Poco C65/Redmi 13C phone review. Check the price, technical specifications, camera, hardware, software, battery, charging speed and other features of Poco C65 phone.

Poco C65/Redmi 13C phone review, price and specifications

Introduction

If you’re looking for a low-cost Xiaomi experience, the Poco is the way to go, and if you want to spend your money on a Poco phone, there are the ‘C’ family devices to consider.

The Redmi 13C is a very similar device to the Poco C65, and in terms of hardware, they are practically identical. We’re pretty sure that the findings in this review apply to the Redmi 13C as well.

Xiaomi Redmi 13C

The Poco C series phones have been released frequently lately and the naming convention is difficult to decipher. It seems that the first number in the model number indicates the generation of the device, while the second number is somewhat related to its relative position in the product line, perhaps also its display size.

If we assume that this is indeed the case, then the new Poco C65 is the first of a new generation of Poco devices and will come to “replace” the Poco C55, even though the latter was launched in February this year. There are many similarities between the C55 and the new C65. Both devices are roughly the same size and feature a MediaTek Helio G85 chipset, a 5,000 mAh battery, and a 50-megapixel primary camera.

However, there are still some generational improvements to be noted. The screen on the C65, for example, has grown slightly and is now 6.74 inches in diameter. But more importantly, it can now refresh at 90Hz, a first for the Poco “C” line of phones. The Poco C65 now supports 18W PD charging, which may not sound like much in absolute terms, but it’s still a significant improvement over the Poco C55’s 10W.

The Poco C65 sweetens the deal with a new dedicated 2MP macro camera on the back, replacing the C55’s depth sensor. The selfie camera has also been upgraded to an 8-megapixel module. And when we say the Poco C65 is a budget device, we mean budget. It’s on sale for just $129 and $149 for the 6/128GB and 8/256GB models (original prices $109/$129).

Unboxing

The Poco C65 comes in a nice and sturdy two-piece box in the usual Poco yellow and black color scheme. Although the manufacturer doesn’t boast about being eco-friendly at all, the packaging appears to be made entirely of cardboard, which is great to see. There’s no built-in plastic stand for the phone to sit on, but it’s still quite securely in place.

The Poco C65 has a relatively rich retail package for its price. This will be a continuing motif with the C65 as it’s good to keep its low price in mind when analyzing different aspects of the experience. The retail box contains a USB Type-A to Type-C cable and a wall charger. It’s just a simple 10W (5V@2A) unit, not one that can saturate the full 18W of power a phone can accept. There’s nothing inside the box, but at this price point, that’s not really expected.

Design

Poco C65 has a very “traditional” design. Nothing out of the ordinary here, just your regular old phone that blends seamlessly into its surroundings.

The design team still tried to incorporate some distinctive details around the rear cameras with a raised area and some vertical lines. It all ties together well and looks classy. The only thing we don’t like about the back of the C65 are the manufacturer’s markings. I wish there was a better place for them.

The C65 is available in a total of three colors: black, blue and purple. Unfortunately, our review unit is probably the most boring black variant. The other two colors look more interesting.

The C65 has an almost completely flat back that sits flush with the midframe. Both of these are made of plastic. The sides of the phone are also completely smooth and have nice rounded corners for more comfort.

The windshield of the C65 is kind of “floating” on top of the middle frame. It’s well glued, of course, but instead of sitting in the middle frame like the back panel, it sticks out.

The C65 has very thick screen bezels, which is to be expected for its price. The lower chin is thicker than the upper frame. However, there’s plenty of room for multiple sensors and a selfie camera that still requires a display notch, but it’s relatively shallow.

Poco C65 is a very heavy device. Its dimensions are 168 x 78 x 8.1 mm and its weight reaches 192 grams. We’re not saying it’s tough or anything, but you’re still getting a big device with a 6.74-inch display and a 5,000mAh battery to boot.

