Talk about much ado about nothing. Realme’s so-called “real 5G democratiser” Realme C67 5G turned out to be a rebranded Narzo 60x with IP54 rating. And it doesn’t come cheap. The C67 5G costs Rs 1,000 more for the entry-level 4GB/128GB trim while the top-end 6GB/128GB model is priced Rs 500 more than the Narzo 60x equivalent. To be fair, the pricing seems fair for what’s on the plate, but the Realme C67 5G doesn’t feel like the phone which was promised just before Xiaomi’s Redmi 13C 5G launch.
The way the phone was pitched, you won’t be wrong if you expected a 5G revolution. We did. Or at the very least, give the new Redmi phone a run for money and while the C67 5G does trump the 13C 5G on every count, question is, at what cost?
The whole point of Realme’s “champion” series was to offer entry-level smartphone buyers a good-looking, well-packaged phone that does most— if not all— things well enough at prices (around the Rs 10,000 price bracket) that won’t break their bank. The mini capsule became a good differentiator for these phones, off late, and while you do still get it on the C67 5G, too, we’re not sure if it justifies the price bump over the Narzo 60x.
The C67 5G has the same 6.72-inch 1080p IPS LCD display with 120Hz refresh rate and 680 nits of peak brightness. It has the same MediaTek Dimensity 6100 Plus chip with same amount of RAM and storage, the same Realme UI 4.0 with Android 13, the same 50-megapixel main and 8-megapixel selfie camera, and the same 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging. The design is the same, too, and so are the colour choices. They’ve just been renamed to sunny oasis and dark purple. The only upgrade comes by way of the official IP rating, which is appreciated, but doesn’t seem like the sort of thing budget-conscious buyers would invest another Rs 1,000 more for.
Again, the Realme C67 5G has a good spec-sheet for the price, but as we wrote in our Redmi 13C first impressions, it, too, is not great value and it would take no review to know that. We won’t go so far as to question its existence, but its only purpose— at this point— seems to be to make the Narzo 60x look better. It won’t be surprising if a more affordable 4G version of the C67 is also in the works. As for 5G, the tax remains inevitable for now.
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