Entry-level King?
Realme is finally here in the Philippines, with the former OPPO sub-brand targeting the lower end of the market with their first official release, the Realme C1. The C1 is one of the few phones currently in the market that can challenge Xiaomi’s hold on the budget market, thanks to a solid set of hardware and extremely affordable price tag.
Boasting a youthful style, big display, and powerful battery, is the Realme C1 really the newest entry-level king? Read on to find out.
Unboxing
The Realme C1 comes in a simple white box that has a red stripe at the bottom with the company’s logo on it. Opening the box, you’ll see the sim ejector, jelly case and documentation. We then have the phone, a microUSB cable, and the wall adapter.
The phone doesn’t look like a budget device.
No, it doesn’t. Although the Realme C1 looks similar to its older sibling, the Realme 2, it’s primarily made out of plastic. The phone looks premium from afar, and the plastic rear does approximate the look of glass when viewed from a distance, but it’s still made from polycarbonate, which is to be expected from a phone at this price range.
It does feel light on the hand, but a bit big to hold. There’s this illusion of metal on the frame thanks to the finish on the sides which make it a bit easier to grip on to. Plus points if you hate fingerprint marks on your device, because the C1 isn’t much of a fingerprint magnet. Yay.
You won’t find a fingerprint scanner at the back with the C1 like most phones nowadays, just its dual cameras and the Realme logo.
The unit we got came in black, but there is a navy blue option as well. There isn’t anything fancy going on there, no gradient or patterned whatever at the back, just a solid, glossy slab of plastic.
The power button is located at the right, while the volume rocker and sim card slot are on the left. Its tray can carry two nano sims, and MicroSD card. At the bottom you will find the MicroUsb port, speaker grille, and the 3.5mm jack. While it does have a headphone jack, Realme didn’t include earphones with the C1.
How big is the display on the Realme C1?
Pretty big. One of the main selling points of the Realme C1 is its larger than average 6.2 inch HD+ IPS LCD display with of course, a notch on top. It’s almost bezeless but it does have a pretty big chin, narrowing its screen to body ratio down to 88.8%. By the way, there is no way to hide that notch but you guys are probably used to it by now.
Its display is bright enough to be seen even under direct sunlight, and has pretty accurate colors. It’s viewing angles are decent and I actually did enjoy watching videos on it.
I do have bad eyesight, so I actually do prefer dimming my screen display so that I don’t blind my eyes with blue light. The C1 has a Night Shield option to help with that. Yes you can use it during the day even though it’s a night shield!
Sound quality is okay, nothing special. It does get loud but lacks depth and bass.
The phone’s cameras are decent but aren’t amazing
Moving on let’s talk about its cameras. The C1 has a 5MP selfie cam with an f/2.2 aperture. Its decent enough to take decent selfies, helped by on-board AI, though the artificial bokeh that it delivers isn’t as clean compared to other phones.
It has dual shooters at the back: a 13-megapixel main camera with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Photo quality under natural light is okay with color and sharpness looking decent. It can do better though for low lighting situations as photos tend to turn out noisy.
Let us remember that this is an entry-level device, and unlike most smartphones nowadays, it isn’t actually using its cameras as a selling point? I mean nothing against it, but they are targeting the youth, and the youth sure do love their cameras and selfies, so I guess they’ll be improving that aspect with their future devices? I don’t know, we’ll find out next year. Okay moving on.
It has decent performance for its price
The C1 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 450, has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, expandable to 256GB. It does seem to lag when you have a lot of apps opened all at once, but if you do remember to exit your apps properly it gets the job done. Don’t expect much when it comes to gaming as you’ll have to turn down the graphics way down just to get a decent, smooth playing experience.
It runs on Color OS 5.1 with Android 8.1 Oreo. It sadly comes with a lot of pre-installed apps (Google apps are okay, sure, but what is Zalo even?) that eat up a big chunk of your tiny 16GB internal storage. Good thing you can uninstall most of them.
Since Realme didn’t put a fingerprint scanner on the C1, you’ll have to contend with the face unlock option which worked surprisingly well. Do take note that it’s not as secure as a fingerprint scanner though.
It has insane battery life
The C1 has a pretty massive battery at 4230mAh. On our battery benchmark test, the C1 did really, really well. It lasted 15 hours and 41 minutes before it hit critical levels. As John said, the Snapdragon 450 chipset worked wonders for the battery endurance of the device. So I guess, don’t let that chipset and teeny RAM stop you from getting this device? Consider this powerful battery that can go up to two days without charging. No more having to bring heavy powerbanks? Uh sign me up! Do note it only charges via MicroUSB though so yes it takes a while to top up once you deplete its juice.
Is it an entry-level king?
At Php 5,990, I would definitely say this device is a real threat to the reigning entry level king – Xiaomi’s Mi 6A. an entry-level king for its price. It’s currently the most affordable smartphone in the country that has a Snapdragon 450 chipset in it. If I were a teenager on a lookout for budget smartphone, I would definitely consider getting this device. It has a big display, gets the job done (at least for day-to-day tasks), it has decent cameras, and that “mega battery” does live up to its name.
Realme doesn’t have a physical store yet in the country but you can order their entry-level king at Lazada.ph for Php 5,490.
