Realme has announced its new budget-centric smartphone, the Realme C3, in India. The smartphone comes with a price tag of Rs 6,999 for the 3GB RAM variant, while the 4GB RAM option is priced at Rs 7,999.
With this, the company is giving you a host of interesting features. To start with, the Realme C3 comes with a new Sunrise design language and it is the first phone to be powered by MediaTek Helio G70 chipset. This coupled with other interesting features makes it a good budget phone. But is it really that good? We spent some time with the device and here our first impressions.
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Design and Display
To start with the design first, the Realme C3 features new Sunrise design and true to its name, one can actually see rays like effect that appears to be coming out from the rear camera module. Sure, it looks unique and it stands out of the crowd. Furthermore, the company has gone with a textured finish at the back panel, which makes it easier to hold and prevents the panel from scratches and fingerprints. The Realme C3 is available in two colour options: Frozen Blue and Blazing Red. We got the latter for the review and it sure looks premium and sturdy when you hold it.
Coming to some key ports placement, the front comes with a waterdrop notch, which is smaller as compared to its predecessor, the Realme C2. The right side of the device features power on/off button, while the left side features volume controls and SIM Slot. The good thing here is that the company has provided two SIM and one dedicated microSD card slot. Moving on, the base panel comes with micro-USB port flanked between 3.5mm Audio Jack and speaker grille. The back panel features a vertically-aligned dual-camera setup at the top-left position.
Moving on, the Realme C3 is loaded with a 6.5-inch HD+ Mini-drop display with a screen resolution of 1600 x 720 pixels along with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The display comes with 89.8 per cent of screen-to-body ratio and it provides decent outdoor visibility with 400nits brightness. The colours are not that great in our opinion, but you cannot accept a Rs 6,000 smartphone to deliver flagship-grade display. Right?
Hardware and Software
On the hardware front, the Realme C3 is the first smartphone to be powered by a MediaTek Helio G70 processor. The smartphone comes with up to 4GB of RAM and up to 64GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded up to 256GB via microSD card slot. The latest Chipset is touted to deliver some good results in the gaming segment. The company claims that it is loaded with MediaTek Gaming Technology to optimize network Latency and Display Latency to provide faster response time. That said, we are yet to test it out in real life, so we will reserve our verdict here.
On the software front, the Realme C3 runs on Android 10, which is a welcome move as most of the smartphones in this price segment still run on Android 9.0 Pie. Interestingly, the smartphone is also loaded with Realme UI, which is based on ColorOS 7. The user interface comes loaded with a host of interesting features. To start with, you get system-wide dark mode along with new three-finger screenshot option. We will discuss in detail in our upcoming review about the optimisation Realme has made for this smartphone.
Camera
On the camera front, the Realme C3 is loaded with a dual-camera setup. The setup comes with a combination of 12-megapixel primary lens with PDAF support, f/1.8 Aperture along with a 2-megapixel depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture. For the front, there is a 5-megapixel shooter with AI Beautification, HDR, Panoramic View and more.
Coming to the camera user interface, it is quite simple and easy to use. When you open the app, you get to see different options like Video, Photo, Portrait and More. The brand has also given an option to click photos with 4X zoom. Then there is Chroma Boost, which basically enhances the image quality. That said, in daylight condition, the camera delivers average results, though we are yet to test out the low light performance of the device.
Battery and Connectivity
On the battery front, the Realme C3 is juiced up by a 5,000mAh battery with 10W charging support. The company claims that the battery offers 737.7 hours of standby time, 43.9 hours of talk time, 25.6 hours of navigation, 19.4 hours of online music and 10.6 hours of PUBG Mobile gameplay. On the connectivity front, the phone supports dual-SIM, dedicated microSD card slot, 4G VoLTE, WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, Beidou, Galileo, Glonass, A-GPS, light sensor, proximity sensor, gyro-meter, accelerometer, OTG and Micro USB port. The phone measures 164.4 x 75 x 8.95 mm and weighs 195 grams.