Realme C75 Long-term Review: Full Specs, Price and Features

I’ve charged it, dropped it, gamed on it, taken pictures, recorded videos, restarted it more times than I should’ve, and basically put it through everything you’d expect a modern phone to handle. And after weeks of use, here’s the truth... It’s not a bad phone, but it’s a frustrating one.

It’s got some excellent hardware for its price, and make no mistake, at ₦225,000 for the 8/128GB or ₦245,000 for the 8/256GB, you’re getting a lot of phone on paper. But specs aren’t everything, and once you move past the tough exterior, some serious problems appear.

This is my real-world, long-term review of the Realme C75, and we’re not holding back, so let's get down to business.

THE INITIAL PROMISE – where it all started

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So let’s rewind to when I first got the phone. At first glance, the Realme C75 doesn’t look like a budget device, the box got that bold, industrial design with flat edges that give it a premium feel—almost like Realme is borrowing some premium design language. My unit came in that lightning gold color, and the back shimmered subtly in light thanks to the fine-textured 3D lines. It genuinely stands out from the usual black-and-grey crowd.

Now when you look at the specs sheet, it’s actually impressive for this price segment. It comes with a 6.72-inch Full HD+ IPS LCD display—2400 by 1080 pixels, 392 ppi. It’s smooth with a 90Hz refresh rate and adaptive refresh tech that scales depending on your activity, so you’re not burning battery when you don’t need that full refresh rate, but I still don’t understand why this is not 120Hz.

And speaking of battery, this phone packs a 5,828mAh cell that might as well be called a power bank. It's paired with 45W fast charging through a USB-C port, and you can go from 0 to full in under 1 hour and 30 minutes, which is impressive given the battery size. Internally, the C75 runs on a MediaTek Helio G92 Max, which is a 12nm octa-core processor., It’s not really impressive on paper, but still manageable based on the budget segment. It’s not flagship level, but it’s decent.

You also get 8GB of physical RAM plus up to 16GB of virtual RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of storage options. On paper, this combo should offer enough horsepower to handle multitasking, gaming, and media consumption smoothly. And Realme didn’t just stop there, they threw in IP68 and IP69 ratings for water and dust protection, that’s serious ruggedness. This phone can survive being submerged, take on high-pressure water jets, and is certified MIL-STD-810H for durability.

You can drop it, splash it, or even rinse it off under a tap, this phone isn’t scared. So initially, I thought we had a winner. The setup was clean, the UI felt smooth, and for a phone in the budget tier, it honestly didn’t feel like a budget device.

THE DECLINE – where things fell apart

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So what happened to all the hypes about this phone I’ve been seeing online? About four days in, things started to change, Performance dipped. I’d be using the phone normally — TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, and suddenly things would slow to a crawl, scrolling started stuttering, app launches got slower, and even pulling down the quick settings panel felt delayed. And the pattern repeated like clockwork.

Used the phone for three to four days and boom —lag. Not minor lags, I felt the phone was even over-bloated, and heres what I had to do — restart it, over and over again. Each time, it would go back to being smooth, for a few days, then rinse and repeat. It became so predictable that I started scheduling my reboots. Ridiculous right ✅.

That’s not normal, not in 2025. And definitely not on a phone with this much RAM. And I’m not the only one... I’ve read forums, Reddit posts, and Facebook groups, all saying the same thing. Smooth for a few days, then trash. It’s like Realme forgot to implement garbage collection in the system memory.

The problem? Software. Realme UI 5.0 on Android 14 has great features, but it’s heavy on bloatware. I suspect RAM and GPU resources aren’t being freed properly. The phone keeps stacking background tasks until it just chokes. And no, having 8GB RAM plus virtual RAM doesn’t fix it when the OS can’t manage it properly. Believe me, this phone has tons of features, including AI that you’d wanna try out. You can customize the phone and do a lot with it.

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THE SOFTWARE UPDATE THAT DID NOTHING

Then came a massive software update, about 5GB in size. Naturally, I got my hopes up, that size should mean real changes in performance tuning, system optimization, and maybe better RAM balancing. Well... that didn't happen. So What happened next? Same issues, same cycle. It still lagged every few days, the UI still slowed down, Games still glitched. It’s like Realme added bloat instead of cleaning house.

