POCO C65 Review – Budget Friendly and Perfect for the Holidays with SRP Php 5,499

by Fanboy SEO · Published December 27, 2023 · Updated September 1, 2024

Here’s my POCO C65 review which is now out in the market with SRP Php 5,499 featuring a 50MP main camera, 8MP front camera, 5000mAh battery, 6.74″ Dot Drop display and MediaTek Helio G85 processor!

POCO C65 Unboxing

Design

The POCO C65 comes in standard Android phone design with a plastic unibody with a matte finish, that’s super sleek and elegant. The phone comes with rounded corners for better grasping and comes with two cameras at the back that’s slightly protruding but totally harmless to the overall experience. While it looks a little bulky it actually only weighs around 192 grams so its got a right balance of heft and lightness. It also stands at 168mm and spans around 78mm.

Just like other smartphones, it follows the formula with the volume rocker/volume controls situated on the right hand side of the phone together with the power button.

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The SIM tray is found on the left-hand side

The headphone jack is on the top portion. Personally don’t like the design element of this but hey, this is still relatively budget-friendly so we can’t argue with that.

At the bottom of the phone you’ll find the single speaker, the type C USB port for charging and the microphone.

The POCO C65 comes in three colors namely Black, Blue and Purple. Personally loved the blue version of the phone and its great contrast even when outdoors. Brings more to the term “stand out design”.

Display

The POCO C65 comes with a 6.74″ Dot Drop display that for me works perfectly for the price range. The screen is pretty big with a 1600×720, 260 ppi resolution. It can be a little dicey though when you use the phone under direct sunlight but indoors, the 450 nits – 600 nits works well. It actually illuminates your place quite well when your using the phone in the dark or low light settings. Plus you can be sure that your screen’s protected as they added in a nice touch of Corning Gorilla Glass on the phone.

And just like the more higher price phones up there, we also get improved refresh rates for the C65 which is 90Hz. There’s also no problem watching Youtube or Netflix videos on full since the bezels aren’t going to be much of an issue.

Camera

The phone’s rear camera features a 50MP camera with a f/1.8 5P lens as well as a 2MP macro camera with f/2.4.

Some of the modes available for the POCO C65 main camera includes:

Film Camera
HDR mode
Night mode
Portrait mode
50MP mode
Time-lapse

In terms of video output, you can expect videos that can be shot with 1080P 1920×1080 30fps and 720P 1280×720 30fps

Meanwhile the front side of the POCO C65 features a 8MP front camera taking pretty good quality to decent photos. You can also expect video outputs to be:

1080P 1920×1080 30fps
720P 1280×720 30fps

Here are a few sample shots I took using the POCO C65’s main camera.

I’m pretty OK with the featured modes on the front camera namely the:

Film Filter

HDR mode
Soft-light ring
Portrait mode
Time-lapse

Video Sample:

@thefanboyseo #foodpanda #pautasticy2 #foodie #fyp #foryou #tiktokph #tiktokphilippines #tiktokphilippines #geektok #geektokph #geektalkph #geektalk #foodtok ♬ Electro Swing sounds like old vinyl sampling(1066214) – Ponetto

I also liked the macro camera on this. Definitely catches some neat details and enhances a figure further.

Performance

In terms of performance, the POCO C65 is pretty ok. You will be working with pretty decent specs too so you’ll definitely get your money’s worth here.

The smartphone will be available in two variants namely the 6GB+128GB and the review unit that I got which was the 8GB+256GBLPDDR4X + eMMC 5.1 SYou can also expand the storage as it comes with a MicroSD port to store more photos and videos up to 1TB. The phone also comes with MediaTek Helio G85 processor octa-core

Here are some of the results that I got when testing it through various benchmarking apps:

Geekbench 6 CPU Benchmark – 414 (single core) / 1031 (multi core)

PCMark Work 3.0 Benchmark – 9136

Battery and Charging

The POCO C65 features a 5000mAh battery that supports 18W PD charging. Compared to other smartphones in the market that are on the same price point, I think the POCO C65 is a winner in terms of battery life. On the field I used this for posting photos on social media via WI-FI as well as run on mobile data and the battery really did take a while to hit the 50% mark. Plus you can also expert a slightly faster charge here but I seriously recommend you bring the right cable to get that job done. Also it’s on Type-C so bless Xiaomi for sticking the industry standards now.