realme C35 Review

realme has a stunning phone in its affordable C-series called the realme C35, sporting a huge display, and triple rear cameras. Does the beauty run skin deep? Here’s our full review.

realme C35 specs:

Released in mid-2022, the realme C35 is poised to make itself a visual alternative to phones in its price range by offering a good design along with hardware that’s not to miss.

The standard package includes the phone itself, a USB-C cable, the 18-watt charger, documentation for warranty and user guide, and a TPU case to keep the phone safe.

Design: The Catalyst of Pretty Mid-rangers

Truth be told, mid-rangers in the price range the realme C35 was targeting when it first launched last May did not have pretty phones. Most were good-performing devices that offer a good experience. The C35 changed that – the device sported a pretty design that changed how we view phones – that they should just be as visually appealing as their performance is.

The front has a 6.6-inch display with a drop notch for the 8-megapixel selfie camera. It extends to the bottom, where the display is near bezel-less for an immersive experience.

The edges are rather sharp than curved which we usually see in phones, mimicking a boxy design with straight-cut sides, giving that unorthodox feel when gripped. The bottom part has the single-firing loudspeaker, the USB-C port, the microphone, and the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The button design is still a realme signature design, with the power button on the right side, acting as the fingerprint scanner as well.

On the left side are the volume keys, and the SIM card tray that houses two SIM cards and a dedicated microSD card slot.

At the back is a shiny, glossy cover in a Glowing Black colorway. The upper left part has a protruding area for the triple rear camera setup and the accompanying LED flash.

It’s light enough to be held for longer periods of time, despite having a 5000mAh battery capacity inside its polycarbonate chassis. It’s large enough, however, to bring, and you’ll surely need two hands to navigate a lot of the interface due to the large display, but we don’t complain much since we’ve been used to having phones with big displays as our daily driver.

Display and Multimedia: Large Screen, Large Experience

Let’s talk about the 6.6-inch IPS display that this device offers. It has a Full HD resolution with good sharpness (401ppi), decent brightness on high noon (400 nits), vivid colors even from any angle you look at it, and decent contrast. You’ll surely enjoy watching immersive content from this device, even when it has a dated notch style on.

The single-firing loudspeaker at the bottom of the phone can easily fill up a small, quiet room with its max loudness set, and is not really that noteworthy since the sound is just as standard as you can get with decent mids and highs, no bass. I recommend using the 3.5mm audio jack or using your preferred Bluetooth headset to amplify your audio experience.

Camera: Social media-worthy

The realme C35 is equipped with a triple camera setup — a 50-megapixel main camera, a 2MP for macro, and another for depth. The camera can zoom for up to 10X digitally but greatly suffers from noise and distortion in the process. The best we can get when zooming is at 2x.

Selfie photos, on the other hand, offer good imagery that can be shared online as well. Portrait blurring isn’t as accurate but is more than decent for everyday needs.

Images we got from the device offered good colors, dynamic range, brightness, and contrast. They’re decent to be uploaded on your social media accounts online and share with family and friends on messaging apps. Here are some sample images taken with the device:

Here’s a video taken with the realme C35. There’s no electronic or optical stabilization included so expect shaky shots when you move around to capture those moments. The graininess and noise come into play when you try to zoom in while recording, so it’s best to leave it at its original zoom state.

Performance

The C35 sports a 2.0GHz Unisoc Tiger T616 SoC, with our unit bearing 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The device also has a different realmeUI – the R edition – with the user experience bearing more similarity to stock Android visuals and is made for budget phones.

Considering the Unisoc chip, the phone does well in daily tasks like simple social media browsing and uploading, light gaming, and calls and messaging. Productivity takes a hit as you’ll notice several lags when switching between tasks. When gaming, the phone considerably heats up at the upper back part but is nowhere near alarming levels.

Apps available on the device include WPS Office, Facebook, Messenger, Lazada, Shopee, TikTok, Twitter, and even PUBG Mobile. realme Link is installed by default, as well as Google’s suite of apps and LinkedIn.

WiFi, Bluetooth, Mobile Data, and GPS all work well. We are able to connect with our WiFi and mobile network with ease, and using Bluetooth for our wireless audio is just as good.

The fingerprint scanner on the phone’s right side can store up to five fingerprints, and the scanner is very responsive to fingerprint presses. Unlocking the phone from the time you press the scanner is really quick. Face unlock is ok, but works well mostly in well-lit environments.

Battery: Stellar as it is

With a 5000mAh battery, you’re sure to have an all-day performance with the realme C35. A normal usage with app browsing, photo taking, calls, messages, and other tasks over WiFi and Mobile data (with two SIM cards), you’ll have up to 22 hours, on average, before you need to recharge it again. Recharging the C35 with the dedicated 18W charging brick takes around one and a half hours to bring it back to 100%.