Read more: Xiaomi 14 review, price and specifications

Poco C65 is quite solid and well made. There are no bends in the frame or hollows in the back.

As for materials, it’s no surprise that the C65 is made of mostly plastic. The back and middle frame are both plastic. Both still look like brushed metal from afar, so there’s that. The front of the C65 is fortunately covered with glass. Specifically, Corning Gorilla Glass. Although the manufacturer hasn’t specified exactly what kind it is, it’s great to hear that some protection is in place.

And as for peace of mind, while again there’s no official manufacturer information on the matter and the C65 lacks any official intrusion protection ratings, we did notice a nice thick rubber gasket on the SIM tray. This represents a minimum level of elemental protection. Although, we don’t exactly recommend trying it out for yourself.

Controls

The Poco C65 has a standard set of controls. Well, maybe, except for the 3.5mm audio jack, which is harder and harder. It’s alive and well and it’s at the top of the C65. There is nothing else on the top of the phone.

The left frame is also very empty. It only houses the SIM card tray. The C65 has a total of two nano SIM card slots in the said tray, along with a dedicated microSD memory expansion slot.

The opposite right side houses the volume and power buttons. The latter acts as a capacitive fingerprint reader. The reader is sharp and accurate. We have no complaints about it.

Both controls are well placed and comfortable to click. They feel a little soft to the touch, though they lack satisfying tactile feedback. This is a very minor inconvenience, though.

The bottom of the C65 is a bit more crowded. This is where the main microphone is next to the USB 2.0 Type-C port. The C65 has a single bottom-firing speaker. No stereo speaker setup here, not even a hybrid speaker.

At the end of the tour of controls, a phone is placed near the top of the phone in the space above the display. Proximity and light sensors are also located here.

Connectivity

The Poco C65 performs well in the connectivity department. Although, we should directly note that this is not a 5G device. Both nano SIM card slots on the phone support simultaneous 4G LTE connection.

The C65 also has dual-band Wi-Fi ac and Bluetooth 5.3. Although it does offer LE support. The C65 also has NFC in some markets. You should check with your local retailer for information on that. A receiver supports positioning with GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO and BDS. There is also an FM radio receiver with recording capability.

A USB Type-C port on the bottom can accept USB Power Delivery up to 18W and also supports USB Host/OTG. However, there’s nothing really fancy beyond that, like the video output. The Type-C port is backed up by a USB 2.0 connection, which means data transfer speeds of up to 480Mbps.

C65 has bma253 accelerometer but no gyroscope. The two are usually a combination. There is an ltr311 light sensor, but it is not paired with a hardware proximity sensor either. Instead, the C65 has a virtual proximity sensor that works well for turning off the screen, but is still far less preferable. There is also an mmc5603 magnetometer and compass combination on board. It is expected that there will be no barometer in the Poco C65.

Large 6.74-inch LCD, now with 90 Hz

Poco C65 is equipped with a very large LCD panel. Its diameter is 6.74 inches . As mentioned earlier, the C65 brings a high refresh rate to the Poco C family. It’s just your “base” 90Hz variation , but the difference between it and the standard 60Hz is still very noticeable, making it a much-appreciated addition.

Let’s start with some performance numbers first. The LCD panel in C65 is actually bright enough for an LCD. We measured about 480 nits of maximum brightness on the slider and 607 nits on auto maximum. The availability of an auto overshoot mode is great for bright environments, although the C65 is still difficult to use in direct sunlight.

It is also worth noting that the screen in C65 is only with HD resolution ( 720 x 1600 pixels ). That’s spread a bit thin on the 6.74-inch 20:9 panel, which makes images a bit blurry. Nothing too extreme, but not exactly sharp either.

On colors, Poco C65 has a total of three color modes plus a color temperature adjustment wheel. Modes include Vivid, which is the default, Saturate, and Standard.

