We have our full review of the new realme C55 the company’s entry-level disruptor equipped with good spec-wised features.
We will be sharing everything that you need to know about the realme C55 including the new Mini Capsule feature. You can also check out our unboxing and first impressions of this phone here.
For the pricing and availability, the realme C55 will be available in two variants: 6GB+128GB for only P8,999 and 8GB+256GB for only P10,999. You can purchase the realme C55 in all realme stores or kiosks nationwide and on its online e-commerce partners in Lazada and TikTok Shop.
Starting April 19 to 30, walk-in customers on all realme stores and kiosks nationwide will get a TechLife Power Bank worth P799 for the 6GB+128GB variant; and a TechLife Power Bank plus a TechLife Buds Classic worth P1,298 for the 8GB+256GB variant.
Customers can also buy the realme C55 through the realme e-store, with a 5% upfront discount and a FREE TechLife Power Bank worth P799 for both variants, when they purchase from April 19 to 25.
Build Quality and Design
The realme C55 is lightweight at 189.5 grams with a slim profile having a thickness of 7.89mm. It’s one of the slimmest phones apart from its other predecessor under the C-series models.
Our review unit in Rainy Night color has a striking black finish that shows off a nice shower-like pattern and reflects a little rainbow color gradients when tilted at different angles.
Aside from the classic black variant, it has other colorways available in Sunshower, and Rainforest.
Even with a durable plastic build, the realme C55 offers a premium feel and looks stunning. Aside from having a slim body, it has a modern design with flat edges, curved corners, straight lines, a matte finish, and a smooth surface.
The camera also has a modern appearance adopting the common design trend in the market today. It has two large circular protruding cameras with glossy accents stationed in one flat camera housing with a glossy finish as well. This is the only part in the back panel where fingerprint smudges will definitely be visible.
The realme C55 is very comfortable to hold even for extended periods of use and fits snugly in the hand.
While the front bezels at the top, left and right are slightly thin, the bottom chin is a bit raised. It has a tiny punch-hole notch design for the front camera.
The advantage of a matte surface on the C55, it helps hide fingerprint smudges, however, it can be easily wiped off with any cloth available.
The frame which holds the buttons and ports has a matte finish. The inclusion of a 3.5mm audio jack will be loved by users who are still using wired headphones.
Display
The display on the realme C55 boasts a 6.7-inch Full HD+ using an IPS LCD panel.
The screen has a resolution of 1080×2400 pixels which is typical for a budget phone but still provides an enjoyable viewing experience.
The screen is smooth and very responsive thanks to the 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate.
The display offers up to 680 nits of peak brightness which is still good for viewing during outdoors but struggles under direct sunlight.
So far, the tiny punch-hole design of the front camera doesn’t ruin or bother my viewing experience whenever I watch or play games on the screen.
In general, the display of the realme C55 is still pleasing to look at. It also shows off nice vibrant colors and the picture quality is clear.
Mini Capsule
Another interesting additional new feature on the realme C55 is the Mini Capsule. The realme C55 is the first Android device to offer this kind of technology.
The Mini Capsule works by transforming the area of the front camera into an elongated pill-shaped window. When utilized the Mini Capsule triggers an animation effect and then shows a few pieces of information such as data usage, step count, or its charging status.
I would always barely notice the Mini Capsule’s notifications as it pops up for a few seconds only.
The Mini Capsule can be seen under the realme Lab settings if you wish to toggle or disable it. Notifications available at the moment for the Mini Capsule are the battery status and data usage. The step count will be added on its next software update.
For now, the Mini Capsule may not be that convenient for you, but soon future developers and realme can improve it more.
Performance
Under the hood, the realme C55 is powered by a 12nm MediaTek Helio G88 G88 octa-core processor with clock speeds up to 2Ghz and Mali-G52 MC2 for its GPU.
Our unit is equipped with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, it also has another variant with 6GB and 128GB storage options if you want the affordable C55 model.
