Realme C55 review

Display

The Realme C55 employs a 6.72-inch IPS LCD screen with Full HD+ resolution. It supports a 90Hz refresh rate and should offer a decent brightness per the official specs sheet. There is a small punch hole for the selfie camera.

The actual screen resolution is 2,400 x 1,080 pixels or 392ppi. It is one of the few smartphones in this entry-level class to offer a 1080p panel.

Realme has listed the display as capable of up to 680nits of maximum brightness. We have completed our display measurements, and the number is in the ballpark - the maximum automatic brightness we captured was 650 nits.

If you decide to control the brightness manually, the maximum you can get at the end of the slider is 546 nits. The contrast ratio is good at 1264:1, with a good enough black level for an LCD screen.

The minimum brightness at point white was 3.6 nits.

The display on the Realme C55 supports the DCI-P3 color space, and the overall color accuracy is not that bad. There is a noticeable blue tinge, as usual, but you can reduce it by opting for a warmer color temperature via the dedicated slider in the Display options.

There is support for 90Hz refresh rate, and there are three different Refresh settings available - Auto select, High, and Standard. All three of those are sort of dynamic - the UI drops the refresh rate down to 45Hz for static content, no matter which option you are currently using. For everything that's moving, the High mode uses 90Hz, while the Standard mode is fixed at 60Hz.

There is a slight difference when using the Auto mode - the algorithm decides the refresh rate on app basis - for example, some apps like video players and streaming run at 60fps instead of 90fps, some web browsers, too.

Finally, the Realme C55 supports Widevine L1 DRM and offers 1080p streaming across various apps.

Display options

Battery life

The Realme C55 is powered by a large battery with 5,000mAh capacity. We've completed our battery life test, and the Realme C55 passed with flying colors. The phone scored an excellent 123-hours endurance rating and posted excellent talk, web, and video playback times.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Standby consumption is quite frugal, boosted by several power-saving functions that put certain apps and services to sleep.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test is done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns, check out our all-time battery test results chart, where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging speed

The Realme C55 supports 33W SuperVOOC fast charging, and it ships with the appropriate charger. According to Realme, the said charger should offer a 50% charge in 29 minutes.

We can confirm that. The C55 recharged 27% of its dead battery in 15 minutes and 50% in half an hour.

A full charge took 69 minutes, which is plenty fast.

Speaker loudness and quality

The Realme C55 has one speaker, and it's placed at the bottom of the phone. Realme claims it is capable of up to a 200% boost with the last possible volume setting. We tried the 200% setting, and the increase in the loudness is insignificant, though the sound becomes more ringing as there is a boost in the high frequency.

Sound boost

Without the boost, the audio seems focused on mid-tones and sounds a bit better.

With and without the boost, the Realme C55 scored a Below Average mark on our loudness test. We'd say at 100% the audio is good, though far from an exceptional, yet better than the Spark 10 Pro output.

More importantly, the Realme C55 is among the quietest phones we've tested in our loudspeaker test.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.