 
Color modes

All three modes target the sRGB color space and cover it well. Vibrant and saturated modes have a slightly saturated blue color and cool the color palette. This is especially true for saturation. You can still get very accurate colors using standard mode. DeltaE values ​​of 2000 are low enough to be considered color accurate.

Understandably, the C65 has no hardware HDR capabilities. However, it does support decoding for Dolby Vision. No HDR, HDR10+ or ​​HLG though.

  
HDR modes • DRM info • Netflix streaming capabilities

On a more positive note, we’re happy to report that the Poco C65 supports the highest Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing services like Netflix to offer FullHD streams. That’s frankly weird because it’s technically higher than the resolution on the phone’s own screen, but we’ll take it anyway.

High refresh rate control

The 90Hz refresh rate is an exciting new addition that makes its way to the affordable Poco C line with the C65. As we said, while 90Hz is more or less “basic” and “entry-level” refresh rate as high as you can get, it still makes a big difference in how smooth scrolling and animations feel.

To further sweeten the deal, the Poco C65 even has adaptive refresh rate switching logic. The phone has a total of three refresh rate modes – the default, which promises automatic switching between 90Hz and 60Hz, and then 90Hz and 60Hz modes. The 60 Hz mode is the simplest. It only offers a locked 60Hz experience. However, the 90Hz mode is not fixed at 90Hz. It’s dynamic and has logic down to 60Hz.

     
     
Programs in 90Hz mode

From what we can tell, the phone uses 90Hz for most user interfaces as long as you’re interacting with the phone or there’s movement on the screen. When neither is true, it drops to 60Hz to save power. Some apps, like most Google apps and some non-native apps like Facebook, always run at a fixed 60Hz. When it comes to video playback, the smartphone is smarter. Most multimedia apps like Gallery run at 90Hz in the UI, but once you start playing video, the phone is smart enough to recognize the scenario and drop it down to 60Hz.

Overall, we saw almost the same behavior using the Poco C65 at its default refresh rate. So, effectively, the phone only has two refresh rate modes.

     
     
Programs in default mode

It seems that high refresh rate games are prohibited on Poco C65. We tried a few games that we know can push past 60fps, and none of them were able to enable a 90Hz refresh rate regardless of the display’s refresh mode settings. The included Game Center also doesn’t offer refresh rate settings.

   
Playing with a high refresh rate is prohibited

All things considered, we like how the Poco C65 handles its automatic refresh rate switching. This behavior is smart and multi-faceted and saves battery very well. Playing with a high refresh rate on the phone is prohibited. Anyway, the chipset is a bit closed for power supply. Frankly, we couldn’t ask for more, especially from such an economical device.

The switching rate on actual pixels could be a little better. The C65 has a lot of ghosting and smearing while scrolling, especially in smaller text.

Battery life

The Poco C65 has a very large 5000 mAh battery. That being said, the MediaTek Helio G85 chipset isn’t exactly known for being the most energy-efficient part on the market. As you may know, we recently introduced the new GSMArena 2.0 battery test and the new Active Usage Score metric. You can read all about it here.

The Poco C65 performed very well in our battery test. Nothing spectacular, but still a strong show. It manages great call endurance numbers, and its video playback and web endurance aren’t half bad either. The game component leaves a little to be desired. This is very strange, considering that the phone can’t play continuously at 90Hz, which puts more pressure on the GPU. Plus, it only has HD+ resolution. However, we ran our numbers and retested, and we have another reason why the Poco C65 isn’t a great gaming phone.

Charging speed

One of the Poco C65’s upgrades over the C55 is support for 18W PD charging (compared to the standard 10W charging rate). Admittedly, this still doesn’t make the C65 a fast-charging device.

Fifteen minutes with a PD-compatible charger of sufficient wattage took our review unit from dead to just 14% battery. 30 minutes of charging resulted in 28% battery and full charging took 2:09 hours . To be fair, we’ve seen cheaper devices with slower charging speeds, but the C65 isn’t as fast as you might think.

