Poco C85 Review: Big Battery Basic Performance

The Poco C85, a successor of the budget C75, is hoping to deliver the basics at ‘the price for it’ other than that they have specifications similar to Redmi 15C. Compared to its predecessor, it has a new processor (brand-new design) that is more durable and fewer batteries with faster charging. So, it may seem that Poco has ‘checked out many items on the list of every budget smartphone buyer. But do these upgrades make sense when paired together? Is the new Poco C85 worth it? Read on to know!

Poco C85 Design

The design of the Poco C85 looks very different from the one it replaces with the C75. The comically large circular camera module has now been replaced with a smaller, more sensibly sized rectangular module that is much less sensitive than the comical big circular one. This takes less space and does not go in your direction when gripping the device.

The rear panel has a split design with a smaller rectangular camera module

It is an embossed look on the rear panel of s with a split metallic finish. The ‘Poco’ branding looks like an embossed logo on the back panel of the front, but it’s just an effect.

Given that the Poco C85 is a polycarbonate shell, I am happy to see IP64 for dust and water resistance. It has all of its buttons on the right side, while the speaker, USB-C port and 3 are speakers. At the bottom are 5mm headphone jacks, which is at the base of . Overall, it is a nice upgrade over the tacky C75’s overall clean and minimalist design.

The fingerprint reader embedded in the power/unlock button works reliably

That said, “The phone is big and heavy. A fine job of resisting fingerprints is the metallic finish, which also makes it extremely lukewarm.

The 6 is of the. It is a very large 9-inch HD+ IPS LCD panel, which is quite big. While its slopy design is slightly dated, it gets enough bright (810-nits) for visibility outside the sun.

Poco C85 Performance

The large display has a dated notched cutout for the selfie camera

This displays saturated colours but cannot reproduce deep blacks, and does not replicate deep dark colors. This does not cause brightness as it gets too bright outside and can be read in direct sunlight. A bit limited, as contrast levels drop and the display is a bit washed out when seen at extreme angles because viewing angles are not always visible. It is adaptive, but not useful (though it does not help) to a 120Hz screen refresh rate of 120hr. It’s because the software interface and games cannot maintain a sustained frame rate, as hardware and bloated software are so underwhelming that it is not supported by any sustained frames.

Poco has reportedly passed Widevine L1 playback certification to avoid s. A full HD playback can also be used to enjoy sharper visuals, even if the display is an HD+ panel and users have access to Full HD video. But if you plug in a pair of wired earphones or connect TWS EARphone, the bottom-firing speaker sounds very one-sided and tinny (even unless it is loud enough to be true).

Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2 is a Poco C85 and it has the same as its counterpart, The PoCo C86. 0 Android 15 0. Poco promises two years of OS and three years security updates, a decent amount for ‘the low-end budget smartphone’. HyperOS 2 . It has a high-end customisation option like the theme, icon and other font options available in 0 from themes to downloadable fonts. But too, it all scales well for ? Nevertheless, given the underlying processor and the 6GB of RAM our unit was equipped with it’s not the fastest phone in its segment.

Out of the box, the Poco C85 comes with tons of bloatware and preinstalled third-party apps and games

Thousands of bloatware, including preinstalled apps, games and many native apps are also found in there. A bit heavy, however, is the software experience The interface frequently stuttering during interaction with the UI. Apps are sometimes a bit slow, and there’s also the odd wait for to launch apps. We purchased our review unit with 6GB of RAM and only supported 7 ungaming apps in the background. And despite these apps, some of them often restarted when revived from the Recents menu.

