POCO, Xiaomi's sub-brand has never failed to amaze the budget smartphone market with its incredible offerings. The POCO C55 is not immune, offering an impressive combination of performance, design, and value. So rest assured, in this review, we shall focus on the build and design of the POCO X3 NFC that shows how POCO has not compromised even when it comes to budget smartphones.
Build & Design
Affordable Design Aesthetics: The POCO C55 has a modern and elegantly designed body. It has a textured, almost leathery finish for a bit of style on the back panel. Their remarkable looks not only add to the visual appeal but also provides you with a sturdy grip eliminating any slips. According to the needs, you can even pick up the phone of your favorite color in which it is available.
In the budget segment, Xiaomi launched this new smartphone that offers good build quality despite the fact you find a plastic body. It has durable build and feels solid and well put together in hand due to its strong frame. Though the materials may not be as luxurious is those used in a flagship model, they get it done and are totally acceptable for daily use. The buttons of the phone are physical clicky ones, which makes up a good tactile feedback.
POCO C55 Display
Size and Resolution
The device comes with a 6.71-inch display which is enough space for watching shows, playing games and browsing the web. Still, it serves the purpose and is definitely good enough for most of us with an HD+ resolution. The pixel density is good enough to avoid any visible pixelation, offering a reasonable viewing experience.
Brightness and Contrast
The C55 has a decently bright display, which means that it can be used under daylight conditions as well. Still, it could find better competition with pricier flagships in peak brightness. It also has an acceptably high contrast ratio, producing a fair amount of difference between light and dark areas.
Viewing Angles and Color Accuracy
Colors in the display are for the most part accurate and I like that due to how vibrant some colors can come across well with a natural feel. But it might not offer the best color accuracy as a bit of color shift may occur at extremely off-angles from the display. If you are thinking there might be any problem with the LCD than sorry to say but it's a common issue ever in budget LCDs.
Refresh Rate
POCO C55 gets a 60Hz refresh rate and that is normal for daily tasks but also not as smooth as higher refresh rates seen on flagship devices. Touch responsiveness is also pretty snappy, and I saw very little scrolling delay or input lag.
Additional Considerations
- Waterdrop notch: The display also features a waterdrop notch for the front-facing camera that might be a plus or a minus depending on your personal preferences.
- Bezels: Bezels around the display are thick, as is often the case with affordable handsets.
- Sunlight Visibility: The display is usable outside under direct sunlight, however it may be slightly dimmer compared to high-end smartphones.
For its asking price, the display of the POCO C55 is a good performer. Large screen size, moderate brightness and fair color accuracy although image quality is not as refined compared to some of the pricier options, it provides a perfectly acceptable viewing experience for most. If you are under budget but want a big display then POCO C55 can be the new contender for you.
POCO C55 Camera
Primary Camera
It has a significantly better 50MP primary camera sensor on the POCO C55 too – quite the improvement for a phone in this price segment. The camera is capable of taking images that are detailed and colorful when looking at a scene in daylight. It focuses fast, so that you don't miss those moment flashes of action. Dynamic range is only passable, and the HDR mode can solve some exposure issues but without a miracle.
Night Mode
Considering the price point that we are talking about, the night mode does wonders and is well not all bad in comparison to other budget phones. This will significantly reduce noise and increase low-light image quality. These results do not achieve the greatness of flagship devices, but are more than sufficient for snapping a few casual pictures.
Portrait Mode
POCO C55 features a 2MP depth sensor for portrait mode, which can blur background in the images processor. As long as the edge detection is successful, it will usually produce a good result (although there are cases when the algorithm may not separate subject and background very well)
Video Recording
The POCO C55 provides a 1080p resolution, 30fps video recording support. The color looks accurate enough, and the stabilization is good. Although the audio quality is not the best, this speaker can catch any environmental noise.
Selfie Camera
The front side is home to a single 5MP selfie camera in the POCO C55. In decent light, it manages to take a well-balanced and detailed selfie full of color. There is also a portrait mode for the selfie camera, however it works but not as amazing as most other devices of this range.
POCO C55 Chipset
MediaTek Helio G85
Under the hood, the device will be powered with MediaTek Helio G85 octa-core chipset that includes two Cortex-A75 performance cores clocked at 2.0GHz and six Crotex A55 power-efficient cores running at 1.8GHz. This hybrid set-up will allow the phone to power through games and apps fast and last for days in practical world scenarios.
Performance and Gaming
The performance on the POCO C55 is pretty decent for its segment with a MediaTek Helio G85 chipset under the hood. The chip can handle the majority of everyday tasks with ease: web browsing, social media apps, video streaming, and even casual games. Yes, it's not the most power hungry processor at play here but you will find the user experience on a whole smooth and responsive.
Because of this, the Helio G85 is quite a capable chip for gaming and can run most popular titles like PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty Mobile at medium to high settings. An example of this is where games need more power to run demanding game such as Genshin Impact could have the processor working near 100 per cent which may lead to a few frame drops or slightly slower load-times.
POCO C55 Battery
That also means that the POCO C55 has a sizable 5,000mAh battery which should be good enough for the day. An extra-large capacity is a unique feature that will make you happy if you rely on constant energy provision.
Battery Life
- Heavy Usage: Under use-cases like gaming, video streaming, constant internet browsing etc, on single full charge the POCO C55 give you a mammoth endurance of about 8-10 hours easily. That's impressive for a device in this price range.
- Moderate Usage: For average use (normal calls, some SMSs and not-so-frequently used social media) the battery goes to 12-14 hours without trouble.
- Light Usage: Even so, POCO says the C55 is good for around two days of usage for lighter users, which should cut it for a phone targeted at regular consumers.
Charging Speed
- 10W Charging: Although battery capacity is very high, but it still gets a decent charging speed. The phone is powered by 10W bundled charger, it gets fully charged in around 2-2.5 hours with the provided USB cable.
Battery Optimization
- MIUI 13: POCO C55 also boots MIUI 13 out of the box, which is also quite good at battery optimization. This is to ensure maximum battery life of the device.
- Battery Saver Modes: MIUI also brings different battery saver modes like normal, performance, and stand by. They have said that these modes will customize the behavior of the battery according to your needs.
POCO C55 Software
POCO C55 feels like premium hardware and a nice software vibe. The user interface of the C55 is built on MIUI 13, which uses Android 12 as its core operating system.
MIUI 13
The POCO C55 runs MIUI 13, Xiaomi's custom Android skin, which offers a host of features and customization options. If you need an alternative, it really comes down to your usage scenario; whether your use-case is casual or more hardcore. The UI is very intuitive and tidy, allowing for easy navigation. The app drawer can be organized in various ways, such as alphabetically or by category, and even have folders created.
MIUI 13 has many customization options which is one of the highlight features of all. There are tons of themes, wallpapers and widgets that can be used by the users to customize their home screen. You can also change the look and feel of your lock screen, as well as choose various clock formats for it. It has all the possible system-level settings to help users tailor the experience.
Conclusion
I have to say that POCO C55 made me pretty satisfied with what it has to offer when I talked about its overall very good packaging for this price range. It has an attractive design, is nice to hold and performs reasonably well making it a good option for anyone looking for some style in their pocket. Sure, it might be struggle a little bit with camera performance and top of the line gaming but for everything else, it is quite solid. The POCO C55 is certainly a solid contender if you're in the market for an affordable, stylish, and capable smartphone.
