realme C65 review – A budgeted relevant phone

When I first received the device, I was honestly quite liked the device. Let me just explain more in this full review on the realme C65, part of the realme latest offering of their budget lineup that incorporates both beauty and lower budget phone buyers that just might make sense for some.

Unboxing Contents

Design

At a glance, the realme C65 looks like a phone came from another brand especially when looking at the back of the phone. Futhermore it certainly does not look like a budget phone, as realme implemented photolithography texture development “Shining Starlight Design” that is crafted to look premium visually and matches on anywhere you carry and use it. The thickness is measured at 7.64mm, which is still considered very slim within the category and moreover, the realme C65 still provides very comfortable grip along with the right-angle bezel design. Also when shine under bright light, the back reveals the starlight texture and that smooth to the touch.

Rest is remain a standard with USB C port, 2 microphone for communications and noise cancellation, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and finally a set of stereo speakers located one as down firing and another at the speakerphone. The realme C65 is IP54 protection against dust and water splashes.

Display & Audio

As a budget device, realme C65 still has a 6.67-inch 720×1600 90Hz screen that can boost the brightness up to 625 nits, which can be seen in bright or dark places and covers up to 90% screen-to-body ratio . For the most part, the colors and contrast are good enough for everyday viewing and use, but still nice to watch if you want to watch some drama episodes, good enough to keep up with minimal screen tearing for quick scrolling, but it is still quite good for a budget phone, although the display used is not AMOLED, but an IPS LCD, but it still gets an acceptable quality. Despite all this, the realme C65 is Widevine L3 certified for DRM-based streaming applications, allowing you to watch all movies in Standard quality.

Audio wise, you get a single speaker which can be loud with acceptable clarity with good treble but slightly lack of bass and treble which is pretty much expected and not really a total downside. The phone does offer up to 200% loudness, and it does boost up really loud with close to no distortion. While being a budgeted device, realme still retained OReality Audio, allowing pre-configured audio scenario selections which pre-tuned for Music, Movie or Gaming mode, if not USB C audio plug in support and Bluetooth TWS audio connection is still there for you, should you need it.

Camera

Over to the camera, the main sensor is the 50MP camera with 5P lens followed by a 2MP depth sensor, while on the front camera you will get a 8MP camera.

As one of the realme C65 selling point, the camera can do a pretty well job in capturing images, whether in normal mode or the Hi-Res 50MP mode in day time, which where surrounding lights becomes the support in detecting and able to portray images quite accurately with no distortion or much loss in colors. Zooming the picture under 50MP mode is still properly represented with close to no losses in quality and good dynamic range. Within the camera options there is a street photography mode which brings new filter mode also, which gave a deeper tone on colors. There is no DIS, OIS and EIS mode, so one will have to keep the hands steady in order to get a reasonably good snap, also this is to reduce the overall cost of the phone effectively. The portrait mode in the front 8MP lens and the rear lens works business as usual blurring the backgrounder quite nicely. Night time, that is another story, while where there is light source, it works well enough, while in slightly darker area, a substantial noise were exhibited while zooming on the images in both during capture and after capture will result in some blurriness.

1080P 30FPS is the maximum video recording you can get for both front and back camera which still holds pretty well even when moving fast during recording and no problem on this so far during the course of the review with exception of minor drop in framerate but hardly noticeable.

Performance, Interface, Benchmarks

The realme C65 is equipped with a fairly dated MediaTek G85 Octa Core SOC which is still being deployed in several recently release phone as it is still supported in terms of OS and drivers update. In the end of the day, the SOC is still be able to deliver multi-app operation with good power efficiency which can last you one whole day when used moderately with it’s equipped 5000MaH battery capacity. Recharging back to full on the supplied 45W SuperVOOC will get you back on track in less than 1 hour which is quite fast within this segment. There is NFC embedded in the phone, allowing easy, hassle free tapping through payment terminal or NFC cards that supports contacts pretty easily. 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM with 256GB of internal storage is mostly efficient on day to day use but if that is not enough, Dynamic RAM expansion up to another 8GB is there while storage expansion up to 2TB is possible with MicroSD card expansion.

Gaming over this phone works good and well so long you know what you are expecting, most games from shooters such as CoD mobile or MOBA like Mobile Legends game well with good sustaining in framerate, heavier games such as Genshin Impact may just need to lower down the graphical settings and capping frames to 45FPS in order to have an acceptable gameplay while then, this also helps in controlling the temperature level. With that said, majority of the fast paced eSports mobile game is well optimized on this phone.

Lastly, the realme C65 came with Android 14 and a lighter version of realme UI which implements more of the standard Android 14 features with a few realme UI stuff inside it, with some minimal in store themes customization that it is understandable in order to keep the device running smooth, and I do not consider it much of the downside, however the is a new Mini Capsule 2.0 which is like Apple’s Dynamic Island, with new notification mode control such as displaying music with swipe over to next track, weather display, event alerts and step counter. Another new addition is the Air Gesture which allows for gesture without touching the device. Dynamic Button is here making its debut on turning the power button as an additional launch action, such as turn on the camera or flashlight by double tapping or clicking, since the power button is also a fingerprint sensor as well for unlocking the phone, making it slightly more interactive and functional compare to it’s previous version.

Benchmarks

Benchmarks are here and just for reference purposes, reflecting acceptable multi-core scores on the budget segment and overall, nothing unusual so far.

Technical Specifications

Verdict & Conclusion

The realme C65 is a phone that pretty much focuses on the essentials within the 4G budget phone segment with new tricks and features that is considerable premium, where some is only available on midrangers, while the price tag of RM699 may not be the cheapest 4G phone in the market, this is compensated with somewhat adequate configuration and a budgeted camera sensor that allows you to take a reasonable day shots and a smooth display that you still can scroll through with one hands and lastly the premium design that looks quite nice and matches towards the youthful, up to date vibe, hence if you need a phone that does all your moderate and light tasks app needs, this could also be a quick choice as a starter phone, or a secondary phone that is highly reliable backed by 48-month Fluency Protection.