Realme C2 Review 

Realme has made a reputation for itself by selling smartphones with powerful hardware at prices aggressive enough to travel up against Xiaomi. the corporate recently launched the Realme 3 Pro  to compete with the Redmi Note 7 Pro, and it did manage to shake the industry up. Now, the corporate is watching the lower end of the market by bringing within the successor to the Realme C1, aptly named the Realme C2. The Realme C2 starts at Rs. 5,999 and sports decent specifications on paper.


Realme C2 Design

 Most budget smartphones are boring to seem at. so as to stay prices down and still offer good performance, manufacturers usually don't prioritise design. The Realme C2 ₹ 6,499 looks like an exception here, because it is sort of a looker. a bit like other smartphones within the budget segment, the Realme C2 is made out of plastic but the finish on the rear panel is exclusive and can grab eyeballs.

Realme has opted for a geometrical diamond-cut pattern on the rear , which popped on our Diamond Blue review unit. Patterns emerge when light hits the rear of this phone, giving it a premium look. because of this finish, the device doesn't devour fingerprints.

There's a dual camera setup at the rear along side a single-LED flash. The Realme logo is near rock bottom of the rear, aligned in landscape orientation.

The Realme C2 sports an enormous display with a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera at the highest . Our review unit came with a pre-applied screen protector. We found the Realme C2 to be comfortable to carry within the hand because of its rounded frame.

The power button is well positioned on the proper , and is straightforward to succeed in . the quantity buttons are on the other side, and every one buttons offer good clicky feedback. The SIM tray is positioned just above the quantity buttons.

The Realme C2 sports a Micro-USB port, loudspeaker, and first microphone at rock bottom , while the highest is totally blank. a bit like the Realme C1 , this phone also misses out on a fingerprint scanner to stay costs down.

We found the build quality of the Realme C2 to be good, and it didn't devour scratches during our time with it.

Realme C2 specifications and software

 The Realme C2 may be a budget offering, and its specifications are quite modest. it's powered by the MediaTek Helio P22 SoC, which is an octa-core processor with Cortex-A53 cores, and is made employing a 12nm manufacturing process. Also included within the base variant are 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage.

There's also an option with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. Our review unit was the higher-priced variant which retails for Rs. 7,999 (compared to the Rs 5,999 price of the bottom variant).





 

The Realme C2 sports a 6.1-inch HD+ (720x1560 pixels) display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for cover . it's good viewing angles and does gets bright enough when outdoors. there's also the choice to vary the color temperature of the display to fit your liking.

Realme has managed to pack a 4000mAh battery inside the C2, and this phone ships with a 10W charger within the box. it's a dual-SIM device and has two Nano-SIM slots. there's support for 4G also as VoLTE on both SIMs.

Realme also offers a fanatical microSD card slot that allows you to expand storage. Other connectivity options on the Realme C2 include FM Radio, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, A-GPS, and GLONASS.

The Realme C2 runs ColorOS 6 on top of Android 9 Pie, which is that the latest version of Android. There are customisations made to the software, and a couple of features are added on top. Our review unit was running the March 2019 security patch.

A few apps like Realme Community, Dailyhunt, Facebook, NewsPoint, UC Browser, Amazon Shopping, ShareChat, and PayTM come preinstalled on the Realme C2. you'll plow ahead and uninstall these to release space on the device.

There's support for themes and you'll download more using the Theme Store app. App Market is an alternate to the Google Play Store, and also comes preinstalled, but we found it to be spammy because it kept pushing notifications throughout the day. The Realme C2 also features a Game Center app which may be a store only for games.

Like other Realme smartphones, the C2 has Driving and Riding modes which may automatically put the phone into DND mode when it's paired with a car's Bluetooth head unit. It also can auto-send SMS messages once you reject an incoming call. Gesture navigation is out there , and allows you to swipe to navigate instead of using on-screen buttons.

