Realme lent us an unit of the Realme C53 for review, and I have been using it for almost three weeks. This is going to be a quick review of this budget Android smartphone.
What’s In The Box
In the box, you get the phone, there’s a 11V/3A charger, a USB-C cable, a case, a SIM card removal tool, and some reading material that nobody will read.
Design and Display
The Realme C53 has a sleek and stylish design. The phone is made of plastic and has a textured finish on the back that makes it easy to grip. The phone is available in two colours: Champion Gold and Mighty Black, which is the one I have with me.
From the back, you can probably guess where Realme took the inspiration from, so if you want a phone that looks like a phone from a well-known company with a fruit logo, this might be right up your alley.
This phone has a 6.74-inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. The display is bright and clear, and it has good viewing angles. The colours are also vivid, but it’s hard to use this phone on a sunny day due to its low brightness. Also, the display comes with no screen protector pre-installed, and it has asymmetrical bezels, with the bottom being thicker than the rest.
Performance
The Realme C53 is powered by a 12nm Unisoc Tiger T612 processor. The processor is octa-core and has a clock speed of up to 2.0GHz. The phone also has 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of storage, which can be expanded up to 2TB via MicroSD.
The Realme C53 performs well in most tasks. It can handle light gaming (which means no Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, or CoD Mobile), browsing the web, and using multiple apps at the same time without any problems. The phone also boots up quickly, and apps open and close smoothly. The 90Hz refresh rate also aids in overall smoothness. However, occasionally, I have experienced some lag when opening up and switching between apps.
Here’s a quick tip to make the phone feel smoother and faster: Enable Developer options and set the window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale to 0.5x.
Besides that, the phone only has a single speaker, which means no stereo. Luckily, there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, and you can also use wireless earbuds with it.
In addition, the side-mounted fingerprint scanner is embedded into the power button, and it works well and unlocks quickly. But, sometimes, I just want to check the phone without unlocking it, and there doesn’t seem to be an option where it will only unlock the phone when I press the power button.
Camera
Even though it looks like the phone has a dual-camera setup, in reality, the Realme C53 only has a 50MP rear camera and some kind of sensor that Realme didn’t say what it was.
The rear camera takes okay photos in most conditions. The colours are accurate, and the details are sharp, but the photos look kind of dull and not so pleasing. Also, the camera struggles to handle low-light conditions.
The 8MP front camera takes acceptable selfies. Overall, the photos taken by this phone is good enough for posting on social media. But, if you care about camera quality, you should look elsewhere.
Battery Life
The Realme C53 has a 5,000mAh battery. The battery life is good. It can easily last me for a full day on a single charge with moderate use. The phone also supports 33W fast charging, which can charge the battery from 0 to 100% in about an hour.
Software
The Realme C53 runs on Android 13 with Realme UI T on top. The software is clean and user-friendly, but it comes with a quite a number of bloatware, which can be uninstalled easily.
The Realme UI T looks like a lightly modified version of stock Android 13. The OS runs smoothly and there are no major issues with it.
Overall
Overall, the Realme C53 is a solid budget smartphone option that offers good value for its price. However, it may not be the best choice for users who prioritise camera quality, want better gaming capabilities, or want a better display.
The Realme C53 retails for RM599. For around the same price, you can consider the Infinix Hot 30, which has better gaming performance and an extra 2GB of RAM. or the Poco M5, which is also using the same processor as the Hot 30 and has a proper dual-camera setup.