Even battery optimization settings didn’t help, it was like the system needed a complete refresh, not a patch. So yeah, the update came, but the core problem?... Still sitting there, mocking me 😒😔.

GAMING – the heat and the struggle

Let’s talk gaming now. The specs suggest it should hold up — G92 Max isn’t a bad chip, and with that RAM, I expected it to at least handle mid-range games well, but the experience? Disappointing. I launched PUBG, and within 10 minutes, the phone got hot! Not “warm in your pocket” hot — I mean actual uncomfortable heat around the fingerprint scanner area and the upper back, it felt like it was trying to toast bread. And when the heat kicks in, so does the throttling >> Frame rates drops, Gameplay stutters. I also tried Asphalt 8—even less demanding games like Rally Horizon start to show signs of thermal slowdown.

It doesn’t matter how much RAM you throw at a game if your chip gets bottlenecked by bad thermal management and poor software optimization. Plus, this phone doesn’t have a dedicated cooling system which is a problem. So don’t let the rugged build fool you — internally, it’s just average.

CAMERA TRUTH – and the teardown reveal

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Now let’s get into the part that annoyed me the most... The camera.

So the Realme C75’s body build is marketed as having a triple-lens setup. You’ve got that 50MP main camera and two mystery lenses, one supposedly macro, one depth. But after using it for a few weeks, I noticed something weird! No matter what mode I used, the shots all looked like they were coming from a single sensor. Portrait mode had weak separation, Macro shots didn’t seem to trigger any special optics, Something just felt off. So I sent the phone to my teardown team at The Gadget Breakdown. We cracked it open, and what we found confirmed everything.

Only one camera is real. Just the 50MP sensor, the other two lenses? Decorative, Dummy lenses, Empty sockets. Realme literally glued on two extra rings to make it look like a triple-camera phone. And that’s not even the worst part — the main sensor doesn’t even have optical image stabilization. So not only is it just a single-lens camera, it’s also unsteady.

Night photos are noisy, the dynamic range is weak, the beauty filters aren’t nice, and video recording is a disaster — no stabilization, soft focus, and terrible motion handling. It’s honestly false advertising. You can’t pitch a triple camera phone and give people one working lens, but I really don’t blame Realme because this is the normal trend now in budget phones.

BATTERY – the only thing that lives up to the hype

But I’ll give credit where it’s due. The battery on this phone is a beast. That 5,828mAh cell holds its own. I routinely got through a full day of heavy usage and still had juice to spare. You could take this phone out at 7AM and still have 30% left by midnight, and on lighter days, you’ll easily get two full days of use. The 45W charging is decent, it’s not blazing fast like 65W chargers on more expensive phones, but it’s quick enough. A full top-up from dead took me about an hour and 45 minutes. That’s acceptable for a battery this big.

And here’s where the rugged DNA actually makes sense. This is a phone built for people who are out all day, construction workers, delivery riders, students on campus from morning to night... The battery will back you up.

FINAL WORD – who this phone is actually for

So who is the Realme C75 really for? It’s for people who need a phone that won’t die physically, but don’t care too much if it dies logically every few days {real talk}. If you need something you can drop, splash, or take into harsh environments, this phone delivers, if you just want to browse WhatsApp, take occasional calls, watch a few YouTube videos, and not much else, it might work for you. But if you want smooth performance, consistent gaming, reliable photography, or even just a responsive phone that doesn’t need to be rebooted every week (which I would like to believe is what a phone is meant to provide/offer) — this isn’t the best choice. The Realme C75 looks like a warrior, but under the hood, it’s a laggy, poorly optimized budget phone pretending to be premium.

CONCLUSION

That’s been my long-term experience. Big shoutout to the team at The Gadget Breakdown for exposing what’s really inside this phone. If Realme wants to fix this mess, it needs to drop a real software overhaul, not more patches, but a full cleanup.

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Cheers 🍻 🥳🥳