Realme C55 Review: A Budget Phone With Great Design, But Lots of Shortcomings
Realme’s C55 made headlines when it was first launched in Indonesia for being the first Android smartphone to feature a copy of Apple’s Dynamic Island feature. Realme branded this software feature as "Mini Capsule," but as the phone arrives in India, it’s becoming clear that the Mini Capsule is not the most interesting thing about it. The Realme C55 is attracting attention in India for its surprisingly competitive pricing and its stylish new design. However, a closer look reveals that this phone comes with a set of compromises, mainly related to software performance and battery life. Is the Realme C55 still a good pick in the crowded budget smartphone market? Let’s find out.
Realme C55 Price in India
The Realme C55 is available in three variants in India:
- 4GB RAM + 64GB storage: Rs. 10,999
- 6GB RAM + 64GB storage: Rs. 11,999
- 8GB RAM + 128GB storage: Rs. 13,999
This pricing strategy is impressive for a C-series device, especially considering the 8GB RAM variant, which is a first for the C-series. You can choose between two color finishes: Sunshower or Rainy Night. I received the 8GB RAM variant in the Sunshower finish for this review.
Realme C55 Design
Realme attempted to give its C-series a fresh, stylish look with the C35 in 2022. While the C35 did improve on the basic entry-level designs of previous C-series devices, its design was the only redeeming factor—as I discovered in my review.
The C55 takes things a step further in terms of design. It boasts a sleek and modern appearance with straight lines, a chiselled body, and flat sides. There’s a flat display on the front, and unlike the C35, it features a hole-punch design that complements the phone’s modern aesthetic. While the bezels on the left, top, and right are thin, the bottom bezel is slightly thicker.
Turning the phone over, it’s hard to believe this is a budget smartphone, thanks to two key design elements. First, the back features a dual-tone finish, combining a finely striped matte texture across most of the back with a polished section around the protruding cameras. This adds a refreshing touch for a budget phone. Second, the matte finish does a great job of resisting fingerprints. While the rear panel and frame are made of polycarbonate, making them less prone to cracking from drops compared to glass, Realme uses Panda glass for the display. While the display is susceptible to smudges, they can be easily cleaned.
The phone weighs 189g, which is a bit on the heavier side, but feels rather slim at 7.89mm. Although there’s no IP rating and no stereo speakers, you get a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Type-C USB port at the bottom. The fingerprint reader is embedded within the power button, but I found it a little difficult to press because it sits nearly flush with the flat side of the frame.
Realme C55 Specifications and Software
The Realme C55 is powered by a MediaTek Helio G88 SoC, which means it lacks 5G connectivity. Realme states that the phone utilizes LPDDR4X RAM and EMMC 5.1 storage. The SIM tray accommodates two nano-SIMs and has a dedicated slot for a microSD card (up to 1TB), which is a nice addition.
Connectivity options include 4G LTE, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, and the usual array of sensors and GPS. The phone packs a 5,000mAh battery and comes with a 33W wired charger in the box.
The Realme C55 runs Realme UI 4.0, based on Android 13. It comes pre-installed with a plethora of Realme and third-party apps, leading to redundancy and a confusing user experience. For example, you’ll find two ‘Messages’ apps for SMS, two file managers, two note-taking apps, and more. The inability to uninstall most of these pre-installed apps is quite annoying, and it’s even more frustrating to see ads and promotional notifications daily from the Game Center and App Market apps.
Realme C55 Performance
The 6.72-inch full-HD+ IPS LCD display boasts a 90Hz maximum refresh rate, switching between 60Hz and 90Hz depending on the running application and content. The display is vibrant and bright enough for comfortable outdoor viewing, even on sunny days. It also has excellent viewing angles. It’s good to know that the phone is equipped with Widevine L1 certification, enabling full-HD quality playback for streaming services.
My everyday usage experience with the Realme C55, which included an hour of gaming, an hour or two of video streaming on Wi-Fi, and browsing social media apps, fell short of even my basic expectations. Realme UI 4.0 didn’t seem well-optimized for the hardware, resulting in frequent stuttering and noticeable lag across various tasks, including general interface navigation, minimizing apps, swiping through video-heavy feeds on Instagram, and other common use cases. The overall experience felt like the hardware was struggling to keep up with basic interactions. I tested the 8GB RAM variant, so imagine how much worse it would be on the 4GB RAM variant. I also encountered some stuttering when streaming videos, although the latest software update, released just a few days before publishing this review, resolved this issue.
