Realme C12 Review – From a User’s Perspective

 

The realme C12 is a good phone at a budget-friendly price of less than P6,000!

BEST FOR: Regular users who just need their phone to make voice calls, text messages, be connected on messaging apps, check social media, check their email, order from delivery apps, browse the web, watch their favorite shows on streaming apps like Netflix, iflix, Viu, etc… and do online video calls like Zoom meetings, Skype calls, etc…

As usual, I will be reviewing the realme C12 from a user’s perspective and will be focusing on my experience as a user.

Realme C12 Review

What’s in the Box?

Here’s a quick unboxing of the realme C12. I have this beautiful red C12 that is so festive! It looks lucky, especially now when we’re celebrating the Mooncake Festival!

• realme C12 phone (with screen protector already installed)
• charger
• charging cable
• SIM ejector tool
• quick guide, etc…

It doesn’t come with a cellphone case, but at a super budget-friendly price of P5,990, you really can’t expect additional freebies like a phone case. Although the phone has a matte finish, I was still always worried that I would drop the phone and it made me very careful when using it. Anyway, it is easy to purchase a realme C12 phone case online and I highly suggest that you get a case for your realme C12 🙂

Quick Specs

• The realme C12 has 3GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage, expandable (it has a micro SD card slot).
• It has a 6.5″ big screen!
• It has a triple camera
• Triple slots – 2 SIM slots (dual SIM) and a micro SD card slot.
• Long battery life! 6000mah battery

For the full specifications, please see the official realme C12 specifications page.

The realme C12 uses a micro USB port for charging, and it is in reverse of what is common, so that takes some getting used to but it’s not a big deal.

Here’s the view of the bottom ports:

There’s the speaker, micro USB charging port, microphone, and headphone jack.

Here’s the front view:

The power button and the volume rocker are all on the right side of the phone. The left side doesn’t have any buttons, but the SIM card tray is located on the left.

Here’s the back:

Realme C12 User Review

I have been using the realme C12 for about a month, and I’m pleased with it — it is really value-for-money for P5,990!

If you are on a budget and need a phone to do all the basic stuff for online schooling, etc… this will do. It is not a gaming phone, so don’t expect good gaming performance, but for ordinary, light use, you can’t beat what you get for the price!

Big Screen + Amazing Battery Life

If you’re going to be doing a lot of video things on your phone, whether it’s for work, online schooling, or just watching your favorite shows, a big screen helps!

I watched Season 2 of Cobra Kai on my realme C12, and battery life was great! I started out at 100% battery, watched 3 episodes on the Netflix app on phone speaker at max volume, and when I checked the battery, it was at 94%! One episode is around 30 minutes. Frankly, I’m not even shocked anymore, because the realme 6i also did very well when it comes to battery life.

And then one time I charged the realme C12 to 100% then left it alone for 3 days (Bluetooth, GPS etc turned off, just WIFI is on) just to check how much the battery drains on standby. And when I checked back after 3 days, I was shocked to see the battery life still at 95%!!!

The screen is big but not as bright as my realme 6i. I noticed that I sometimes had to adjust the brightness higher to fit my preference. But if the less bright screen helps the battery last longer, I don’t mind. For most people, battery life is more important.

Connectivity + GPS

I had no problems connecting to our WIFI. Reception was strong even when far away from the router. It uses regular WIFI, not 5G WIFI. Mobile internet uses LTE / 4G.

No problems using it with our Google Home Minis.

Bluetooth works – I was able to play songs on my Bluetooth speaker with no issues. I was able to keep connected to my smart watch and get notifications.

The realme C12 was able to upload and sync photos to Google Photos.

Calls are clear and signal reception is strong.

AND the realme C12 has screencast! I remember a few years ago when this feature was only available on the higher-tier phones. This means you can watch your shows on the big screen if you have a wifi-enabled TV (this only works when you are connected to WIFI). Check out the Screencast icon on the upper right of the screen.

Fingerprint Sensor

Unlocking my phone using my fingerprint was fast. Didn’t encounter any problems. It took less than half a second and it almost always got it on the first attempt.

