uninstalled. Overall, the software is pretty OKAY for basic usage. However, Android Pie might not make its way to the Realme C1.

Camera and Battery Life

The Realme C1 comes with a 13 Megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture and a 2 Megapixel camera with f/2.4 aperture. On the front, there is a 5 Megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture. The camera app is simple and comes with features like HDR, Time Lapse, Panorama, Stickers etc. It is capable of fast autofocus and the shutter speed is also quick.

The camera quality is good when the light conditions are suitable. Images shot by Realme C1 have plenty of details and good colors. However, in low light, the images are blurry and contains noise. Portrait mode images are just average and the edge detection is just bad. Also, the front camera is pretty much average. It takes good images when the light is good but goes straight bad during the night.

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