Realme C55 First Look: Biggest C Series Upgrade

We recently published an interview with a realme product manager, in which we were promised a major update

C-series, one of the first heralds of which will be realme C55. Perhaps even quoting an excerpt from the interview:

“…with the launch of realme C55, we are preparing a massiveupgrade of the entire C-series: the smartphone will receive improvements in four areas at once and surprise users with one special advanced feature, and it will still not even be a device in the middle price segment.

Now there are some details.realme works closely with users, conducting dozens of studies, thanks to which we have identified the 4 most important points for users mentioned above. These are the design, the amount of memory, the quality of the camera and the charging speed.

In principle, they could not conduct research, butjust contact us at the editorial office. We write these thoughts in almost every review. I suppose readers can only be confused by the fact that the amount of memory is indicated, but not a word about the chipset. But in fact, this is how it is: the amount and quality of memory affect performance much more than the chipset.

The fact is that today almost any chipsethas excess power. And the bottleneck is precisely the amount of memory, both operational and storage. If there is not enough memory or it is slow, then applications take a long time to launch, and if you minimize the application, it will automatically close (to free up memory). Often, if you pick up a cheap smartphone, and it expressively “dumbs”, then the reason is just in the slow memory. The situation, by the way, is similar to computers. Take some old Intel Pentium but replace the hard drive with an SSD. You will be surprised how immediately the system “flies”.

And now the smartphone was brought to the editorial office, so let's study! By the way, let's start with memory, since this is the first thing that catches your eye.

Note: about prices and gifts at the start of sales - at the end of the text.

About the specifications: 16 GB of dynamic RAM and a 256 GB drive
Appearance
Camera
Battery life and fast charging
Main innovation: mini-capsule (and let's talk about the screen)
Specifications
Conclusion

About the specifications: 16 GB of dynamic RAM and a 256 GB drive

C-series taught that these are goodbudget smartphones, in which it is customary to see drives with a capacity of 32 GB, 64 GB, well, in extreme cases, 128 GB. Realme C55 has a 256 GB sticker on the back.

No less surprising is the amount of RAM- 8 GB, as well as the ability to allocate another 8 GB of virtual RAM from the drive. The total amount of memory is 16 GB. With this amount of RAM, the smartphone will be able to “keep” dozens of open web pages and applications without restarting.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but realme C55 isthe first C-series smartphone to support dynamic RAM. And that's a big deal. For dynamic RAM, it is important to have a high-speed drive, otherwise the whole system will slow down and lag. And in budget smartphones from time immemorial, they liked to install leisurely eMMC drives.

Realme C55 clearly has a UFS drive. By the way, they didn’t forget about memory cards either. With 256 GB of storage, a memory card is unlikely to be needed, but a separate microSD slot is still in place.

Other features to be expected:realme C55 is powered by MediaTek Helio G88 chipset. Supports Wi-Fi 5 (both bands 2.4 GHz + 5.0 GHz), Bluetooth 5.2, Type-C charging. Of course, there is also NFC with support for Mir cards.

Helio G88 is a good chipset that beats out intest AnTuTu 9 262 thousand points. The chipset has 2 productive cores and 6 energy efficient ones. We will not dissemble, this is not a gaming chipset, since it can only run games at medium settings. But this is the beauty of optimizing the Android 13 operating system that runs the smartphone. It automatically sets the settings, allowing you to run any applications and games that are in the Google Play store.

realme C55 will handle PUBG, Call of Duty or Genshin Impact. Games will run well on medium settings.

Appearance

Cool design is still one of the mainselling factors. And this applies to any smartphone. For example, sales statistics show that an iPhone design update automatically means a surge in sales. The same Nothing Phone 1 received good sales thanks to its unusual design, although at a price of $ 400 the smartphone has mediocre characteristics.

Designers usually bypass the initial segment of the marketside. The reason is simple: there is no budget. realme C55 is no exception in this regard, but still a powerful step forward, as the smartphone received a design related to the realme 10 series.

At the bottom there is a 3.5 mm jack, microphone, speaker and Type-C.

On the right side is a fingerprint scanner. Works quickly and accurately. The smartphone also has face unlock.

A protective film is immediately pasted on the screen.

The back panel is similar in texture to polished metal. Although realme itself says:

The design of the smartphone is inspired by the beauties of nature.More than 500,000 30 micron particles are arranged in vertical lines that extend from top to bottom, like rain falling from the sky. In combination with bright colors, this creates the impression that a lot of sunlight illuminates the space, giving a feeling of freshness and lightness.

However, more interested in practicalside of the issue. The case is made of composite materials (polycarbonate and polymethyl methacrylate), which, according to the company, have increased strength and scratch resistance. By the way, in my opinion, the biggest flaw in the design of the smartphone is a complete smoke-colored case. We could go even further and make the case just opaque black so that the beautiful design is not visible at all.

The glossy area around the camera block looks interesting. And the lenses themselves attract attention. They were made deliberately large, with metal-like edging.

Obviously as a sample designrealme series 10 was used. You will laugh, but with a visual similarity, realme C55 looks more expensive and more interesting than realme 10 with a sparkling glossy back. Realme 10 Pro can more or less compete, but this is already a smartphone for 25 thousand rubles (for 8/128 GB).

