The Realme C31: A Stylish Budget Smartphone with a Few Compromises
The sub-Rs. 10,000 smartphone segment is a fierce battleground, overflowing with options for budget-conscious buyers. New entrants like the Realme C31 aim to stand out with appealing features like a sleek design, a long-lasting battery, and a triple-camera setup, all for a compelling price. But is the Realme C31 just a pretty face or is there more to this budget champion? Let’s delve into this review and find out.
Realme C31 Price In India And Variants
The Realme C31 is available in India in two variants:
- 3GB RAM + 32GB storage: Launched at Rs. 8,999, currently priced at Rs. 9,299.
4GB RAM + 64GB storage: Priced at Rs. 9,999.
Both variants come in Light Silver and Dark Green color options. For this review, we tested the 4GB RAM configuration.
Realme C31 Design
The Realme C31 makes a striking first impression with its sleek and modern design, considering its sub-Rs. 10,000 price tag. The Light Silver variant exudes a subtle elegance. The phone’s tall profile is noticeable right away, and the triple-camera setup protrudes slightly at the back, causing the phone to wobble when placed flat.
The polycarbonate back is minimalistically designed, featuring a unique texture across the entire panel, except for the camera module. This textured finish effectively resists fingerprints and scratches.
The Realme C31’s power button, conveniently placed on the right side and integrated with a fingerprint sensor, is easily accessible. The left side houses the SIM card slot and volume buttons. The speaker grille is positioned on the back panel, which can hinder sound output when the phone is flat on a surface.
On the bottom, you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack, a primary microphone, and a micro-USB port. While the phone offers a 10W charger in the box, a protective case is sadly missing.
The Realme C31 boasts a 6.5-inch HD+ LCD display with a waterdrop-style notch on the top housing the front camera. The bezels are relatively thin, although the bottom chin appears slightly chunky. The display refreshes at a standard 60Hz rate. Weighing in at 197g, it falls into the heavier category, yet its balanced weight distribution minimizes any discomfort during one-handed usage.
Realme C31 Specifications And Software
The Realme C31 is powered by the Unisoc T612 SoC, fabricated using a 12nm process. This octa-core processor clocks up to 1.82GHz. The internal storage is of the UFS 2.2 standard, a feature rarely seen in this price segment. The C31 supports dual nano-SIM cards and a microSD card for additional storage expansion up to 1TB. Connectivity options include 4G/LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, and unfortunately, only 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. During the review, we experienced intermittent Wi-Fi disconnections despite being in the same room as the router.
The Realme C31 runs on a customized version of Realme UI called Realme UI R edition. This lightweight UI is optimized for performance on lower-end devices. However, it still comes pre-loaded with various bloatware apps like Facebook, Josh, Paytm, and Sharechat, although they can be uninstalled if desired.
While our testing unit was running Android 11 with a March 2022 security patch initially, an OTA update with the April patch was later received. The UI closely resembles the vanilla Realme UI, featuring minor adjustments and limited customization options. For instance, Realme UI R edition does not allow for icon customization, transitions, or even app layout changes on the home screen.
The UI is easy to navigate, with all essential settings and quick actions readily accessible. The C31 also incorporates Smart Controls, offering features like Smart wake, Smart motion, Pocket mode, and more. It lacks a dedicated gallery app, necessitating the use of the preinstalled Google Photos app or downloading an alternative.
Realme C31 Performance And Battery Life
The Realme C31 delivered a generally smooth daily usage experience. However, minor stutters were observed in animations when opening the notification bar, especially when apps like WhatsApp and Instagram were actively pushing out several alerts. Scrolling through the UI and switching between apps was not a problem.
The Realme C31 offers two biometric authentication methods: fingerprint unlock and face recognition. While the fingerprint sensor responded reasonably fast, face recognition proved slightly slower than anticipated.
In terms of performance benchmarks, the Realme C31 achieved a score of 197,830 in AnTuTu, 339 in Geekbench’s single-core test, and 1279 in its multi-core test. It also scored 7,348 in the PCMark Work 3.0 benchmark. These scores were not particularly impressive and, in some cases, fell short of the scores achieved by the Realme C25, launched a year ago with a MediaTek Helio G70 SoC.
Despite the underwhelming benchmark scores, games ran relatively smoothly on the Realme C31. We tested a wide range of titles, including BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile, PES 2021, Asphalt 9 Legends, and more.
Call of Duty: Mobile played decently well with low graphics settings and frame rates. However, increasing the graphics to medium or high settings resulted in choppy gameplay during shootouts, making the game almost unplayable. This also caused localized heating on the back panel after continuous gameplay for 15 minutes. Asphalt 9: Legends ran well on high-quality settings with occasional minor stutters during shockwave boosts, but these did not significantly hinder the gaming experience.