Things look worse if you use the 10W (5V@2A) charger that comes in the phone’s retail box. With it, fifteen minutes of 11% charge, 22% for 30 minutes, and a full charge takes about 2:35 hours .

Speaker

The Poco C65 only has a single speaker that works at the bottom. There is no stereo setup, not even a hybrid. The single speaker is also not very impressive. In our test, the loudness score was below average . Its frequency response is decent, but nothing to call home. In particular, mids and voices are enough, and certainly an important part. Plus, we have to keep in mind how cheap this Poco C65 is and adjust our expectations accordingly.

In terms of additional audio features, the C65 has something called Voice Assistant . Its notable feature is volume adjustment per program while multiple programs are playing.

MIUI 14 for Poco on top of Android 13

At the time of writing this review, our Poco C65 unit is running Android 13 with MIUI for Poco 14.0.3. This is definitely a very current software combination. Although, we’re not sure what the future holds for Poco devices in regards to Xiaomi’s new HyperOS. There isn’t much difference between the standard MIUI and the iteration for Poco, so we suggest you take a closer look at your MIUI 14. You will find all the information you need there.

The only immediate difference between the standard MIUI and the Poco variants is in the default icon style. It seems to be more in line with Android’s circular icons.

MIUI for Poco also allows you to lock the screen by double-tapping an empty space on the home screen, whereas regular MIUI doesn’t. It also lacks the “large symbols” feature due to its value. We’re still not sure how Xiaomi will decide which features will make it to the global MIUI ROM, which will remain exclusive to the Chinese version, and which features the Poco will eventually receive. Everything is really complicated.

Apparently, MIUI 14 is built almost from scratch as architectural engineers have rebuilt the MIUI core ROM down to the Android kernel level. This includes new CPU, GPU, and memory scheduling, a smaller operating system size, and reduced memory usage overall. As a result, Xiaomi claims a 60 percent smoother experience and more optimized processes. Automatic compression for programs that are not actively used is also in the menu. Unfortunately, however, these are the features we can reliably test.

The split between the notification shade and Control Center isn’t enabled by default on our review unit, which is odd. By default, we got the standard combined notification menu and quick toggle menu.

 
Notification shade and fast switching

Home screen, recent apps and general settings remain unchanged. The app drawer is also enabled by default and cannot be disabled in Poco phones. We like the search bar at the bottom of the page for easier access. There are custom and preset app categories for faster navigation.

   
   
Home screen, recent apps, settings menu, app drawer

MIUI recent apps list comes with some useful shortcuts. You can also choose whether the list of apps is vertical or horizontal. Interestingly enough, the sidebar and floating windows functionality seems to be completely absent from the Poco C65.

Themes have always been a big part of MIUI and they are available in MIUI 14 as well. You can download new ones from the Themes Store and they can change wallpapers, ringtones, system icons and even fonts.

     
Themes and other customization options

Moving towards privacy and security, MIUI comes with a pre-installed system security app. Aside from the extra layer of malware protection it provides, the app keeps many of the app’s settings and privacy features in one place. It can manage your blacklist, manage or limit your data usage, configure battery behavior and free up some RAM. It can also manage the permissions of your installed apps, define the battery behavior of selected apps, and apply restrictions to specific apps only.

 
Security application

All in all, MIUI 14 has changed little in terms of overall user experience compared to the 13th iteration, and that’s not a bad thing. Colorful and customizable as always.

Performance and benchmarks

Like the Poco C55, the new Poco C65 is powered by the MediaTek Helio G85 chipset. It’s a very old 12nm chip from 2020 that didn’t perform very well at launch and is starting to show its age today. There’s no use beating about the bush. The performance it delivers is disappointing all around.

