realme C100x review – Tough budget phone with huge battery tested

realme has just added a new budget device to their C-series line-up in Malaysia dubbed the realme C100x that aims to hit all the usual highpoints for their budget devices with a large battery, strong durability and modest prices. We managed to get our hands on a unit for field testing. After taking it for a whirl over the past couple of weeks, here’s our realme C100x review where we share if it’s worth what you pay for.

realme C100x Review – Build and Specifications

In Malaysia, the realme C100x comes in your choice of either a gold coloured finish called Golden Coast or a blue colourway dubbed Deepblue Tides. Our realme C100x review unit is the latter. 

Rather than a solid finish, Deepblue Tides has a series of subtle striated patterns across its metallic blue backplate that resemble ocean waves that only appear when held up to the light. The backplate does look attractive when viewed from afar and beyond its subtle striated patterns notably features a dual camera housing and an LED flash riding shotgun.

Interestingly, the realme C100x only has a single actual rear main camera with the other camera housing being mostly for show. Perched just below the dual camera housing is an Interactive Pulse Light that lights up with incoming notifications.

The left of our realme C100x review sample houses a rare triple card tray that houses a microSD card tray and two nano SIM card slots while the right side has a power button and volume rocker. While the top is otherwise unremarkable, the base of the phone has a USB-C port for charging and reverse wired charging duties, a grille for the sole mono speaker and an exceptional rarity for phones in this day and age – a 3.5mm audio jack for wired listening.

Up front, our realme C100x review sample comes with a 6.8-inch LCD display that has a relatively modest HD+ (1,280 x 720 pixels) resolution, up to a 120Hz refresh rate and also features a 900 nits peak brightness for clarity in daylight. Up top, it has a teardrop-shaped cutout for a 5MP selfie camera. 

While it is made primarily of polycarbonate, the realme C100x is built tough with what the brand refers to as an Armorshell casing that combines a reinforced midframe, reinforced corners and internal airbag cushioning to resist shocks on critical components. The phone also has a MIL-STD-810H shock and drop resistance rating, the ability to resist 2M drops and an IP64 dust and splash resistance rating. This lends the phone considerably more protection against bumps, knocks and the occasional drops that happen in everyday use.

Bundled with our realme C100x review unit is a generous assortment of kit that include a free casing, a charger and the obligatory USB-C cable, SIM eject pin and paperwork. Over our time testing the realme C100x, it managed to remain scratch and nick free over the course of two weeks and a couple of accidental spills from pocket height onto concrete and wood flooring.

@hitechcentury Unboxing the new realme C100X in Deepblue Tides! @realmeMalaysia #realmec100x #unboxing #realmeMY #realme ♬ Pachelbel’s Canon in D starting from the famous melody(911769) – SoLaTiDo

Overall build quality for the realme C100X is fair and while the casing is quite obviously made of polycarbonate, the clean lines, comfortable ergonomics and fingerprint resistant finish lend it a relatively polished look from afar.

realme C100x review – Benchmarks and performance

In terms of hardware, our realme C100x review sample comes equipped with an entry-level Unisoc T7250 processor that has a 4G modem paired with 6GB LPDDR4X RAM augmented by 256GB eMMC5.1 storage that can be further expanded via the aforementioned microSD card tray. Running under the hood is Android 16 with realme UI. Optionally, users can assign up to 12GB of virtual memory off the onboard storage or disable it entirely with the default option being the maximum 12GB out of the box.

