First look at Realme C3 - a smartphone for 10 thousand with everything you need

Last week, we talked about the 2020 iPhone SE, dubbing it the new people's smartphone. Readers did not agree with this wording, because not everyone can easily spend 40 thousand rubles. But today there should be no disagreements, because a smartphone has arrived for a quarter of the price of the iPhone SE - Realme C3. Let's find out what the novelty can offer for 10 thousand rubles.

Design

The smartphone is entirely made of polycarbonate, the back has a corrugated texture. It's great that at least someone broke out of the cycle of disposable "glass" and thought about practicality. The case does not collect prints and dirt, does not strive to slip out of the palm and break at the first meeting with the asphalt. Although it lacks polish, it is forgivable for a budget model.

Almost the entire front panel is occupied by the screen. The front camera is located in a waterdrop notch. The bottom indent is wider than the rest: there is a display cable under it. The corners of the screen are rounded to enhance the bezel-less effect. The only frustrating thing is the lack of an oleophobic coating: the finger does not glide so well on the glass, prints are collected quickly.

Power and volume buttons are located on the right and left sides. On the left there is also a tray for two SIM cards and microSD, and on the back side there is a fingerprint scanner. The bottom end is reserved for a 3.5 mm audio jack, a multimedia speaker and a microUSB port.

Screen

In front, we are greeted by a 6.5-inch display made using IPS technology. The matrix resolution is 1 600 × 720 pixels, or HD +, which in terms of the diagonal gives a pixel density of 270 ppi. With special meticulousness, you can see the graininess, but most of the time, the clarity is satisfactory.

The screen has a decent margin of brightness, good contrast and natural color rendition, although the picture dims slightly at the corners. The matrix is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 with anti-reflective coating, the readability in the sun is decent.

Sound and vibration

The smartphone is equipped with one multimedia speaker at the bottom. It is not very loud and is easily blocked in games, but the sound is quite clear and legible. There is no overload at maximum volume either.

Realme also retained the audio jack, but the headphones were not included in the kit. Considering the price of the device, such savings are justified, and hardly anyone today needs cheap "ears" with a 3.5mm jack.

Another saving point is the vibration motor. The tactile response is rattling and unpleasant. Fortunately, vibration can be turned off in the settings.

Cameras

Realme C3 received a system of three cameras: a standard 12-megapixel module is complemented by a portrait lens and a macro lens. The latter has a resolution of only 2 megapixels, so you shouldn't expect impressive results.

In good light, the picture quality is acceptable. The same applies to the 5 megapixel front camera.

Standard camera

Macro camera

Portrait camera

Front-camera

Also, the smartphone can record video in Full HD resolution with a frame rate of 30 FPS.

Other features

The novelty is based on the MediaTek Helio G70 chipset with eight cores made using a 12-nanometer process technology. Among them are six energy efficient ARM Cortex ‑ A55 up to 1.7 GHz and two high performance ARM Cortex ‑ A75 up to 2 GHz. The amount of RAM is 3 GB (LPDDR4X standard), and permanent memory is 64 GB. Responsible for the graphics video accelerator Mali-G52.

The characteristics are not outstanding, but the model copes with basic tasks quickly: the interface does not slow down, applications open quickly.

The smartphone is running Android 10 with the Realme UI 1.0 shell. The launcher looks neat and follows Google's design code: you can turn on the Material theme to make the shell work well with system apps and services.

The smartphone has NFC and it works with Google Pay. But the main feature is a 5000 mAh battery with support for USB OTG reverse charging. This makes the Realme C3 a great accessory from which to power your main smartphone.

Subtotals

You shouldn't expect much from a smartphone for 10 thousand. Realme C3 offers the bare minimum: a practical design, a large screen, satisfactory cameras and a snappy system. However, not all budget models can boast of this, so the new product looks like a good purchase for its money.