See below comparison with realme 10 and realme 10Pro. It's a matter of taste, but in my opinion it's impossible not to admit that the realme C55 at least stands out. If you don’t know in advance, but evaluate only by appearance, then I would suggest that the most expensive model is just realme C55, realme 10 Pro is in second place, and realme 10 looks the easiest.

Curious to see what will result in suchan approach. Since there is a principle on the market: the more expensive the device, the more they invest in design. realme clearly intends to break this tradition. If the company succeeds, then we, as buyers, will win, as inexpensive smartphones will look more interesting.

realme C55 looks more interesting against the background of the glossy realme 10.

Camera

Deliberately large lenses of the main camera arenot just a design element. Realme C55 has a 64 MP camera, which is assisted by a 2 MP depth sensor for portraits with a bokeh effect. In the realme C55 camera, it’s not even the number of megapixels that matters, but the size of the matrix - 1/2 inch. For comparison, realme 10 has a 50 MP camera with a 1/2.76-inch sensor.

The larger the matrix, the more light it captures, the better the detail and color reproduction of the photo.

Realme also says that realme C55 usesthe ProLight night shooting algorithm, which moved from the flagship GT2 Pro: the smartphone takes a picture in RAW format, and then, using artificial intelligence, removes unnecessary noise and increases the contrast and clarity of the image.

64 MP large sensor camera in C-series andadvanced algorithms are a bold and dangerous decision. For example, if photo quality is more important to me and I prefer to play casual games like "balls" or agree to play 3D games at medium settings, then I can buy a 256 GB C55, not a 128 GB realme 10 for 18 thousand rubles. I will get a better quality photo, and I will also save money. Sounds kind of wrong.

We will carefully study the camera, but for now a few examples of photography. Of the minuses, so far only the blur of the headphones when shooting portraits. The rest of the camera shoots very cool.

Original photos (zip, 89 MB)

Battery life and fast charging

The smartphone has a 5000 mAh battery, and in the kitfast charging at 33 watts. I managed to put a PCMark battery life test for the night. The result is excellent - 8 hours and 3 minutes, and this is at maximum screen brightness in manual mode. The test simulates everyday tasks - the Internet, editing photos, videos and documents, video calling, etc. Accordingly, the user can count on 1-2 days of work from a single charge with 5-8 hours of screen operation, depending on the quality of mobile network reception.

With a complete adapter, the smartphone charges up to 50% in just half an hour. And this, in general, is quite enough for one working day.

33W adapter and cable included

Main innovation: mini-capsule (and let's talk about the screen)

The smartphone has a 6.72-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels and a refresh rate of 90 Hz. Everything is simple here: this is the screen that a smartphone of this price category is supposed to have.

The IPS panel is good, with ideal viewing angles.There was no instrument to measure the brightness at hand. We'll fix it when we release a full review. Against the background of competitors, perhaps, the panel is slightly distinguished by the level of brightness. By eye there are about 500 nits with a penny. Working outdoors with a smartphone is quite comfortable.

The most curious "feature" of a smartphone is socalled a mini-capsule. The idea is to give the user an extended notification indicator. So far, the mini-capsule is an experiment. To start it, you need to go to the “Realme Lab” item in the settings and activate the switch there.

So far, the "capsule" has little functionality. It can show a number of notifications. For example, when connected to charging or traffic consumption. Going to add a pedometer soon.

There is a feeling that at the current stage the main task of the mini-capsule is to look cool and unusual. And in this regard, 100% success. Looks good.

Obviously the mini-capsule is inspired socalled Dynamic Island. realme managed to make everything beautiful and appropriate, so, in my opinion, we should not be shy and develop the topic. The mini-capsule asks for integration of music applications, a timer indicator and a voice recorder and other system notifications from the category of those that are useful to keep in front of your eyes, but you don’t want them to take up space on the screen.

Specifications

CPU: Mediatek Helio G88 (12 nm), Mali-G52 MC2 graphics
operating system: Android 13, realme UI 4.0 shell
Memory: 8 GB + 256 GB, there is a separate slot for microSD
Screen: 6.72 inches, IPS LCD, 2400 x 1080 resolution, 90 Hz, 680 nits claimed peak brightness
Battery: 5000 mAh, 33 W adapter
Main camera: 64 MP 1/2″, PDAF + 2 MP (depth sensor)
Camera frontal: 8 MP
SIM card: 2 Nano SIM
Network and data transfer: 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, USB Type-C 2.0
Navigation: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS
Sensors: fingerprint scanner (side), accelerometer, proximity, lighting, compass
Other: there is a 3.5 mm jack, a case is included
materials: plastic and glass
Dimensions: 165.6 x 75.9 x 7.9 mm, weight 189.5 g
Price: 17,990 rubles for 8/256 GB

Conclusion

Let's see how the year goes, but for now realmeC55 claims to be the most interesting state employee. At the same time, the smartphone can take over part of the sales from the mainstream segment, since the smartphone bypasses many smartphones priced from 18 to 23 thousand rubles in terms of memory, camera quality and design. Also important is the fact that realme is doing well with software support. The C55 runs Android 13 out of the box with the latest realme UI 4.0 skin and will definitely get an update to Android 14, and most likely to Android 15.

If you buy a smartphone from May 1 to May 31 at MegaFon retail, you will receive a SberBoom Mini smart speaker and 600 rubles for communication to MegaFon subscribers as a gift.

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