Realme benefits from less brand awareness than many of its competitors. However, the company has been on an upward trajectory for quite some time, especially in markets where affordable devices are sought after. For example, in India, in 2022, Realme became the second-largest smartphone manufacturer after Xiaomi, which is an impressive feat. The time has come for the company to launch new devices on the market; this time, it’s a very affordable device: Realme C55. If you’re curious about what it offers, read this detailed review:

Realme C55: Who is it good for?

This smartphone is an excellent choice if you:

• Want a good-looking smartphone with a very affordable price
• Are looking for a smartphone suitable for regular tasks, that don’t require powerful hardware
• Want a phone with good battery life and fast charging

Pros and cons

Here’s what I like about the Realme C55:

• Good-looking design
• Solid battery life and fast charging
• Promising mini capsule feature
• Affordable price
• Generous bundle of accessories

There are some downsides to consider too:

• Imprecise fingerprint scanner
• The operating system is rather bloated

Verdict

Realme C55 is a budget smartphone that does a good job of catering to people’s basic needs. It offers good signal reception and in-call audio quality, decent connectivity options, and hardware adequate for regular tasks, like browsing the web or social networks, listening to music, or working with productivity apps. Battery life is good too, and the fast charging is a nice addition. Overall, it offers good value for money. However, if you’re looking for an Android smartphone that is better at gaming, you should check out its more expensive brother, the Realme 10.

Unboxing the Realme C55

The packaging for the Realme C55 is typical for the smartphones sold by the company: it comes in a bright yellow cardboard box with the name of the product boldly printed on the front cover. On the bottom of the box, you find some details about the phone’s main features, together with some of its more technical specifications.

Realme C55 comes in a good looking yellow box

When you open the box, you see the phone inside protective packaging and another smaller box containing several leaflets and the SIM ejection tool.

Unboxing the Realme C55 is a pleasant experience

When you take everything out, you should have the following items: the smartphone, a 33W fast charger with a detachable USB-A to C cable, a transparent silicon cover, the SIM ejection tool, the quick setup guide, warranty details, and safety information.

Everything you find inside the box

The unboxing experience offered by the Realme C55 smartphone is very satisfying. Even though you just bought yourself an affordable smartphone, you get a rich bundle that includes a fast charger and a protective cover for the phone. Samsung should follow this example.

Design and build quality

The Realme C55 is a large 6.7-inch smartphone with a screen protector applied during manufacturing. This is a nice touch, especially in this market segment, as you won’t need to increase the acquisition cost of this phone by purchasing screen protection separately. The phone measures 165.6 x 75.9 x 7.89 mm or 6.51 x 2.98 x 0.31 inches in length x width x depth. It also weighs 189.5 grams or 0.41 pounds. Because of its size and weight, it’s not a great choice for women or people with small hands.

Realme C55 is a large 6.7-inch smartphone

I received in testing the Rainy Night or black version, which looks very elegant, especially when you look at the back of the phone. In shops, you’ll also find a Sunshower version with a shower-like pattern that reflects rainbow colors at different angles, as shown in the picture below.

The different color versions for Realme C55

Being an affordable smartphone with a low-profit margin, Realme C55 doesn’t feature Gorilla Glass for protecting the display, and it isn’t certified against dust or water either. The smartphone has rounded corners and a centered punch hole for the selfie camera.

Realme C55 has rounded corners and a centered punch hole

The back of the Realme C55 is made of plastic. The Rainy Night version looks quite elegant, and I especially like the design of the camera system, with large rounded camera housings and a LED flash.

The only downside is that the plastic back feels rather slippery, and dust tends to gather quite quickly between the two camera lenses. Hence, you will need to clean it regularly.

Do you like the back of the Realme C55?

On the left side of the Realme C55, you find only the SIM tray and the punching hole for it.

On the left, you find only the SIM tray

You have the Power button on the right, which can act as a fingerprint scanner, and the Volume rocker.

The right side of the Realme C55

On the bottom of the Realme C55, you find the USB-Type C port for charging the smartphone, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a speaker, and a microphone.

Realme C55 has a headphone jack

Realme C55 looks like a smartphone that’s more expensive than it is. Its design is elegant, even though people with small hands won’t appreciate its size. However, the materials used for building the Realme C55 are not that different from what you find on phones with similar price tags.

Hardware specifications

One of the most important aspects of a smartphone is the screen. Realme C55 has an IPS LCD display with a peak brightness of 680 nits and a screen-to-body ratio of 86.7%. On the top side, the phone has a notch in the middle, hosting the 8-megapixel selfie camera, capable of recording videos in 1080p resolution, at 30 frames per second (fps).

Realme C55 has an IPS LCD display

The camera system on the back includes a 64-megapixel wide lens, a LED flash, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. It can record videos in 1080p, at a maximum of 60 fps. Unfortunately, there’s no optical image stabilization available.

Do you like the look of the camera system?

Inside the Realme C55, we have an octa-core MediaTek Helio G88 chipset that includes a processor with a frequency of up to 2 GHz and a Mali-G52 graphics unit. The phone can be equipped with either 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM and up to 256 GB of built-in storage. Furthermore, you can add 8 GB of dynamic RAM through software optimizations in the phone’s operating system.

Furthermore, the storage can be expanded up to 1 TB with the help of a microSD card. However, considering that this phone is not designed for taking great pictures and recording high-quality videos, most people won’t need additional storage. Realme C55 offers Dual SIM connectivity, using nano-SIMs, and dual stand-by implementation.

Realme C55 offers Dual SIM and a microSD slot

One of the positive aspects of the Realme C55 is that it includes a faster 33W charger in the box. The battery is generous as well, with a capacity of 5000mAh. You also get dual-band wireless connectivity using Wi-Fi 5, but not Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. GPS is also available, as well as NFC. However, the latter is market-dependent, so check the phone’s specs with the retailer you’re purchasing it from.

Realme C55 features 33W fast charging

To unlock the phone, you get both fingerprint and facial recognition. However, the fingerprint reader is not on the bottom of the screen like on most smartphones but on the Power button.

You can unlock the Realme C55 using the fingerprint or your face

In terms of sensors, Realme C55 bundles the usual: a magnetic induction sensor (used for compass functionality), a light sensor (for tuning the auto brightness of the display), a proximity sensor (helps eliminate accidental touch inputs during phone calls), and an acceleration sensor (for adjusting the orientation of the apps on your screen based on how you’re holding it).

If you’d like to get into detail about this phone’s features and technical specifications, check out Realme C55’s official webpage.

Go to the next page to see my experience using the Realme C55 and learn more about the camera quality, performance in benchmarks, and bundled software.