For a smooth performance on your apps, it has a dynamic RAM feature that can be expanded up to 16GB by taking up space from the internal storage of the phone. You can choose between how much space you want to allocate in 4GB, 6GB, or 8GB RAM.
The SIM card tray can hold its slots for two nano-SIMs and a dedicated MicroSD card slot for additional storage space of up to 1TB, which is a good thing to have with.
Sharing the benchmark scores we got on the realme C55:
- Geekbench 6: 428 Single-Core / 1438 Multi-Core
- 3DMark Wild Life: 748 (4.50 average fps)
- PCMark: 8836 Work 3.0 Performance Score
- CPDT: 73.84MB/s sequential write / 209.76MB/s sequential read
Playing mobile games on the phone gave away smooth gameplay, and we’re satisfied with the outcome and experience. In Mobile Legends: Bang Bang you can set both graphics and refresh rate to high. For Call of Duty, we were able to set the graphic quality to medium only and the frame rate to high. Playing on PUBG can set the graphics up to HD quality only while the frame rate can go up to high.
We enjoy playing games on the realme C55, it’s responsive, and didn’t experience any lags except for the back panel which we felt a little warm as we play longer.
Camera
Realme C55 features a dual camera set-up with the main camera getting 64MP and accompanied by a 2MP depth sensor which is used for the Portrait mode. For your selfies, the front camera offers an 8MP lens.
Using the camera app the interface is simple and user-friendly with all controls available around the viewfinder.
The camera app has ten available shooting modes with night, street, photo, video, portrait, 64MP, slo-mo, time-lapse, pro, and pano.
The main camera when used in a well-lit environment will have images with sharp details, vibrant colors, and good contrast. You can also spot noise in the photo but a much smaller amount only.
Photos taken in low-light situations with the main camera produced images resulting a bit soft, had fewer details, decent colors, and the presence of noise is seen.
Selfies appeared a little sharpened if taken during daylight with details, skin tone looks natural, and good dynamic range. But low light tends to be a struggle to acquire good photos as selfies come out a bit soft and noise will be there.
Using the Portrait mode, the edge detection and subject separation using the depth camera are reasonably good, especially in bright conditions.
Using the night mode will slightly improve the image quality in low-light or dark surroundings. It will produce more details, a slightly cleaner image with lower levels of noise, and the shadows slightly lifted. After clicking the shutter button, it takes you around 4-5 seconds to capture an image, you may need to hold the phone securely.
Here are some camera samples we’ve taken with the realme C55 to show you how good the camera is.
1x photo mode, sunny weather, outdoor
1x photo mode, sunny weather, outdoor
1x photo mode, low-light, indoor
1x photo mode, low light, indoor
1x night mode, dark environment, outdoor
1x night mode, dark environment, outdoor
portrait mode, low light, indoor
selfie, sunny weather, outdoor
You can record your videos at 1080p or 720p resolution on both the front and back with frame rates at 30fps and 60fps. It doesn’t have any stabilization feature, and to prevent shaky videos, you may need to use a gimbal or tripod.
Our recorded footage during bright conditions had decent details, the color looks natural and was short on the dynamic range with a little noise present in the video. If you’re walking while recording, the videos will definitely come out quite shaky. In low light conditions, the video is quite low on detail, and more noise will be present in it.
With the Inertial Zoom feature users can zoom in smoothly while recording their videos without using the normal zoom control which sometimes makes video zoom abruptly. After pressing the record button, you just simply touch and hold the record button then swipe up or down to control the speed of the zoom.
Software
The realme C55 runs with realme UI 4.0 based on the latest Android 13 version.
It already comes with plenty of pre-installed apps like Bilibili, Bigo, Facebook, GCash, Instagram, Lazada, LinkedIn, Facebook Lite, Kumu, Shopee, ShareIt, Spotify, TikTok, Twitter, Viber, and more.
Almost half of the installed apps are the ones I usually use so it helps me save time going to the Google Play Store to download them one by one again. You can easily delete the other apps you don’t want.
