Realme C21Y 64 GB / 4 GB (RMX3261)

Good balance of price and quality

Realme over the years of its existence has already got its hands on the release of smartphones that offer excellent value for money, and Realme C21Y is another confirmation of this. Its price tag is very limited, but this does not mean that the phone is suitable mainly for calls and only for children and the elderly. On the contrary, thanks to a good “hardware”, the model will become a reliable “workhorse” and will consistently perform all everyday tasks. It is based on the Unisoc Tiger T610 processor, and this, perhaps, at first glance, may repel a potential buyer. The chip of the little-known Chinese company Unisoc (formerly Spreadtrum) is intended for low-cost devices, but is not as popular as Qualcomm and MediaTek solutions. Nevertheless, the devil is not as bad as he is painted: the processor is quite fast, applications run quickly, the interface does not slow down. Moreover, you will be able to play games at your leisure at medium settings without any problems.

Realme also threw additional forces to the aid of the Unisoc Tiger T610. This is 4 GB of RAM (and such a volume is not often seen in devices at this price) and 64 GB of ROM. Storage can be expanded with a microSD card, but the memory itself is far from fast — eMMC 5.1. However, for an inexpensive phone, this is rather the norm, not a drawback. In addition, the Realme R Edition shell is used — something like an analogue of Android Go without unnecessary settings, so as not to additionally burden the system.

Design and features

The smartphone looks like a typical entry-level representative: a plastic case, a regular fingerprint scanner at the back, a teardrop-shaped cutout and a large “chin” under the screen. The display itself is quite large — IPS with a diagonal of 6.5" with a modest resolution of 1600x720 pixels. Therefore, you can’t call the handset compact: the dimensions are 164.5x76x9.1 mm, and the weight is 200 g. But Realme definitely deserves praise for the design: the textured back panel has an X-shaped pattern that visually divides the back into four parts. It turned out both nice and practical, since the lid is not easily soiled and does not slip in your hand. However the location of the speaker at the back was not a very good solution — if the phone is, for example, on the couch with the screen up, then you can easily miss an incoming call.

The cameras are fully consistent with the cost of the device — less, no less. The front camera here is 5-megapixel, and the main one consists of three sensors with a resolution of 13 MP, 2 MP (black and white module) and 2 MP (for shooting macro). In good light, the pictures are good, but at night the quality is lame. Otherwise, everything is smooth: the slot can accommodate both two SIM cards and a memory card without sacrificing anything, there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack and NFC, but only for the Russian market. The battery is quite capacious — 5000 mAh, so one charge is enough for a couple of days of battery life. Charging uses an outdated microUSB port.