In the war for budget smartphones, realme’s C35 comes in and checks all the right boxes for its price point.
Design
Overall, the realme C35 is a good looking phone. The body is made from polycarbonate but feels more premium than other models.
The front houses a 6.6in display, with a rounded corners and flat matte sides and glossy back. The device measures at 164 x 75 x 8.1mm and a weighs 189g. The recessed power button (which doubles as a fingerprint sensor) and volume buttons are placed to the right and left side of the phone respectively. You also get a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom of the phone. On the bottom, there’s a single speaker next to the USB-C port. The camera module on the back protrudes a bit, but is well designed in a way that doesn’t wobble.
Screen
The realme C35’s display is a 6.6in IPS LCD, and has a 1080 x 2408 (Full HD+) resolution and only refreshes at 60Hz, which is expected for this entry level category. Overall, we were pleasantly surprised to see the colors reproductions and sharpness that it can deliver. The bezel around the display is fairly slim but gets a bit thick at the bottom of the display. fThe display can go up to 600 nits in peak brightness. The display is bright enough for indoor and outdoor use.
Performance & Software
The realme C35 is powered by a unisoc tiger 616 chipset paired with 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage, expandable up to 1TB. Performance is good considering the specs, and faired well in daily multitasking such as browsing, email, social media, YouTube / video streaming and light gaming. realme C35 runs on Android 11 and the custom realme UI R edition. In general, the UI is simple and easy to use. It offers a more or less stock Android look, with some preloaded apps installed.
Battery
The realme is packed with a 5000mAh battery paired with an 18W fast charging and can go from 0 to 100 in around 2 hours.Overall, we got around 16hours of usage, which is pretty good we would say.
Camera
The C35 packs three cameras at the back: a 50MP f/1.8 main lens, a 2MP f/2.4 macro, and a 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor. On the front, there’s an 8-megapixel for selfies. Video wise, the realme C35 is capable of shooting 1080p at 30fps. The camera app is very basic and supports HDR, Photo, Portrait, Burst, Time Lapse, Pro Mode, Panorama, Night Pro, and Macro.
Image quality in daylight was good. The dynamic range, and details were also ok considering the price of the phone. The phone does tend to struggle with night mode, where shots were a bit noisy. Portrait mode did a decent job with edge detection and backgrounds as well.
Here are some samples taken with the camera:
Verdict
The realme C35 sticks ticks all the main boxes for an entry level, smartphone with a superb build quality and nice display. It’s definitely recommended for people who are not looking for heavy usage.