Keeping the phone powered is a large 8,000mAh battery with 45W SUPERVOOC wired fast charging along with reverse wired charging to juice other gear. Here’s how our realme C100x review unit stacks up on paper:

Price	RM999
Display	6.8-inch HD+ LCD, 720 x 1,570 pixels, 120Hz refresh rate, 900 nits peak brightness
Processor	Unisoc T7250 octacore
OS	Android 16 w/ realme UI
Memory	6GB LPDDR4X RAM/ 256GB eMMC 5.1
Cameras	50MP f/1.8 [rear] 5MP [front]
Battery	8.000mAh w 45W wired fast charge & reverse wired charging
Size/Weight	167.4 x 77.10 x 8.39mm / 219g

When subjected to synthetic benchmarks, the realme C100x with 12GB of virtual RAM assigned scored the following:

3D Mark Wild Life	580
3D Mark Wild Life Unlimited	573
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	161
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	156
Geekbench 7 Single Core	420
Geekbench 7 Multi Core	1,522
Geekbench 7 OpenCL	625
Geekbench 7 Vulkan	581
PCMark Work 3.1	9,415
PCMark Work 3.1 Battery Life	26 hours 57 mins

In terms of overall single, multicore and graphics performance, the realme C100x has outcomes you’d expect from an entry-level chipset and is sufficient for day-to-day tasks expected of a phone. Gaming was possible on the lowest settings and in Call of Duty Mobile textures needed several seconds to load and required low graphics settings to run. If you stick to general tasks like web browsing, emails and social media, the phone runs in a smooth fashion. More demanding tasks like video editing or smooth gaming experiences may require a more powerful device.

Performance aside, realme UI has its own parallel App marketplace that has significant overlap with the Google Play store and constantly attempts to push games to you with notifications until you forcefully mute it. 

Fortunately, the phone still retains access to Gemini as well  as a modicum of AI photo editing capabilities like AI Eraser to remove unwanted parts of an image and AI Clear Face to clean up blur mugshots. However, AI functions are rather slow and take several seconds before anything happens onscreen but it does get the job done.

The phone is also full of bloatware including preinstalled versions of Temu, Snapchat, shortcuts of a slew of rather random games, LinkedIn and more. Fortunately, this simply requires a bit of housekeeping and all these extra apps can be deleted off the phone after boot-up.

Firmware quirks aside, the display is viewable under direct sunlight with fair colour rendition for doomscrolling through TIkTok and YouTube. Like many budget phones, the realme C100x only has a mono speaker at the base though you can ramp up the volume to triple the original volume at 300%. This is sufficient for casual listening as it lacks detail and understandably any sound staging. On the bright side, it can ramp up to 300% volume without distortion.

In terms of endurance, our realme C100x was able to offer a good day and a half of endurance with liberal usage of social media, a few minutes of phone calls, light gaming, TikTok and YouTube as well as Google Docs. In PCMark’s battery life test, it scored a respectable 26 hours and 57 minutes which is helped in part by its modest HD+ display and efficient chipset. Fortunately, charging is a relatively fast affair thanks to its 45W fast charging.

realme C100x Review – Cameras

The realme C100X comes with a basic camera setup with the rear hosting a single 50MP f/1.8 camera that has autofocus but lacks optical image stabilisation with 2X zoom by cropping from the sensor and up to 10x digital zoom.

The rear main camera is also capable of up to 1080p@30fps video capture. The front hosts a single 5MP camera for selfies that only maxes out at 720p@30fps video.

You’ll have to keep your expectations modest with the basic setup available on the realme C100x and you’ll have to stick to daylight conditions and stick to under 2X for best results.

Low light shots are fairly decent with a fair amount of detail and dynamic range but shots look soft beyond 2X. Selfies and videos on both the front and rear aren’t much to write home about and do the job for what you pay for.

Should you buy the realme C100x?

The realme C100x is a robustly built design with a large battery and relatively bright LCD display. It even has a 3.5mm audio jack for wired listening and expandable storage too. 

However, the phone is capped at 4G LTE connectivity, has a somewhat modest chipset that is sufficient for general usage and underwhelming cameras.  If you prize outdoors screen clarity, a large battery and tough durability and on a tight budget, the realme C100x is worth a look.

realme C100X review sample courtesy of realme Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.realme.com/my/realme-c100x