In the CPU department, the Helio G85 has two large Cortex-A75 cores running at up to 2.0 GHz and six smaller Cortex-A55 cores running at up to 1.8 GHz. In terms of GPU, the Helio G85 only has two Mali-G52 MC2 cores to work with. In fact, there isn’t much power to go around. The Helio G85 is paired with 1800MHz LPDDR4X RAM.

Specifically, the Poco C65 comes in 6.128GB or 8.256GB trim, which is the unit we have for review.

Compared to the C55, which starts with 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, it’s a nice little upgrade, so we can’t complain too much. Although, it’s worth noting that the Poco C65 uses the slow eMMC storage type, which could explain its slow performance.

Let’s kick things off with GeekBench and some CPUs. It is easy to understand that the Helio G85 is not a powerful chip. That’s right, once again, we have to remind ourselves of the incredible price of the Poco C65. Still, however, the amount of performance available is kind of disappointing.

Even the Snapdragon 685 inside the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 4G seems to offer slightly better performance than the Helio G85 in the Poco C65. It’s also worth noting that the older Redmi Note 8 2021 seems to fare slightly better on GeekBench with the same Helio G85 chipset. Not much, mind you, but still worth mentioning.

AnTuTu is slightly more favorable than the older Redmi Note 8 2021 and the Poco C65 in this comparison. However, the overall AnTuTu score is not impressive at all.

Our Poco C65 review unit stubbornly refused to connect to the GFXBench servers and run the benchmark. At least after fiddling for a while, it ran 3Dmark. As expected, the Mali-G52 MC2 GPU is pretty weak. At least you don’t have to work too hard to squeeze pixels onto the C65’s HD+ screen.

Unfortunately, the Poco C65 doesn’t just look bad in terms of performance. Even in practical terms, the phone is very slow and sluggish. The lack of smooth operation is one of the biggest problems with the Poco C65.

On the plus side, at least the C65 doesn’t overheat. Its surface is never uncomfortable to the touch, even with long-term stress testing. And the Helio G85 chipset inside isn’t very tasty either. It loses some performance with the torture test, but a very reasonable amount.

However, the amount of sharpening is clearly visible, liberally applied, and there’s very little noise, especially on flat surfaces. Contrast is a little tricky and so is dynamic range. But again, keep in mind that this device is very affordable.

You can force the main camera to shoot at its full 50MP resolution . These photos don’t really look that different compared to their 12.5MP counterparts. The amount of detail is about the same, and the colors, contrast, and dynamic range are about the same. That being said, in 50MP mode, there seems to be less artificial sharpness applied to the frame, resulting in slightly softer but more natural-looking photos.

  
  
Poco C65: 50MP main camera samples

Here’s how the Poco C65’s main camera compares to the competition in our extensive camera comparison database. Pixel-peep away.

 
Poco C65 vs Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 5G in our photo comparison tool

 
50MP: Poco C65 vs Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 5G in our photo comparison tool

The main camera also takes very good portrait photos . Subject detection and isolation can be done almost at any time. We also like the quality of the background blur effect. Skin tones look convincing and completely natural.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera samples

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera portrait examples

Unfortunately, even without applying a filter, there isn’t much skin texture in these portraits. However, this is a relatively minor problem.

Non-human subjects also work surprisingly well. The C65 has very little trouble picking out these subjects and focusing them correctly, something more expensive phones often struggle with.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera portrait examples

The Poco C65 does not have a dedicated ultra-wide or telephoto camera. However, the main camera has plenty of resolution for taking zoom shots . The camera app even has a 2x zoom switch, which shows that Xiaomi is confident enough about the phone’s zoom capabilities.

And indeed, these 2x zoom photos look very decent and look exactly like 1x photos. There is a lot of detail and the colors are beautiful.

  
  
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera samples with 2x zoom

Some liberal sharpening is applied, bordering on oversharpening and contrast, and the dynamic range is excellent. However, these images are perfectly acceptable.