Realme C2 performance, battery life, and cameras

 The Realme C2 offers acceptable performance for its price because of the MediaTek Helio P22 processor powering it. While we didn't notice any issues while launching apps and scrolling through the menu, there was a touch of lag once we pulled the notification shade down. Since we perform this action very often , it did get a touch annoying. we should always also note that this was on the higher-priced variant of the Realme C2 which has more RAM.

We could multitask on this phone, but occasionally had to attend for heavier apps to load. there is no fingerprint scanner but face recognition is out there . it's quick to unlock the smartphone and may be a good alternative to punching within the passcode all the time.


Our benchmark tests gave us a transparent idea of how the Helio P22 within the Realme C2 performs. In AnTuTu, the C2 managed 77,595 points. It also scored 822 and three ,326 in Geekbench's single-core and multi-core tests respectively. The Redmi 7 ₹ 7,999, which costs the maximum amount because the higher variant of the Realme C2, scored 103,574 in AnTuTu and 1,247 and 4,333 respectively in Geekbench. The Realme C2 also managed 25fps and 11fps in GFXBench T-Rex and Manhattan 3.1 respectively.

PUBG Mobile ran at low settings with the graphics set to Smooth and frame rate set to Medium but still the gameplay wasn't smooth enough and that we did face stutters. We then changed the frame rate to Low which made a small difference to the gameplay, but it still didn't run smoothly as expected.

The 4000mAh battery within the Realme C2 offers good battery life. In our HD video loop test, the phone managed to clock 20 hours and 29 minutes which is extremely good. With our use, which consisted of WhatsApp, using the phone for navigation with Google Maps for 2 hours, and running a couple of benchmarks, the phone went on for a few day and a half. The supplied charger takes over 2 hours to top the battery up which is fine.

Realme has opted for a dual camera setup on the Realme C2 model, consisting of a 13-megapixel primary camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 2-megapixel depth sensor camera. At the front, this phone features a 5-megapixel camera for selfies.

The camera app is analogous to what we've seen on Realme smartphones before. it's quick toggles for HDR, Chroma Boost, Filters, and Flash. It also supports Pano, Expert, Time-lapse, and Slo-Mo modes. The app offers a 2x digital zoom toggle. A Beautification toggle helps set the quantity of beautification you would like .



We liked the photos we took with the Realme C2, in daylight, this phone managed to capture well-focused shots with good amounts of detail on objects nearby, but objects at a distance weren't nearly as good . We also found that the Realme C2 wasn't according to getting the exposure right.

Macros clothed better than we expected, and therefore the phone managed good separation between subjects and their backgrounds. The phone could lock focus quickly and had no issues with exposure when shooting macro images with its camera.

Portrait shots had good detail and therefore the secondary camera did help with edge detection. In low light, the phone struggled to deliver good results. The photos weren't sharp and that they appeared grainy when zooming in.

Selfies had good details and therefore the quality is decent for the worth . The Realme C2 also has HDR for the front camera which is handy when shooting against the sunshine .

Video recording maxes out at 1080p for the rear camera and 720p for the selfie shooter, which is the best point to consider. there's no video stabilisation and you'll need to affect shaky recordings. The Realme C2 offers  a 80fps slow-motion recording at 480p but we observed intermittent freezes in between a recording.

Conclusion

 At a starting price of Rs 5,999, the Realme C2 offers powerful enough hardware and good battery life, also as up-to-date software. We usually see smartphones with weaker processors and outdated software at this price point, but Realme has fixed that issue with the C2 model. The camera is one aspect of this phone that needs improvement but we will excuse its quality at this price.

If you manage to urge your hands on the bottom variant of the Realme C2, go for it, because it offers good value. However, if you're watching the upper variant of the Realme C2 and your budget stretches that far, you ought to consider the Redmi 7 or Nokia 5.1 Plus@₹ 6,999  instead. These smartphones are available at an equivalent price but offer better hardware as compared .