Realme C25 Review – Another Entry Level Rival

Realme is one of the most popular smartphone brands in India and no doubt it has a huge lineup of devices available at every price segment. Its C-series smartphones are the cheapest and offer value-for-money devices and the Realme C25 is no exception to that rule. It is a budget-category smartphone with a price tag of Rs.9,999/- available in India. Of course, at that price, you get more pros and even more cons and that is where my hands-on review on the device will help you decide whether to go for it or not.

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I have used the device for more than a week and I know pretty much everything there is to know about the ins and the outs of Realme C25 so read along.

Realme C25 is a budget-category smartphone and thus, it embraces a price tag of that sort. Available in two trims, the device has a 4GB+64GB variant available at a price tag of Rs.9,999/- on Flipkart and you get up to Rs 9,350/- off on exchanging an eligible smartphone. The upper-tier 128GB+4GB variant is just Rs.1,000/- higher at Rs.10,999/- and it has up to Rs 10,350/- off on exchange on Flipkart. Finally, you can choose between two colour options are Water Gray and Water Blue.

Of course, both the variants have a tonne of deals and discounts to entertain such as 10 per cent off on BoB Mastercard DC first transaction, 10 per cent off on using HDFC CC and CC/DC EMI transactions, and so on.

Before we talk in detail about the Realme C25, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 16.51 cm (6.5 inch) HD+ IPS LCD Display
• Processor: MediaTek Helio G70
• Storage: 4GB, 64GB/128GB
• Software: realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11
• Rear cameras: 13MP + 2MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 8MP
• Battery: 6000 mAh, 18W fast charging
• Weight: 209g
• Dimensions: 164.5 x 75.9 x 9.6 mm

Realme C25 doesn’t give you something extraordinary to hold. Its design is fairly a tried and tested one that smartphones from Realme in this price tag have already adorn. Not that it looks any bad, Realme C25 does look great as per its price point. The back has a square camera bump, a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, and a giant Realme branding. It is not glossy but the back and in fact, the entire phone is made up of plastic so it’s both sturdy, not-so-easy to break as glass, but won’t add that oomph factor as a glass back would add.

Additionally, a plastic back adds all the required grip you want with Realme C25 so irrespective of having a phone case or not, it won’t slip away that easily. Adding a 6,000 mAh battery that makes the phone a tad bit bigger and thicker and the weight is noticeable although I wouldn’t blame Realme for it since you are paying just Rs 10,000/- and it does get all the jobs done what it promises to do. The back panel has two sections that would reflect light slightly differently. It is basically a line that passes through the centre of the triple-camera setup vertically and separates the back panel into two unequal halves.

The front has a giant display with 2.5D tempered glass on top. The bezels are thick and so is the chin. There’s a waterdrop-shaped notch on top that houses C25’s front camera. Coming to the sides, you get a power button and a volume rocker on the right and both have good tactile feedback to them which is a good touch. Then you have a SIM Card slot and a microSD slot on the left flushed with the frame. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, a loudspeaker, a mic, and a USB Type-C port at the bottom.

To be honest, you can’t expect a 1080p display on a sub-10,000 INR smartphone but Realme C25 doesn’t fail to surprise me even after that. First things first, the display is a 6.5-inch IPS LCD panel with 720×1600 pixels and an 81.7 per cent screen-to-body ratio. The bezels around the display are thick as aforementioned but overall, the display is giant enough to accommodate a wide-screen movie thanks to its 20:9 aspect ratio.

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As you might have guessed, the display is 720p and that’s all. You can’t view content over 720p even if you download a 1080p or 4K movie and that’s one of the few things that bugs me about Realme C25. The display is huge no doubt, it gets bright at 450 nits although there you have another shortcoming, the display is not that bright for viewing under broad daylight. Not that you can’t view the display at all, it is dim so you will have to adjust your hands to view the display in bright conditions.

Another thing that makes me wonder why I would buy a Realme C25 is that the display is Widevine L3 certified. This means you can watch Netflix and Amazon Prime and other OTT platforms at 480p only so say goodbye to your 4K packs if any. But hey, remember that the phone is priced at just Rs 10,000 and even at that price, it is vibrant and cheerful. It is ecstasy to use so much so that you will forget it’s a budget-grade smartphone for a second.