Zoom Meetings

I have used this phone for several video Zoom meetings and this works well. The speaker is louder than most phones, the front camera takes clear videos for these calls, the mic captures the sound of my voice well. It is so much better than my grainy laptop camera! If you will be using this for video calls / meetings, all you need is a tripod (less than P100 in online shops).

The only problem I had was participating in Zoom chats during the video call because obviously, I can’t type when the phone is on the tripod. But if all you do is mostly video calling, the realme C12 can do it.

Grab / Foodpanda / Lalamove, etc…

No problems with the GPS or anything when using these delivery apps.

Triple Camera

Okay. It’s decent for the price. At this price point, don’t expect the fastest or the sharpest camera, but it’s fine for normal use. It’s actually better than I expected for this price range and takes good photos as long as you have ample lighting.

Here are some sample photos (see more re: Google Lens, below). They have been resized to save on bandwidth but they are otherwise unedited.

Ampalaya plant during a cloudy day:

One of our cats. Had better sunlight for this picture, that’s why it turned out well:

Sweet & Sour Fish (Labahita), taken with indoor lighting at night:

Google Lens

One fun thing I found on the realme C12’s camera app is Google Lens. You can take a picture of something and it will tell you what it is!

Here I took a photo of a flower of our ampalaya plant using Google Lens and it was able to identify it in less than a second! How cool is that?! I know that Google has been able to do reverse image search for years, but having this handy feature incorporated in a budget phone is more than nice. I am sure it will come in handy when you need to identify unfamiliar plants, insects, fruits, products and even paintings and signages!

Okay, so the most trouble I usually have is identifying foreign-language products. Friends and relatives usually give these to me as “pasalubong” from their trips abroad. They are free samples, but it’s still fun to try new skincare, right? 🙂

The problem is, most of the time, they are not in English. So, here, I used my realme C12 to help me quickly identify what they are! Once I know what they are, it’s easy for me to find instructions on how to use the products 🙂 Before this, I used Google Reverse Image Search and that was hit and miss and takes too much effort to do. But using my realme C12 now, it’s super easy, barely an inconvenience! 😀

Games

This is not a gaming phone, so I only tried simple games like Candy Crush Soda 🙂 The realme C12 was able to play it without any problems although loading times were slightly slower than higher tier phones, but still acceptable, and keep in mind that this is a budget phone, so I think it’s reasonable. Other than that, I had a lot of fun playing this 🙂

I also played all the games on Shopee with no issues 🙂

Cons

There are many good things about the realme C12, but I also experienced some cons when using the realme C12:

• when I have too many apps open, the phone sometimes lags and it’s not the fastest phone – it only has 3GB RAM so this wasn’t a surprise to me. There is a quick fix — just close the open apps that you are not using any more, and minimize installing apps that always run in the background (or limit apps that run in the background)

My recommendations for getting the best use out of your realme C12:

• stick to the basics — don’t add too many things that will make your phone do additional work, such as things like animated wallpapers, keyboard skins, etc…
• only install the apps that you really need and use – keep your realme C12 a lean, mean phone machine 🙂 regularly check your phone for apps that you can uninstall and “clean” your phone by closing background apps, clearing junk files, etc…
• avoid having too many apps running in the background

SUMMARY

This phone is on par with more expensive brand phones in the same tier. One of the things that put me off using “cheap” brand phones before was because they always skimped on something — a few years ago, I bought one of those cheap locally branded phones and promptly sold it because the screen was poor, the WIFI reception was very bad, etc.. etc… But realme has changed my outlook. Realme phones are actually very good for the price.

I continue to be impressed by realme’s offerings! The two realme phones I have reviewed have been solid when it came to usability! Wifi & signal reception is great. As a reviewer, I notice where they might have tried to keep the cost down, but as a user, the main things that I need to work well work very well. You get what you need, and for an ordinary, light user, this is more than enough. All that for a very affordable price of P5,990!

BEST FOR: Regular users who just need their phone to make voice calls, text messages, be connected on messaging apps, check social media, check their email, order from delivery apps, browse the web, watch their favorite shows on streaming apps like Netflix, iflix, Viu, etc… and do online video calls like Zoom meetings, Skype calls, etc…

If that is what you need a phone for and you are on a budget, consider the realme C12 🙂