The smartphone experience on the Realme C55

As always, one of the first things I test when reviewing a smartphone is the phone experience. I appreciated that Realme C55 had solid signal reception, and the audio quality of phone calls was good. However, I was surprised it was especially good when speaking with someone using the speaker. The other parties heard me loud and clear every time.

The display of the phone is of average quality. You get a good experience when using the phone indoors, no matter what you do: browsing the web, killing time on Tik Tok, or watching movies. However, the screen brightness could be better, and using it outdoors on a sunny day might be challenging.

Realme C55 has a decent IPS display

The audio experience is decent. The sound is relatively punchy, but it doesn’t impress. For a better experience, I recommend using a pair of headphones, especially if you like watching movies or listening to music on your smartphone.

Luckily, the audio jack found on the Realme C55 means you don’t have to buy new Bluetooth headphones too. Instead, you can use wired ones you already have around the house from an older phone.

Listening to music is best when using headphones

As expected for a budget smartphone, gaming is a rather frustrating experience on the Realme C55. You can’t enjoy high-quality graphics. For a fluent gaming experience, you must set your games to the lowest available video preset.

Gaming isn't a great experience

The fingerprint sensor that’s built into the Power button is rather frustrating to use. It was quite imprecise, and unlocking my phone with a PIN or using face recognition instead was faster.

The fingerprint sensor is finicky

Another annoying aspect I noticed is that the Realme C55 can’t use USB-C memory sticks. It just doesn’t detect them. Also, you can’t use the USB-C port to connect the phone to a computer and move files from one device to another. I found this limitation quite frustrating.

On the upside, the Realme C55 has a unique feature in the Android world: at the top of the screen, it displays a dynamic mini capsule (similar to the iPhones), which can show the battery charging status, data usage, and step count. While it is rather limited at this point, it does have the potential to be a feature appreciated by many users.

Realme C55 offers a dynamic mini capsule at the top

Battery life is a strong point for Realme C55. Its large 5000 mAh accumulator can keep the phone running for up to two days of normal use. On top of that, Realme C55 can also charge relatively quickly: it takes 58 minutes to get from 0 to 100% using its bundled 33W fast charger, which is excellent considering the battery’s capacity and the low price tag of this phone.

Charging the Realme C55 is fast

To summarize, the Realme C55 is a good Android smartphone for everyday tasks, with excellent battery life, a decent screen, and a unique mini capsule feature. While it’s a good enough device for most people interested in a budget phone, I don’t recommend it to gamers or those who are into photography or video recording. You’ll find more details on this topic in the following section.

The camera experience on the Realme C55

The camera specs of the Realme C55 are similar to that of many entry-level smartphones, so you shouldn’t expect too much out of it. Its Camera app has a simple user interface that offers all the standard shooting options. Navigating it is easy and intuitive. If you’ve ever used a smartphone for taking pictures, you won’t have any problems understanding what’s what. It’s worth pointing out that the cameras support HDR, night mode, and a special 64-megapixel shooting mode. Zooming is possible up to 5X, but 2x is the maximum recommended, as anything above that will result in poor quality. However, 2x is just a cropping result, not achieved using the actual lens. This means the end result looks pixelated, with pictures lacking details.

The Camera app on the Realme C55

Portraits look good if you take them in good lighting condition, with a nice blur on the background and decent edge detection.

Portraits look nice when shot in good lighting

As expected for a budget smartphone, night pictures are not great, even when using the dedicated Night mode. The photos are grainy, and the shadows have too much noise. Still, you should use the Night mode instead of Auto because you get slightly better results. However, this also means you must wait after taking each picture, as Realme C55 needs some time to process it. You can’t shoot multiple images in quick succession with this phone.

On the upside, pictures taken during the day, in good lighting conditions, deliver natural colors, good contrast, and decent dynamic range. You may notice some overexposure in some photographs, but it’s not too annoying.

A winter landscape shot with the Realme C55

When shooting macro photos, the smartphone has difficulties focusing on the subject, and there’s more blur than I would’ve liked. But, for more on the actual picture-taking experience, look at the gallery embedded below, which includes several samples taken with the Realme C55.

The maximum resolution for recording videos is 1080p. This is the standard for budget smartphones. However, the experience you get could be better. While the colors are OK when shooting in good lighting conditions, the videos lack detail. Also, the lack of image stabilization doesn’t help at all. Watch the video below, filmed atop a beautiful mountain, for a better perspective.

And if you’re curious about the results you get when filming during the night, with some movement involved, check out this clip:

You’ll notice a general lack of detail and quite a bit of pixelization. Also, the sound quality is rather poor.

The camera experience offered by the Realme C55 will not impress anyone. You would expect it from a typical smartphone in its price range. The cameras do their job well enough during the day or in excellent lighting. Still, I wouldn’t recommend this phone for low-light photography or quality video recording.

