POCO C51 Review

For the price, the Poco C51 is a good device. You get a very appealing design that genuinely looks and feels premium, enough performance to run all of your high-power games, and a battery that will last you a long time. However, the display is unimpressive, and quick charging through a micro USB connector is limited to 10W.

Review

As a result, smartphones under Rs 10,000 are not the most popular in the market. People do not get much for their Rs 8,000 expenditure. However, there are a few products from well-known names that promise a lot at a low price. The Poco C51 is the latest entry-level offering from Poco, promising a proper Android experience at a not-so-proper price.

The Poco C51 was released in India for Rs 7,799 and is now available for buy on Flipkart. This puts the smartphone up against the recently introduced Redmi 12C, the Indian-made Lava Yuva 2 Pro, and other similar devices. While there are certainly many new possibilities, the Poco C51 stands out. Something that distinguishes the smartphone from its competitors, something that gives the Poco C51 a distinct feel the first moment you lay eyes on it.

Design Review

The design of the Poco C51 is what distinguishes it from its competitors. There's a lot going on with the Poco C51's build and design. The smartphone has a simple design, but the polycarbonate rear panel is what sets it apart. The back has a leather-like texture, similar to what we saw on the Redmi A1 series last year. This provides the Poco C51 a pleasant in-hand feel, and Poco's colour selection is also extremely beautiful.

Other features include a dual-tone camera module in the top left corner of the back panel. We start with the basics. The Poco C51 has a water-drop notch and larger bezels than we're used to seeing on smartphones in 2023. The smartphone's size is also satisfactory. It is neither too large nor too little.

Overall, Poco's design approach is commendable. The gadget resembles Xiaomi's Redmi A-series smartphones (which makes sense given that this is a rebrand of the Redmi A2), which is a good thing because we don't generally get this kind of premium appearance and feel in this price range.

Display

The Poco C51 has a 6.52-inch IPS LCD display with HD+ resolution. The display is not particularly crisp or sharp. The display has a pixel density of 269ppi, which does not provide a lot of detail. The hues also appear a little drab, and this display doesn't feel extremely vivid right away. We also don't have a high refresh rate, so it's unresponsive. The brightness is likewise not very good. Using a Lux Metre, we measured the brightness of the Poco C51, and it had a maximum typical brightness of 361 nits and a low brightness of 3 nits. While these aren't the finest results we've seen, the Poco C51's sunlight visibility is quite good. We were able to use the smartphone comfortably in all kinds of lighting circumstances, with no concerns with visibility.

While the display is unimpressive, it is on level with the competition. Other smartphones in this price range have a comparable IPS LCD display with a comparable resolution. Some may be a little brighter, or a little more brilliant, but this is pretty much what we get in this pricing range.

Performance

In terms of performance, the Poco C51 is equipped with a MediaTek Helio G36 SoC and up to 4GB of RAM. The smartphone runs on Android Go Edition, which is a lower-power version of Android, which means the Poco C51 has enough power to tackle pretty much any task you throw at it.

If you're used to a mid-range or flagship smartphone, this will feel slow. However, when compared to its competitors, the Poco C51 isn't far behind. The device's benchmark scores were satisfactory. AnTuTu gave us 104,163 points while PCMark gave us 4,731 points in CPU-based benchmarks.

Despite its small size, the Poco C51 is capable of readily running high-power games like Call of Duty: Mobile. I played a lot of COD Mobile on this smartphone, and it performed admirably. We did notice delays and frame dips on occasion, but we did able to win a few rounds, indicating that this level of performance is adequate for casual gaming.

The software is something I enjoyed about the Poco C51. The Android Go version, on the other hand, is far more simplified, with fewer extraneous features and permissions to go through. There are a few bloatware apps left, but the general experience is far superior to stock MIUI.

Battery

In terms of battery life, the Poco C51 has a 5,000mAh battery with 10W charging capability. This device has a good battery backup. Despite gaming and doing benchmarks on the device, we were easily able to make this last for more than 1.5 days. Overall, we had more than 7 hours of screen time, which is fantastic.

In tests, the Poco C51 used only 3% of the battery when playing COD Mobile for 15 minutes. We witnessed a 4% battery drain while watching an HD video on YouTube for 30 minutes, and a 7% power drain while using GPS navigation for an hour. However, charging is slow at 10W. The Poco C51 charged from zero to one hundred in less than 2.5 hours! When compared to 2023 norms, this is quite slow.

Camera

The Poco C51 features a dual rear camera arrangement with an 8-megapixel primary camera and a VGA depth sensor. The photos taken with this gadget are adequate. We can get pretty good images from this camera under perfect lighting conditions. However, under low light settings, this device struggles. The photographs in low light are blurry and lack detail. Furthermore, there is no wide angle or telephoto lens for users to experiment with.

Final verdict

As a result, the Poco C51 is a good smartphone for its price. You get a very appealing design that genuinely looks and feels premium, enough performance to run all of your high-power games, and a battery that will last you a long time. However, the display is unimpressive, and quick charging through a micro USB connector is limited to 10W. The Poco C51 is an excellent device to buy for if you want a smooth Android experience without any premium features and have a budget of around Rs 8,000. It looks great and the battery easily lasts all day, which covers the two most significant features people look for in this price range. The camera isn't bad either, and you get some extra convenience features like a capacitive fingerprint sensor on the rear and a 3.5mm headphone port. This is an excellent value for a budget of Rs 8,000.