The Realme C31 allowed us to play BGMI with ‘Smooth’ graphics and ‘High’ frame rate settings without encountering any lag or stutter. Switching to ‘HD’ graphics resulted in hiccups during squad fights and while driving vehicles, as parts of the map took a longer time to load. The gyroscope, however, functioned seamlessly, allowing for precise recoil control during gunfights. Games like Temple Run and Subway Surfers ran flawlessly without any issues. The phone’s Settings app allows for enabling ‘Auto Resolution’, which lowers the screen resolution in games to conserve battery and reduce heating. However, we did not notice any significant difference in performance or usability after enabling this feature.
The Realme C31’s display boasts decent viewing angles and offers three color tone presets: Standard, Warm, and Cool. We found the ‘Standard’ mode to deliver the most balanced color representation. The HD+ resolution isn’t the sharpest for such a large screen size, but it delivers a decent viewing experience. The screen has a brightness of 400 nits, making it easily readable even in direct sunlight.
While colors on the Realme C31’s display appeared good overall, whites popped well, and videos exhibited good contrast, the device lacks Widevine L1 support, so OTT apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are limited to standard definition playback. The speaker quality was decent, delivering enough volume for handheld use. The earpiece performed well, allowing for clear voice reception during phone calls.
The Realme C31 allows enabling video display enhancement, intended to intensify colors and enhance vividness for videos. We preferred keeping it disabled, as it made videos appear overly artificial.
The Realme C31 is equipped with a 5,000mAh battery, achieving a 13 hours and 53 minutes in our HD video loop test, slightly lower than expected. On average, the phone lasted for a full day’s worth of usage, which included a combination of gaming, media consumption, and typical everyday usage. Lighter usage allowed for over a full day of battery life. The included 10W charger took 30 minutes to charge the phone to 23 percent and 2 hours, 30 minutes for a full charge.
Realme C31 Cameras
The Realme C31 comes equipped with a triple-camera array on the rear, comprising a 13-megapixel primary camera with an f/2.2 aperture, a 2-megapixel macro camera with an f/2.4 aperture, and a black-and-white camera with an f/2.8 aperture. The front sports a single 5-megapixel camera with an f/2.2 aperture. The camera interface presents a simplified version of the regular Realme camera app, and we observed occasional frame drops in the viewfinder while capturing photos.
The camera app itself is straightforward to use and navigate. However, the Realme C31’s camera performance was merely average at best. Photos taken in daylight were decent but lacked good detail, which became apparent upon zooming in. The 13-megapixel primary camera managed to keep colors fairly realistic, yet the dynamic range proved inconsistent. Enabling ‘Auto HDR’ mode resulted in oversharpened images and oversaturated colors. While the C31 supports digital zoom up to 4X, images captured at maximum magnification were grainy and underwhelming.
Macro images were disappointing, lacking detail and often exhibiting a pink tint. Capturing a successful macro shot required multiple attempts, as achieving proper focus proved challenging.
Portrait mode, limited to the rear camera, surprisingly worked only on people and not on objects. Edge detection was decent and reasonably consistent, although occasional blurring of unintended areas occurred. The camera UI lets you adjust the blur level before capturing each portrait.
Images captured with the front camera under bright light appeared overexposed and ordinary. The 5-megapixel sensor struggled to capture sufficient detail on faces and surroundings. Images also exhibited visible noise, which is undesirable.
Low-light photos were far from impressive, exhibiting noticeable noise even in well-lit environments. Images lacked detail and appeared soft. The camera also struggled to maintain focus in dimly lit conditions, with bright light sources often being blown out in low-light shots. Activating Night Pro mode brought about a slight improvement in brightness, it balanced overblown light sources but tended to saturate the images, as evident in the samples.
The Realme C31 can record videos at a maximum resolution of 1080p at 30fps. Daylight videos were unremarkable, with average detail and noticeable shake due to a lack of stabilization. Footage captured in low light exhibited significant noise. However, the absence of electronic stabilization meant there was no shimmer effect even while walking during recording, which was a positive aspect.
Verdict
The Realme C31 performed satisfactorily as our daily driver. Switching between apps and multitasking within the Realme UI R edition provided a smooth experience, although we wouldn’t recommend playing graphics-intensive games on this device since it is not designed for such demanding tasks. The phone boasts a modern and stylish design, making it hard to discern at first glance that it is a budget device. The 5,000mAh battery delivered sufficient battery life.
The C31’s cameras could have been better, and the restriction of Portrait mode to only human subjects was a significant drawback. If you’re considering purchasing the Realme C31, we recommend opting for the higher RAM and storage variant, as the price difference is minimal and it should offer better long-term performance.
For alternative options in the same price bracket, the recently launched Moto E32s is a compelling contender to consider.