Android 13, realme UI 4.0, and bundled apps

This smartphone comes with the realme UI 4.0 user interface based on Android 13. The software only includes a few changes to the stock Android experience. For example, you get a new card-like layout for app notifications, dynamic widgets, and a private safe with advanced encryption for protecting sensitive information.

Realme C55 comes with many preinstalled apps

I generally like the realme UI 4.0 interface, but I don’t like that the company has bundled many preinstalled apps. Here’s what you get with your newly purchased Realme C55:

• Amazon Shopping: it allows you to purchase stuff from Amazon’s stores worldwide
• App Market: an alternative to Google Play, with various apps and games. I don’t see the point of using it, and it's unfortunate that you can’t uninstall it.
• Booking.com: useful for planning trips and making hotel reservations
• Bolt: handy when you need a taxi service
• Clone Phone: allows you to migrate your data from an older phone to your new Realme C55
• Compass: a simple app that indicates the cardinal points
• Calculator: can be of service when you’re struggling with math
• Clock: does what it says, which is telling what time it is 🙂
• Facebook: the app of the popular social network
• Games: a hub where you can find and manage all the games installed on the Realme C55
• Joom: a shopping platform for products made in China
• LinkedIn: the app of the popular business and employment-focused social network
• Lords Mobile: Kingdom Wars: a mobile strategy game set in a fantasy world where players build and manage their own kingdoms and armies, battling others in real-time
• My Files: useful for managing the files and folders on your smartphone
• Music: an app that helps you manage and play the music you store on your phone
• Notes: a simple note-taking app that you may find useful
• Phone Manager: helps you keep an eye on the well-being of your smartphone and perform optimizations
• Photos: an alternative to Google Photos. I prefer Google’s app because it also allows me to back up my pictures and videos to the cloud and integrate them with other Google services.
• Recorder: lets you record sound using the phone’s microphones
• Screen Lock: does one thing only, and that’s locking your screen as soon as you tap on it 🙂
• Sneaker Art: a game where you can paint sneakers and other footwear and sell them in your own shoe store
• Spotify: the popular music streaming service
• ThiefPuzzle: a game in which you have to set the trajectory of your thief’s arm to steal things
• TikTok: the gate to the social network bearing the same name
• Videos: a relatively simple app that lets you play locally stored videos
• Weather: displays the weather forecast for the upcoming days

The default Home screen on the Realme C55

I like the clean user interface offered by Realme UI 4.0. However, the number of bundled apps is high. Some of them, like games or some shopping apps, are unnecessary. A better approach would’ve been for Realme to let the users choose the apps they want to install.

Performance in benchmarks

While the Realme C55 is a decent smartphone for day-to-day use, it is good to know how it compares performance-wise to other phones. To give you a clear picture, I ran a series of benchmarks, starting with Geekbench. The phone got a Single-Core score of 424 points and a Multi-Core score of 1421 points, which is lower than what you get from the much older realme 8 5G.

Benchmark results in Geekbench 6

The second benchmarking app that I used was 3DMark. In the Wild Life test, the Realme C55 scored 743 points, while in Sling Shot, it got 1665 points. These scores prove that Realme C55 is not built for gaming.

Benchmark results in 3DMark

I continued running PCMark for Android, a benchmarking app that can test the average performance of smartphones and the battery life you should expect in real-world situations. In the Work 3.0 performance test, the Realme C55 had a decent score of 8581 points, which confirms that this smartphone can handle everyday productivity tasks reasonably well.

Benchmark result in PCMark 10

The Work 3.0 battery life test showed me how long the Realme C55 lasts when used continuously. As you can see, it managed to last 13 hours and 50 minutes. A good result. 🙂

Battery life measured by PCMark 10

The last aspect I checked was the wireless performance of the Realme C55, which supports Wi-Fi 5 but not Wi-Fi 6. Using Ookla’s Speedtest app, I measured the Wi-Fi speed on my 1 Gbps internet connection. The results were similar to those achieved by Realme 10: 229 Mbps for the download speed and 322 Mbps for the upload.

Internet speed results in Speedtest

According to the benchmarks, the Realme C55 is a decent entry-level smartphone that delivers reasonable performance in productivity tasks and social media use. However, there are better choices for mobile gaming. The battery life of the Realme C55 is good, though, and should keep you going for about two days of normal use.

Do you like the Realme C55?

Now you should have a complete picture of this entry-level smartphone, its features, build quality, and its performance in all kinds of use cases. Before closing this review, tell me what you think: Do you like what the Realme C55 offers? Or do you prefer a more expensive smartphone, like the new Realme 10? Comment using the options below and share your thoughts.