Finally, we have 2MP macro shots from the dedicated macro camera. These also look surprisingly good for what they are. Even with their low resolution, there is plenty of detail in the frame. Colors also look nice and match the main camera well, contrast is good, and the focal length is very wide and impressive.

  
  
Poco C65: 2MP macro camera examples

The Poco C65 selfie camera takes great 8MP photos. The detail is excellent and the skin texture is removed well. Colors and skin tones generally look nice and natural. Even contrast and dynamic range are both good.

  
  
Poco C65: 8MP selfie camera samples

The only real issue we found with these photos is, once again, the camera’s sharpening. Nothing too dramatic, though, and overall, these are some great selfies. The color surprised us.

Selfie portraits look equally great with excellent subject detection, isolation and a convincing background bokeh effect.

  
  
Poco C65: 8MP selfie camera portrait examples

Video quality

As we said earlier, the MediaTek Helio G85 is by no means an impressive chipset. This also applies to its video recording capabilities. As expected, video recording on the Poco C65 is limited to 1080p resolution. However, this is a norm at its budget price, so we can’t complain too much.

By default, the phone saves videos in a standard AVC (h.264) video stream at around 20 Mbps with AAC audio in an MP4 container. Unfortunately, the C65 only records mono audio for its videos. On the plus side, despite its budget nature, the Poco C65 still offers optional HEVC (h.265) video encoding. There is also an interesting option in the settings to automatically reduce the frame rate of videos in low light and high temperature environments. This is a very unusual option that you don’t see very often.

The Poco C65’s main camera shoots decent, if unremarkable, 1080p video. The level of detail is good, with regards to clarity, colors are beautiful and mostly natural.

The dynamic range is a bit narrow for our taste. The contrast is a little high, which results in an over-processed look. Overall, once again, considering the price of the phone, we can’t complain.

Here’s how the C65 compares to other devices in our video comparison database.

 
Poco C65 vs Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and Xiaomi Poco M4 Pro 5G in our video comparison tool

The C65 offers a quick switch for recording videos with 2x zoom . These look largely identical to the 1x examples, which is impressive in its own right. Again, we couldn’t realistically ask for much better from such a budget device.

The Poco C65 doesn’t appear to offer any form of EIS or other stabilization for its video. At least we did not manage to find such options. Here is an example of video from the main camera in motion. It is quite shaky as expected.

The selfie camera on the C65 is also limited to 1080p video recording. And, expectedly, just like the original camera, it only records mono audio, which is a bit of a bummer. However, in terms of quality, we can’t complain. The details are good and so are the colors.

Contrast is a bit too high, and dynamic range could be better, but these are relatively minor issues.

Camera quality in low light

The Poco C65’s main camera struggles significantly in low-light conditions. Photos look quite soft and noisy, with blown out highlights and light sources.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera examples in low light

Fortunately, there’s a dedicated night mode , which slows down processing a bit as expected, but offers a significant improvement in low-light quality.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

Night mode greatly reduces noise. Clarity is improved along with detail. Darker areas are much better managed. However, the biggest improvement should be to highlights and light sources. Night mode is the difference between a protruding clutter and usable real photos.

2x zoom shots from the main camera at night tend to look softer and more static than their 1x counterparts.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5 megapixel main camera 2x the standard in low light

You can significantly improve their overall quality by using Night Mode, which has a 2x zoom shift.

 
 
Poco C65: 12.5MP main camera 2x night mode sample

Low-light selfies are not for a home phone. These are very soft and noisy. Most of the skin texture and fine facial features are completely lost. At least the skin tone looks quite realistic.

 
 
Poco C65: 8 megapixel selfie camera examples in low light

Unfortunately, night mode is not available for Poco C65 selfie camera.

Low-light video from the main camera is serviceable but mostly unimpressive. The amount of detail recorded is actually not bad for a 1080p video.

These videos are noisy and over-sharpened and over-saturated. The Poco C65 also struggles mightily with light sources.