First impressions: realme C65

Let’s face it – not all smartphones are smart investments. These days, we tend to gravitate towards devices that can optimize the way we go about everyday life, with price tags that keep our eyes from watering. That being said, let’s flex our making-smart-choices era and ride with it for the long term.

The realme C65 is being touted as a smart investment. realme claims the device to be long-lasting in terms of both durability and usability. Let’s hope this smartphone is the smart investment it claims to be.

What’s in the box?

You can bet that the contents of the box are much more pleasing to the eye as compared to what Brad Pitt’s character witnessed in the movie “Seven” (from which our standard header is inspired by). The realme C65 comes with a quick start guide, a safety guide, a sim card ejector pin, a charging brick and a Type-C charging cable. You will be pleased to find a plastic phone case as well.

Design and build

Two colors are available for the device – Starlight Purple and Starlight Black, the latter of which is the design of the unit I will be testing. It is rounded off with a matte finish, with just a sprinkle of shine to give that starlight feel which to me, makes it quite a clean colorway.

In terms of dimensions, it weighs at just about 185g. It also features an ultra slim design with a thickness of 7.64mm. 

Display

The realme C65 is equipped with a 6.72-inch FHD+ display with a refresh rate of 90Hz. The screen was quite responsive upon initial testing. Although I’ll definitely dig deeper into this for the full review.

Camera

realme boasts a 50MP AI main camera for the C65. It also features an 8MP front camera, which is also used for the Air Gestures feature that allows for touchless controls. This is definitely something I look forward to testing further.

Under the hood

A MediaTek Helio G85 chipset powers the realme C65. It features up to 256GB of storage and up to 8GB of RAM (with another 8GB of Dynamic RAM) as well. Multitasking won’t seem to be a problem with this smartphone. Storage also seems to suffice for keeping all your files, photos and various applications.

Battery and charging

The realme C65 draws its power from a 5,000mAh battery that can hopefully last you more than a day. Look out for my findings once the full review is out.

The device also supports a 45W SUPERVOOC charge which supposedly allows for a full charge after 77 minutes. Further testing will be done of course.

Final thoughts

Upon first glance, the realme C65 does seem to be a smart investment. It comes with all the non-negotiables we look for in smartphones. realme has laid out a ton of features that further adds value to an already solid device. Let’s hope that for this smartphone, first impressions last.

Photos by CJ Lavares