Review Verdict: In our review of the realme C55 in the Philippines proves that smartphone design evolves as a whole, regardless of price point or segment. Meanwhile, the rest of the phone is very much a rinse-and-repeat update of what we’ve seen with the brand’s devices in the past. Not that the formula doesn’t work.

Pros

• Unique design and eye-catching “Mini Capsule”
• Photos taken by the main camera are decent
• High-resolution display
• microSD card expansion

Cons

• No 5G
• Cameras other than main sensor aren’t usable
• Processor is a little weak

We’ve wanted to get the realme C55 in our hands for a review ever since we got a glimpse of its “Mini Capsule” feature. Now that we have the coveted entry-level smartphone in our hands, it’s time to see if it has anything else to boast besides its headlining feature.

Design

We said it in our First Impressions and our thoughts aren’t too far-off here. The realme C55 definitely punches above its weight in terms of design.

Looking at it from the front, there’s no fugly notch to be seen anywhere here. Those are one of the first dead giveaways of an entry-level device after all. Instead, we have a center-mounted punch hole that’s minimalistic yet fulfills its purpose. The bezels around the display aren’t too thick either, with a minimal chin and just enough on the sides to prevent the user from accidental touches.

The sides are standard fare for realme.

It’s a solid-feeling material with durable rockers, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, speaker, a USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The SIM and microSD card share a single tray that is perched high up on the smartphone’s left side.

Moving on to the rear, this “Sun Shower” color gives off a hazy, frosted matte glow. It reflects light splendidly and would be amazing to use in broad daylight. Around the camera module is a mirror-like material also finished with the same shades of yellow. It creates a nice distinction between this portion and the rest of the device’s exterior. Here, two concentric circles establish dominance as this device’s optical system.

As expected, the realme branding is lowkey as usual; even invisible in certain conditions.

Display and Sound

Thanks to the near-borderless design as well as the tasteful choice of punch hole location, the realme’s display has more leeway to shine a little bit brighter. It’s sporting a 6.72-inch IPS LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and a resolution of Full HD.

Despite the use of LCD technology, the display is still considerably vibrant. You won’t notice much of the difference between this and an AMOLED display double the price unless you put the two devices side-by-side. Watching content on this panel is a treat, and we thoroughly enjoyed catching up on our shows in bed and just scrolling through TikTok while in transit. The pixels aren’t distinguishable from one another thanks to the industry-standard pixel density as well.

Outdoor use also proved to be fairly easy with around 680 nits of peak brightness. Sure, flagships do come in at even double that, but it’s perfectly usable for your everyday purposes.

When it comes to the Mini Capsule, we’re not sure exactly how to describe it. Admittedly it’s a really cool feature to have. The Apple faithful may even be up in arms about it, but as mentioned in the Verdict, there’s no such thing as fully-original smartphone design anymore. Someone sets a standard in the industry and everyone follows if it works. That’s just the same here.

What has us on edge is that right now, there really isn’t any use for it that’s unrelated to the battery. You can’t use it with apps, to change music, or anything that made Apple’s Dynamic Island so fun. Future functionality can only come through software updates. But for an entry-level device like this, will realme really put in the time and effort to ensure compatibility? This is a big test.

Overall though, it’s a superb display for the segment with an interesting quirk to match.

Meanwhile, the speakers could definitely be a little bit louder. There’s only a single bottom-firing speaker here. As such, the resulting sound is a bit tinny and lacks some of that low-end we’ve grown accustomed to. Thankfully it’s not distorted even at maximum volume and things are still perfectly fine for most use cases.

Cameras

When it comes to the cameras, the realme C55 shelters a 64-megapixel main sensor and 2-megapixel depth camera. The primary sensor supports up to 1080p video recording at 60FPS.

We’ll cut straight to the chase with the main sensor since the depth camera’s just a stat-stuffer. These photos captured by the realme C55 are excellent for the price point. In well-lit scenic situations such as those above, it doesn’t fail to find focus and capture the necessary subjects in the image. It even exhibits excellent dynamic range.

Meanwhile, shots with subjects on 2x digital zoom still appear sharp and crisp. It’s good for taking product shots and other items.

Admittedly, one small gripe we have is some focus confusion like the one seen here. No matter how hard we tried to shift the focus to the cat and even move back, the white feline remained out of focus.

Low lighting conditions don’t seem to challenge the realme C55 that much, surprisingly. Of course it’s not going to perform like an optical system on a flagship. But the detail is somehow maintained, the digital noise, while present, is managed, and images aren’t what you’d expect from a device within this price range.

Internals and Battery Life

Inside the realme C55 featured in this review for the Philippines is the MediaTek Helio G88 processor. It’s a mid-range 4G chipset that’s also being used by a lot of other brands, so it’s already been tried and tested. Our first impressions regarding its speedy performance when it comes to everyday tasks still stand. We never felt any lags, crashes, or anything of the sort when browsing social media and watching YouTube videos. There’s an occasional hiccup when playing videos at 1440p but it didn’t occur often enough to be an actual concern.

The model we have here has 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, perfectly adequate for multitasking. It’s also a contributing factor that realmeUI 4.0 is light and easy to run. After all, most of realme’s devices run on lower-end hardware, so the company is no stranger to optimizing every bit of power for efficiency.

Thanks to this, scrolling is a smooth and effortless experience. The use of 90Hz here also places less stress on the processor. We’re very happy they went for Full HD at 90Hz rather than HD at 120Hz. It won’t power through apps like a weightlifting flagship processor, but it has no problems going through the paces without breaking a sweat.

Here are some benchmark scores against one of our top gaming picks below PHP 10K, the Infinix Note 12, as well as the all-new Redmi Note 12. Keep in mind that the huge disparity in the Geekbench Compute score was from the other two devices’ inability to complete one of the tests.

The device easily lasted through a day of use. Its 5000 mAh battery can also be quickly topped up via 33W charging.

Wrap-Up and Conclusions

The realme C55 in this review for the Philippines is another masterclass on how to do an entry-level smartphone the right way. Sure, the “Smart Capsule” is still a useless gimmick right now, but it’s a nice thing to have for the future just in case updates make better use of it.

Besides that, it does follow the same recipe that realme’s used in the past and runs just as smoothly. It’s a perfect first phone for those who’re still learning how to use these devices, like children or the elderly, and it’ll fare perfectly as a daily driver or spare work phone you can carry around. Its design is interesting even without considering the Smart Capsule functionality.

You also get stellar value-for-money here so it’s a no-brainer for those looking for a device within this price bracket.

realme C55 Review Price Philippines

The realme C55 will be sold in the Philippines with two different memory configurations. The 6/128GB model will be sold for PHP 8,999 while the 8/256GB variant will set you back PHP 10,999.

Click here for the 6/128GB product page and here for the 8/256.