As for the Mini Capsule feature, little has changed since I first tried it a month ago. Most people won’t even notice it exists because it’s easy to miss the small animated notification prompts that expand around the hole-punch camera. Samsung does a much better job with its pop-up notifications, which are presented in a capsule shape and relay a wider variety of notifications, unlike Realme’s limited selection of prompts.
The Realme C55 performs as expected given its MediaTek Helio G88 SoC. The phone’s benchmark scores were not impressive. Even the iQoo Z6 Lite with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 SoC achieved better scores. The Realme C55 scored 2,57,736 points in AnTuTu, along with 422 and 1,411 points in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests. The graphics performance wasn’t great either, explaining the stuttering and lag in the UI. The phone managed 39fps in GFXBench’s T-Rex test, 14fps in Manhattan 3.1, and 8.5fps in Car Chase.
Gaming performance on the device is below average. Call of Duty: Mobile was playable at Medium graphics quality and High framerate, but would lag after about 15 minutes, and the phone started to heat up. Asphalt 9 Legends proved to be too demanding even at the lowest graphics setting (Performance), leading to constant lag and stuttering. This smartphone is better suited for simple casual games. Its single speaker gets quite loud, but the sound quality is distorted at higher volumes.
Despite limited usage, I was surprised to find that the phone only managed a single day of battery life on a single charge. This could be a result of the low-end processor, but I expected the 5,000mAh battery to last for more than a day, which is the norm for most budget smartphones these days. Our standard HD video loop battery test only lasted for 14 hours and 43 minutes, which is on the lower end compared to other smartphones at this price. On the positive side, the 33W charger managed to charge the phone from zero to full in 1 hour and 10 minutes, which is quite good.
Realme C55 Cameras
The Realme C55 boasts two rear-facing cameras:
- 64-megapixel primary camera
- 2-megapixel depth sensor (used for gathering depth data in Portrait mode)
An 8-megapixel front camera handles selfies. The camera app interface is user-friendly with all the essential controls accessible around the viewfinder. Realme claims that the 64-megapixel sensor is from the older GT Master Edition, which initially raised hopes for its performance in a budget phone. However, it’s important to remember that camera performance also depends on the processor, and the GT Master Edition was equipped with a superior mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G SoC.
Daylight image quality was surprisingly impressive. Photos showed acceptable dynamic range and good detail. While colours tended to be slightly oversaturated with a minor bluish tint, it’s hard to complain at this price point. Close-ups came out sharp and clear, with low noise levels and good detail. However, I noticed that the camera was slow to focus indoors even during daylight, often requiring me to tap to focus on objects.
Selfies appeared slightly sharpened in daylight but with decent detail and dynamic range. The edge detection in Portrait mode using the selfie camera was average for this segment. In low light, selfies ended up a bit soft and noisy regardless of the chosen mode. Edge detection wasn’t accurate either.
The camera’s low-light performance in Auto mode wasn’t great. It struggled to focus in dimly lit scenes, resulting in soft photos lacking detail. The dedicated Night mode significantly improved image quality, bringing in more detail and sharpness, along with added definition to textures. It was impressive for this segment, but capturing an image takes 4-5 seconds, so if you don’t hold the phone steady, image quality can deteriorate considerably.
Video quality is limited to 1080p at 60fps. Recorded footage had decent detail but lacked dynamic range, and there were some clipped highlights. Videos lack stabilisation completely, making them quite shaky. In low light, recording at 1080p 30fps resulted in better quality, with decent dynamic range, but the video was still quite low on detail and noisy. Clips were shaky, and focusing was a problem.
Conclusion
In 2023, many smartphone brands have started offering 5G models at the lower end of the budget segment. Examples include the Infinix Hot 20 5G (priced starting at Rs. 11,499) and the Poco M4 5G (priced at Rs. 11,999), among others. There are also smartphones like the iQoo Z6 Lite 5G, which costs Rs. 13,999 onwards, offering better software performance, good camera performance, and 5G connectivity.
Realme believes it has found a sweet spot with an interesting design (for a budget smartphone) and a decent camera that captures good daylight photos. However, the battery life is below expectations for a budget smartphone, and the software is overloaded with bloatware. My review unit experienced lag and stuttering throughout the review period, despite having 8GB of RAM. This makes it difficult to recommend the Realme C55. Consider it only if you prioritize a good camera or are willing to overlook its shortcomings due to its unique design.