For Spotify users like me, it has an Always-on display feature to pause, play or go to the next track without even unlocking your screen which comes in handy.
It has a lot of widgets to customize or add to your home screen for personalized information and notification from apps without having to open the app itself.
The device offers several multitasking features to keep certain apps from taking up too much of the screen. You have a split screen to view two applications side by side and floating windows to control which apps can open windows that float over other apps.
Biometrics and Connectivity
There are biometric options like face recognition and fingerprint scanner available on the realme C55 to keep the phone safe and secure. You also have the usual lock screen options using numeric, alphanumeric, or pattern.
Both the face and fingerprint scanners are fast in unlocking the phone and never once failed to recognize my biometrics.
realme C55 is equipped with basic connectivity features with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, Android Auto, and OTG.
Battery
The realme C55 is packed with a large 5000mAh battery with a 33W SuperVOOC fast charging adapter that comes along in the box to quickly juice up the phone.
In just 30 minutes, we have a 42 percent charge on the battery already. It took us around 1 hour and 14 minutes to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent.
Extend the standby time and battery life of the phone with power saving mode under the battery settings by adjusting or optimizing certain functions.
With light to moderate use on the realme C55 which includes Viber or Facebook messaging, browsing thru my social media, taking a few photos, and listening to music. I was able to use the phone till the next day with only 17 percent left on its battery.
For heavy users who are into extensive mobile gaming sessions and watching videos for hours, it will last you till the end of the day.
What We Like
- Design
- Decent Camera
- Available 60fps at 1080p
- Inertial Zoom
- Large 6.7-inch FHD+ Display
- 5,000mAh Battery
- Expandable Storage
- Virtual RAM Expansion Up To 8GB
- Fast Biometrics
- Smooth UI
- Price
What We Want
- More Functions For The Mini Capsule
- Less Bloatware
- OIS
Conclusion
We like the stylish design and build quality of the realme C55 that bares a premium feel to it.
The MediaTek chipset can perform well alongside 8GB RAM with virtual memory expansion and a hefty 256GB storage that’s expandable up to 1TB. It has a 5,000mAh battery that can provide you power throughout the day, especially for those who spend more time on the screen. In terms of hardware, all is good on the realme C55.
The large display on the realme C55 offers a good viewing experience. The 64MP camera can take decent to good photos in a well-lit environment with details and nice color reproduction.
As for the Mini Capsule, realme introduced this feature on the C55 which is a pretty good add-on for a budget-friendly phone. It‘s still too early, we believe future updates and development with this feature will be far better.
In general, the realme C55 can be one of your best selections for those who are budget-conscious for a smartphone for under 11k that is loaded with an array of features.
realme C55 Full Specifications
- Price: P8,999 (6GB+128GB) / P10,999 (8GB+256GB)
- Colors: Sunshower, Rainy Night, Rainforest
- Display: 7-inch FHD+
- Screen Type: LCD
- Resolution: 1080×2400 pixels
- PPI: 391
- Screen-To-Body Ratio: 4%
- Refresh Rate: 90Hz
- Touch Sampling Rate: 180Hz
- Brightness: 680 Nits
- Processor: MediaTek Helio G88
- GPU: ARM Mali-G52
- Storage: 6GB+128GB / 8GB+256GB
- Storage Expansion: Up to 1TB
- Camera: (Rear) 64MP+2MP, (Front) 8MP
- Video:
- OS: realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13
- Battery: 5000 mAh
- Charging Wattage: 33W
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth 5.2
- Frequency Bands: 2G/3G/4G/5G
- Dimensions: 65×75.98×7.89mm
- WiFi: 4GHz / 5GHz
- Navigation: GPS / GLONASS / GALILEO / Beidou
- Sensors: Magnetic Induction Sensor, Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Acceleration Sensor
- SIM Slot: 2 Nano Card Slots + 1 Micro SD Slot
