Phones don’t come much cheaper than the newly announced Realme C31 and C35, which launch in the UK today and retail from £129 and £149 respectively.
The latest budget blowers from Oppo’s sub-brand come hot on the heels of our reviews of the pricier GT 2 and GT 2 Pro from the brand.
Of course, many corners have been cut to make the cheaper C31 about the same price as a pair of AirPods. It has a 6.5in 60Hz LCD display that’s only 720p, with 64GB storage, 4GB RAM, and a plastic frame and back in either light silver or dark green.
Perhaps the biggest draw is the 5000mAh battery, which the company says can last 45 days on standby. No one uses their phone on standby only but given this size cell is in a phone with less processing power than most, it could prove a 2-day-between-charges deal at the very least. A shame it charges by the now-ancient micro-USB.
It’s another budget phone with triple cameras, but don’t expect much at all from the 2Mp macro or 0.3Mp depth sensor. The 13Mp main shooter with autofocus should be OK.
Add to that a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and a headphone jack and you’ve got features you won’t find on a phone ten times the price. Bit weird to have the speaker on the bottom left on the back, though.
Little upgrades
The C35 in particular might well punch above its price. It certainly looks the part with a shiny green colour option and flat sides straight out of the iPhone 13 playbook.
Paying £20 more for the £149 Realme C35 gets you a slightly larger 1080p 6.6in LCD screen with 64GB storage and 4GB RAM, while there’s a £169 model with 128GB storage. It comes in either glowing black or glowing green.
The main draw to pay more is the 50Mp main camera, the same as on the GT2 Pro. Hopefully this decidedly decent lens can process photos as well as its £699 stablemate, though it’s teamed with what looks the same 2Mp and 0.3Mp other cameras as the C31. Its 8Mp selfie camera bests the C31’s 5Mp snapper though.
Realme says the C35 is the first phone on the market powered by the Unisoc Tiger T616 CPU. Chinese semiconductor firm Unisoc also provides its Tiger T612 chip for the C31.
The chips are fairly low-powered, so the C35 should also see decent battery life with its 5000mAh battery, which Realme claims can charge 50% in 49 minutes thanks to the 18W charger in the box – thankfully USB-C.
Notably, neither phone has NFC so they won’t be able to handle mobile payments but both have microSD card slots expandable to a massive 1TB.
They also both launch with Realme’s UI R Edition that’s based on Android 11. There’s no news on whether the phones will get upgraded to Android 12, the current latest version.
We’ve got a C31 and C35 wending their way to Tech Advisor towers as we speak, so keep tuned for our reviews to see if these cheap chaps come recommended if you’re searching for budget smartphones, or check out our full ranking of the best Realme phones for more from the brand.
