Realme's one of the biggest players in the budget segment of the market. The company has made a name for itself by launching value for money propositions that also appeal to heavy users. The latest of such phones is the Realme C25. Starting at Rs 9,999 for its entry-level variant, the Realme C25 brings with it a mix of interesting hardware, cameras, and features all at an aggressive price.
While not too expensive, the phone still does not skimp on design, or for the matter other essentials as it comes with a water-drop style notch, a big battery, and powerful specifications for the price. As a package, it looks liken it has everything that buyers within the Rs 10k segment want. But is it the phone for you? We'll try answering that question in our full review. For now, let's give you our initial thought about the Realme C25.
Let's start with the design. Among the most interesting things about the Realme C25 is the phone's design and at the heart of this is a big display at the front and a plastic cover at the back of the phone. Realme has gone with a simple and industrious design that isn't at all flashy. The phone uses a textured pattern at the back panel which not only improves the phone's look but also helps with the grip. Realme claims the back panel has been machined using an industry-leading German five-axis precise radium engraving machine, with the back panel also going through 300 minutes of polishing before being plastered on the phone.
While we're not sure about what to make of these claims, what we can say is that the design of the phone does allow the Realme C25 to remain smudge-free and very difficult to scratch. It also makes the phone easy to grip. However, despite this, the phone's overall heft — Realme C25 weighs 209 grams — and the size of its frame — the phone measures 164.5×75.9×9.6mm — ensures that the Realme C25 isn't exactly easy to carry around.
The other big element of the design of the device is the square-shaped camera module which is in the shape of a square. This module houses four lenses, that sit beside each other giving the phone a very Realme 8 like appearance from the back.
As for the display, the Realme C25 comes with a large display that is 6.5-inches in size. This is a 20:9 screen that promises a larger field of view for improved experience while playing games and watching movies. There is also very little in terms of bezels around the panel to improve the visual experience while watching movies and playing games. This 6.5-inch panel is rated to work at a speed of 60Hz, which is okay for the price point, but the fact that it can only churn up to HD+ (720 x 1600 pixels) resolution may end up being a problem for a lot of users. We'll discuss more about the display of the phone in our full review of the device.
As for what's under the hood, the Realme C25 is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio G70 SoC. This is an eight-core 12nm processor that clocks up to 2.0 GHz, and adopts Cortex A75 structure, making it one of the fastest chipsets on a phone in this category. The chipset is claimed to handle most mid-to-heavy apps and games. This has been paired to 4GB of LPDDR4X RAM and either 64GB or 128GB storage options which can both be expanded using a microSD card through a dedicated slot.
There's also a triple rear camera setup on the device which comes with a 13-megapixel primary sensor and f/1.8 aperture. This is sat next to a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor at the back of the device with an f/2.4 aperture. The third lens in the list is a 2-megapixel macro shooter. For selfies, the phone also gets an 8-megapixel selfie lens with an f/2.0 aperture. The phone also gets a huge 6000mAh battery with which Realme claims can last for 47 days in standby mode. For now, we'll refrain from commenting on the claim and wait till we've tested the battery of the device. The phone's battery is also supplemented by an 18W fast charger.
While I may not be able to give a buying recommendation at the moment, I can at least say the Realme C25 looks like a very solid device on paper and one that could cause more than a few ripples because of its aggressive price point.