The 720p LCD panel does favour the battery and doesn’t put a lot of stress on the processor as well. But a 1080p display with an oleophobic coating (which C25 doesn’t have) would have made C25 more desirable.

Now I am not a fan of Helio chipsets personally but let’s stay unbiased for the sake of the interview. Realme C25 packs in the Helio G70 which is an improvement over the Realme C21 that arrived with the C25. The benchmarking scores of Helio G70 are about 202,337 on AnTuTu while Narzo 30A which has an Helio G85 processor has 202,885 points so that’s almost the same. In fact, the Geekbench scores are identical as well.

With that being said, Realme C25 is a budget smartphone that lets you open apps smoothly although multitasking between heavy apps may be a bit choppy at times. Note that multitasking between usual apps won’t cause any issues for now. You can play games on Realme C25 although that special category of games that are high in graphics are something you could play with the lowest graphics possible. The battery does keep the phone afloat for hours.

If you are a casual gamer like I am not, I don’t think you will have any issue with Realme C25.

Realme C25 runs on an optimized Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11 which gives you the best of both worlds. Realme UI 2.0 offers a tonne of features including dark mode, customizability, and more. But it is riddled with third-party apps that you can’t remove unless rooting the device.

Flip the phone and you will see a quad-camera setup at the back. Well, look again because C25 has a triple-camera setup and the fourth sensor is a dummy piece made to lure in customers. The device has a 13MP primary shooter paired with a 2MP macro and a 2MP depth sensor so it is basically a single camera setup. Before I can dive into details any further, a sure shot review on Realme C25 cameras will be, its average.

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Take daylight photography using the primary camera. You can decent shots with subtle dynamic range, soft-focus on the shots, and colours pop up. Even though the primary sensor can grab videos at 1080p, the display will limit it to 720p so you would get a cheaper quality video on your phone although sharing it with other devices will have better results.

Realme C25 camera is simply a point-and-shoot one, you don’t have any fancy features with the camera setup except the usual modes. Don’t expect much with low-light photography as well although using a dedicated Night Mode adds some details and sharpness to the shots.

The 2MP macro and depth sensors are usually the ones that I wouldn’t discuss in details because first, these are tiny sensors, second, Realme C25 is unlikely to be marketed as a smartphone for photography, and third, it is probably just a marketing gimmick adding two tiny sensors with a primary sensor. Overall, the rear camera setup is average.

The front has an 8MP camera setup and it works just as any other smartphone in this price range could without any surprises. You will get decent shots although it might capture an overexposed image if you don’t manually adjust the focus. It isn’t great but it does get its job done. It lets you take photos as memory, you can upload them on social media, and so on. The front camera too is locked at 1080p@30fps video recording.

There’s no doubt you will instantly fall in love with the battery on this one. With a combination of a humongous 6,000 mAh battery, a low-resolution LCD panel, and a mid-range chipset, the device is able to provide a bucketload of battery backup lasting almost one and a half days for most users. If you are a heavy user, you will still end up saving some juice at the end of the day which is impressive.

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Next up, the phone does have a decent 18W fast charging tech that juices up this mammoth in about two hours. It seems like a long time but considering the fact that you are holding a 6,000 mAh battery on a budget smartphone, I would say it’s a loot. Plus, the phone supports reverse charging capabilities which makes it among the few to host it at this price tag.

The earpiece on Realme C25 is reserved for calls only as is the case with any smartphone with a mono speaker setup. The bottom-firing loudspeaker makes way for a good-quality speaker although it isn’t that great. You can squeeze out average sound quality for that matter which again isn’t something I would negatively rate.

Realme C25 is a budget-category smartphone and thus, the connectivity features are in line with it. The device has Bluetooth v5.0 support with LE and A2DP. It has WI-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band support and it also supports BDS, Glonass, and A-GPS navigation systems. Apart from that, the device has a USB Type-C 2.0 port mounted at the bottle, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack as well and an FM radio in case you want to use it.

When it comes to security, you do get PIN and Pattern lock if that’s your thing. There’s a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner that is fast, accurate, and reliable. It is on point with its price tag.

Pros

• 6000mAh Massive Battery
• 6.5-inch Water-drop Fullscreen
• 13MP AI Triple Camera
• Helio G70 Gaming Processor
• Instant Fingerprint Unlock
• 18W quick charging

Cons

• No Gorilla Glass protection
• No NFC
• No 5G