The Realme C25 smartphone is the debut of the ‘C’ series in Brazil, for R$1,600
Photo: Disclosure/Realme/Estadão
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Founded in 2018, Chinese smartphone maker Realme has been betting on mobile phones with the most varied features in the Brazilian market. The most important thing, however, is that they are always arriving at lower prices than the competition, which suffers from the rise in the dollar, something that has generally been hurting the price of the handset category in Brazil.
On Wednesday, 23, the brand announced three smartphones in the country: the top of the line Realme 8 Pro (BRL 2.6 thousand), the intermediary Realme C25 (BRL 1.6 thousand) and the input device Realme C11 (which did not have the price or release date revealed). The two cell phones revealed, sent to Estadão for testing, arrive in stores on June 28 and July 1, respectively, and can be purchased on the websites of retailer B2W, owner of the Americanas, Submarino and Shoptime brands.
First of all, it must be said that, in hands, both the top of the line and the intermediate are very similar, with small differences that appear according to use. Both run Android 11, do not have antennas for 5G (which should not alienate the Brazilian consumer, as this type of connection should only be available in 2023 and without large range in Brazilian cities) and have 128 GB storage. The screen is 6.5 inches and the front camera is a single lens. The similarities end there.
This text will focus on the C25, the intermediate device and the debut of the “C” series, by Realme, in the country. In another moment, we will discuss the 8 Pro, a continuation of the 7 Pro, launched last January as the Chinese’s first bet on the Brazil — in fact, it is worth mentioning that the 7 Pro is a more powerful phone than its successor, which made some difficult choices to justify the lower price.
Realme C25: hard in the fall
Realme wasn’t kidding when they said the C25 was “hard to crash”. For testing, the manufacturer sent out some nuts for the user to try and crack them with the screen or the back of the device — we went straight to the screen, which is what matters. The result can be seen below:
You can’t say the Realme C25 is soft pic.twitter.com/kEy77eL0ST
— Guilherme Guerra (@guilhrmeguerra)
June 25, 2021
Let’s be honest: having a nutcracker cell phone is useless. But it can come in handy in sudden falls. The device is even heavier, with approximately 210 grams (the Realme 8 Pro, for example, weighs approximately 175 g), but this is not a hassle to handle.
What bothers a little more is the quality of the camera, which does not withstand the test of night environments or with artificial lighting (such as living rooms and bedrooms). The tones are very white in selfie photos (with the front camera) and, in the rear, the noise is quite apparent when zooming in on the image.
Realme celebrates the fact that the device has three lenses in the rear camera, which reach 48 megapixels (the selfie camera has 8 megapixels). But, after almost 15 years with smartphones on the market, we already know what matters is how the processing of images takes place, and not exaggerated numbers of specifications. In other words, it’s more the power of the software (along with a good artificial intelligence) than ultra-modern lenses — that’s why the iPhone has one of the best cameras on the market, even if it has few megapixels.
This photo taken on the C25 with the Portrait Mode was beautiful, but we were exactly under a lamppost, which helps a lot pic.twitter.com/xN0q3xJ6ES
— Guilherme Guerra (@guilhrmeguerra)
June 25, 2021
Speaking of the camera’s software, Realme reproduces a very controversial problem: the possibility of, already on the device, the user altering the subject’s physical traits, such as enlarging eyes, thinning nose and “drying” cheeks right before taking the photo. As if it were Photoshop, it’s possible, discreetly but very effectively, to modify one’s appearance, like an Instagram filter before the photo is taken.
Another annoyance of the camera is that it pulls a lot of white in the tones of the images, which look blown away.
Two-day battery
The Realme C25 easily lasts two days without touching the charger. The device has a 6,000 mAh battery — a brand that Samsung’s Galaxy M31 and Motorola’s Moto G60 also have. The feature makes the phone last about 48 hours connected to Wi-Fi with moderate use (no abuse of games, TV series or music without headphones). Realme says the device lasts 25 hours with YouTube turned on and up to 115 hours on Spotify. It remains to wait, in the daily use of months and months, how long it takes for this battery not to become addicted and lose efficiency.
Another plus is facial recognition, which is very quick to unlock your smartphone. In the days of covid-19, there’s a biometric finger scanner sensor on the back, which is handy for when we’re wearing a mask on the street — though it’s not as effective as the other alternative.
The wide angle of the C25 is nice, but looking closely, the picture comes out all cracked. And the 10x optical zoom is pretty bad, especially at night (Banespão there is really messy) pic.twitter.com/Fu2mEsZn9T
— Guilherme Guerra (@guilhrmeguerra)
June 25, 2021
Overall, the Realme C25 is a good mid-range smartphone. The screen is big, the facial recognition reader is practical, the device has a good “footprint” in the hand, the battery is huge and the Helio G70 processor, from the manufacturer MediaTek, does the trick. The camera leaves something to be desired. Don’t expect to take great photos.
As Realme is a company with little road in the market, only time will tell how much the durability of the devices withstands day-to-day use. Battery, processor and software upgrades are the biggest pains for long-time users. Some competitors lag behind in this regard. Let’s see how Realme does.
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