Realme C35 Review: Design is strong, but performance…

Budget smartphones priced under Rs 10,000 offer better value for money in terms of hardware. These smartphones rarely have flashy or premium design. In these, the company tries to give good user experience as well as good battery life. However, Realme has tried to do something new in its C-series. The new Realme C35 has a premium look and finish, which makes it stand out from the rest in this segment. The company has managed to fit a 5,000mAh battery in its slim body. The phone looks great, but is it equally good in performance? Let’s find out in this review.

Realme C35 price in India

The Realme C35 comes in two variants. The base variant has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and is priced at Rs 11,999 in India. Its 128GB storage variant is priced at Rs 12,999. Both variants are available in two finishes – Glowing Black and Glowing Green. I got the base variant in Glowing Green for this review.

Realme C35 design

Compared to the earlier smartphones of the C-series, the Realme C35 gives a very fresh feel. Even though this phone is also made of polycarbonate like the rest of the models in the series, it still feels premium. Keeping in mind the current design trend, the company has used a matte frame in it whose sides and edges are flat. The rear panel is also flat but has a glossy finish.

The camera module on the rear panel protrudes from the body but to my surprise, the phone did not wobble from its place on a flat surface. The polycarbonate body of the phone in a light green shade has an attractive finish but fingerprints start appearing very quickly. Its sharp look makes the phone look modern but it is not very comfortable to hold, as the edges of the phone seem quite sharp.

The power button is given on the right side of the phone, on which the fingerprint scanner is also present. Sometimes it was difficult to identify it because it seems to be absorbed in the frame.

This Realme phone has a 6.6-inch FullHD Plus LCD panel that comes with a standard refresh rate of 60Hz. The phone has a dewdrop notch. It does not bother while watching content, but it looks a bit old. There are thin bezels around the display but the bottom chin is thick. A 3.5mm headphone jack is also provided at the bottom of the phone. Along with this, primary mic, USB Type-C port and speaker are also provided.

Realme C35 specifications and software

Realme C35 has a Unisoc T616 processor with a maximum clock speed of 2 GHz. Two nano SIMs can be used in the phone and a dedicated microSD card slot is also available in the SIM tray. Storage can be increased up to 1TB in it. For connectivity, this phone has 4G / LTE band, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5 and satellite navigation system.

Talking about the operating system of the phone, it is based on Android 11. It runs on Realme UI R Edition which is a light version of the regular Realme UI. For smooth performance, some customization options have been reduced. The phone also comes with many preinstalled apps which can be removed later.

Realme C35 performance and battery life

The overall experience of the phone was not very good as it seemed like the hardware was not able to fully support its software. There was sudden lag while scrolling between lists and apps. Overall, the phone performed like an entry level smartphone rather than its price level.

In benchmark tests, it performed as expected. On AnTuTu, the phone scored 2,12,939 points. In Geekbench’s single-core test, the phone scored 368 points and in the multi-core test, it scored 1382 points.

The display of Realme C35 gives saturated colors in default settings. But the results were much better when changing from Vivid to Gentle mode. The panel is FullHD Plus LCD and looks bright even outdoors or in direct sunlight.

The gaming experience on this phone was not very good. The processor was not able to play any game smoothly. Even simple games like Subway Surfers and Temple Run 2 etc. were running with slight lag. Call of Duty: Mobile was stuttering a lot even on the lowest settings.

The phone’s 5,000mAh battery lasted 10 hours and 56 minutes in our HD video loop test. This is below average for a budget device. In regular use, the phone could last a little more than a day. This too can be called below average. With an 18W fast charger, the phone took 2 hours and 7 minutes to fully charge.

Realme C35 cameras

Realme C35 has three cameras in the rear panel. Which has a 50-megapixel main lens, a 2-megapixel macro shooter and a 2-megapixel black and white camera. The phone is equipped with an 8-megapixel camera for selfies. The features of the camera app have been reduced somewhat. The icon for quickly changing the settings in the viewfinder has been removed.

The camera captures good photos in daylight. The dynamic range of the primary camera is quite good but there was very little detail even in daylight. The HDR system was sometimes taking too aggressive photos, making the sky look too blue. Macro shots appeared with oversharpness.

You will only get portrait mode in the rear camera. Edge detection was quite good but the background was getting overexposed. Portrait mode worked only on humans and for some reason did not work on objects.

Image quality deteriorated significantly in low light. The camera struggled to focus in low light and photos looked quite soft. The contrast improved slightly in night mode but photos became very soft and blurry. Overall, night photography was disappointing.

The Realme C35 smartphone can record videos up to 1080p at 30fps. The video quality was average in daylight. The footage looked quite shaky, meaning there was no stabilization. A lot of noise (grain) was seen in the video in low light. The camera was also having trouble focusing, especially the focus was deteriorating while panning.

Verdict

There is no dearth of options in the bottom line of budget smartphones these days. Realme has many phones in this segment. Many of these are priced around this. Realme C35 fails due to its average battery life and below average camera performance. The only thing that attracts the user in the phone is its design.

If we talk about its alternatives, you can look at Realme Narzo 50 which starts at Rs 12,999. It has a MediaTek processor, 120Hz display, high resolution selfie camera and 33W charging. We have not reviewed it yet, but if we look at the specifications, it looks better than Realme C35.

Apart from this, you can look at Micromax In 2B. It gives a smooth software experience. Now Moto G31 is also available at a price of Rs 11,999. This phone gives an experience like stock Android. It has an AMOLED display and a water resistant design. All these options prove to be better than Realme C35, so it becomes very difficult to recommend this Realme phone.