The Poco C85’s HyperOS version is a stripped-down equivalent to the one that runs on more expensive devices, but it seems like another variant of this. There are a number of animations, transitions and even AI tools (except the usual Gemini defaults) that have not been added. Given how much of the phone is a problem with Android 15, we don’t know whether it will be able to run future updates smoothly.

| Benchmarks | Poco C85 | Moto G67 Power |
| — | — | — |
| Display resolution | HD+ | FHD+ |
| Chipset | Dimensity 6300 (6nm) | Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 (4nm) |
| AnTuTu v10 | 5,74,555 | 8,49,640 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 9,520 | 15,013 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 733 | 1,020 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 1,891 | 2,901 |
| Geekbench AI CPU (Quantized) | 984 | 408 |
| Geekbench AI GPU (Quantized) | 440 | 562 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 1,311 | 3,293 |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 1,295 | 3,324 |
| 3DM Steel Nomad Light | NA | 308 |

It is a good phone for casual games like Subway Surfers, given its low hardware specs. Even with low graphics settings, Asphalt Legends could barely deliver a steady frame rate (with lots of dropped frames and noticeable lag) while playing the game. The phone was unable to respond to screen swipes or orientation changes, and the phone just had trouble with what it said.

Poco C85 daylight primary camera samples (tap images to expand)

This is a single user-accessible, 50-megapixel rear-facing camera and an 8-MP front facing cameras that the phone has. For a low-budget camera, image quality from the main camera is good. It’s warmer colour tones and decent dynamic range that you get from a . A few details are left out in the darker and brighter parts of an image, especially when a contrasty scene is shot. During daylight I also saw some purple fringing closer to the edges of . I can’t zoom in on these images, so there is very little detail when you do it.

Poco C85 low-light primary camera sample (tap image to expand)

Low-light images aren’t great, even though they use the dedicated Night mode. A bit contrasty, they emerge as a louder noise and thus reduces texture detail (i.e. Zoom in does not really give details, as low-light imaging with this camera is primarily about holding pixels together to make objects recognisable by marking their outlines and borders.

Poco C85 camera samples. Top: Selfie portrait mode, bottom: Rear camera portrait mode (tap images to expand)

Auto camera mode Selfies are passable and show a decent facial detail, but backgrounds appear flat and lack details. Faces are over-sharpened in Portrait mode, and backgrounds are blown out (most white) especially in bright environments. When I was using the rear camera’s Portrait mode, I noticed that there were similar problems.

The Poco C85 still has a single user accessible rear-facing camera

The rear camera can record 1080p at 30 fps. There appears to be no electronic image stabilisation, so the output is quite shaky as there seems to have been no such thing as an “electronic” version of . The video recordings are soft and don’t contain much detail, but they look very soft. Colours are natural, but the camera tends to overexpose the bright spots and thus clipped highlights. At panning, contrast and brightness levels dramatically change when a is on the scene. At a low light, the overall quality of shooting is very poor and aggressive cancellations in noise causes flattened or blotchy textures (which makes the video soft) when it’s shot.

The Poco C85 topped PC Mark’s Work Battery Life test with an impressive 26 hours and 11 minutes of the battery, which was upgraded to 6,000mAh, in its remarkable 26-hour and 11. It was a device that lasts well over ‘day of use’ with regular usage, including social media apps, many messaging and office apps (and some light gaming) as well as numerous other devices. A comparatively larger battery (a little more than 6,000mAh) combination, a low-resolution display and the fact that it is not much in gaming or imaging was also an important factor in providing the above battery life figures.

Poco offers a 33W charger in the box

box, including a 33W charger. This makes the phone charge 29 percent in 30 minutes, 62 percent an hour and reach a full-charged state in 1 hour (and 40 minutes), not bad for ‘the budget device’. A 10W wired reverse charging, if required, is also available on the phone.

Poco C85 Verdict

The Poco C85 isn’t very high on value after weeks of testing, it’s clear. But while it does the basics, its bloated chip-powered chipset will leave users wanting more in everyday life even if they’re their first smartphone. The best for those on tight budgets is its battery life and large display. But for this select group of users willing to sacrifice basic usability in order to improve battery life, the Poco C85 will surprisingly make sense. You should spend a bit more and get ‘a better device for everyone else,’ you are actually the one who is right about paraphrasing. A Rs. G67 Power, the Moto G66 Power – . A better option is 15,999, which offers a higher processor, more durability, greater cameras and fewer batteries in sexy package.