Realme C12 review: apart from the 6,000 mAh battery is there anything else attractive?

With a price higher than 1 million VND and the time to be released is not long compared to Realme C11, Realme C12 can be considered as a more advanced version, hitting the price segment of more than 3 million VND, which is quite crowded.

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The most "terrible" battery in the segment

Frankly speaking, the 6,000 mAh capacity battery is the brightest highlight when looking at the specifications of the new Realme smartphone. While the battery of rival products is around 5,000 mAh, the Realme C12 hitting the top 6 will create a certain attraction.

The usage and standby time of the Realme C12 are really impressive for people who are used to smartphones with under 5,000 mAh batteries like me. Over 3 days in standby mode with wifi connection and receiving notifications from the app, this "phone" only lost 16% of the battery, as opposed to the figure 5-7% per night on the smartphone I am using.

Experience with daily activities such as surfing social networks, watching movies online, playing games, Realme C12 gave good results with relatively good battery consumption with both popular types of connections today, wifi. and 4G. Whether to use the machine for 2 or even 3 days without charging or not depends on the level of "plowing" of each person, but it is completely possible with this phone model.

With a price of 3.49 million, it is not surprising that "rear" comes with a 6,000 mAh battery on the Realme C12 which is a 5V - 2A charger. Unfortunately, the machine does not support any fast charging technology, so even if you use it with a "better" charger, the charging speed is still the same.

If the time used is extremely long, the number of hours to recharge the smartphone is equally impressive, of course in the negative direction. Still watching the charging time on the Realme C12 like many other products have evaluated, but after more than 2.5 hours, the battery percentage is still straight at 50%, I decided to give up. With a battery-powered phone that doesn't have such a fast charger, the ideal time to charge it is "endless nights".

Big battery in a familiar shape

The overall design of Realme C12 still belongs to the common model of popular segment smartphones: water drop screen + frame, plastic back. Specifically, the 6.52 inch water drop screen, HD + resolution occupies almost the entire front of the machine.

The visibility of this screen is acceptable with wide viewing angles and somewhat bright colors that are the specialty of IPS panels. The resolution, although only HD +, but the overall experience of detail is not so pockmarked when viewed at the right distance. Watching movies or photos may not be eye-catching, but reading text content is okay. The point to note is that the maximum brightness of the device is quite low, so the viewing of outdoor content will be somewhat difficult.

The frame and the back are still curved towards the two familiar edges on smartphones from Chinese companies in recent years and the Galaxy A / M product line of Samsung. To make a little difference for the product, manufacturers focus on creating the rear camera cluster, texture and color on the back. All of that you'll find enough at the Realme C12.

"Cool" than rivals that have vertical or horizontal cameras, Realme C12 owns a square camera cluster that is in line with the popular design trend on mid-range smartphones.

The back of the device is finished in a rough shape with many small straight lines placed side by side. Plus the color scheme into three dark and light patches, Realme C12 brings both a modern look and is clean, easier to preserve than the way of making glossy plastic on some rival products.

The strange point is that in 2020, Realme only equips its products with Micro USB port while direct competitors such as Xiaomi Redmi 9, Vsmart Joy 3 have used USB-C. This is an undesirable loss for a rear-end smartphone, especially the well-equipped element in the price range is Realme's strength before.

Good camera quality, full shooting features

The main 13MP camera cluster + 2MP macro camera + 2MP depth sensor at the back with the full-featured photography application like Realme's higher products help this smartphone to produce stable quality photos.

Photography interface on the Realme C12

The picture in bright enough conditions gives good detail, the colors are somewhat brilliant thanks to built-in AI scene optimization.

Background is backlit, strong difference is handled by HDR quite well, details are kept much and colors are relatively true.

As a product with a "chestnut" price, the main camera cluster of Realme C12 begins to encounter many difficulties in low light conditions. Night mode is now the "lifesaver" for better quality pictures. Although the angle will be a little narrower than usual, but that is a necessary trade-off because the overall brightness and details of the photo now look much better.

Photo taken by automatic mode

Night mode gives the photo a significantly better quality

Featuring an additional 2MP macro camera, the Realme C12 enables close-up shooting, useful for small subjects. Images obtained in bright enough conditions are only average when the color gamut and details are not really separated.

5MP front camera still appears full of beauty modes, capture fonts, color filters. Selfies taken are high quality, rich in detail and of course not less magical.

Performance for basic user needs

Realme C12 is equipped with MediaTek Helio G35 processor, 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal memory. This configuration is somewhat similar to the elder Realme C11, but the 1GB RAM capacity is increased to help run the task better. Resource-consuming apps like Facebook and Chrome will run smoother, as well as reopening recent apps with less frequent reloads thanks to ample RAM.

Compared directly with competitors in the same segment, the processing power of the Realme C12 is not really outstanding. Xiaomi Redmi 9 or Vsmart Joy 3 both give better processing performance in the benchmarks of CPU (Geekbench 5), GPU (3DMark) and overall power (PCMark).

Hardware power is not outstanding, but representatives from Realme still show the ability to meet the basic usage and entertainment needs. "Test fire" with the popular MOBA game is Lien Quan Mobile, with the default setting the machine can handle relatively smoothly when the frame fluctuates at 29-30 fps even in crowded combat. If you are not a hardcore gamer climbing high rank then that is enough for you to have fun with your friends.

In terms of software, Realme C12 uses Realme UI 1.0 on Android 10. I appreciate the minimalist interface, closer to the original Android interface than when Realme smartphones used ColorOS. There is no color in the icon, transition effects, so the overall user experience on the configured phone is not so strong as the Realme C12 still achieves the necessary smoothness. Besides, modern features such as fingerprint unlock, gesture navigation, Dark Mode still appear fully on this product.

Realme C12 "the right match" for you?

Emphasizing the usage life thanks to the "huge" 6,000 mAh battery, Realme C12 is a worthy choice for some users who require durability and meet basic needs. Tech-taxi drivers, parents who need devices to read newspapers, make calls using OTT applications with their children or students, students who want to "harden" the battery for a long time are example users who will evaluate Experience the new smartphone model Realme brings.