After the recent launch of the POCO C55, POCO India has added another entry-level smartphone under its C Series, the company has launched its latest budget smartphone in India – POCO C51 and is the newest entrant in the POCO C Series priced at ₹8,499 (4 GB + 64 GB). The POCO C51 features a leather-like back design, an IP52 splash-resistant rating, MediaTek Helio G36 SoC with up to 7 GB total RAM (physical + virtual), a 5,000 mAh battery, and more. Take a look at our POCO C51 review for more details about the smartphone.
POCO C51 Specifications
- Display & Design: 6.52-inch HD+ display (1600 x 720 pixels resolution), 60 Hz refresh rate, 120 Hz touch-sampling rate, scratch-resistant glass protection, IP52 dust and splash resistance, Leather-like finish design
- Software: Android 13 (Go Edition) Operating System
- CPU: 12nm MediaTek Helio G36 octa-core SoC clocked up to 2.2 GHz (8x Cortex-A53)
- GPU: IMG PowerVR GE8320 Graphics
- Memory: 4 GB LPDDR4x RAM, +3 GB Turbo RAM feature (7 GB total)
- Storage: 64 GB eMMC 5.1 internal storage, microSD card support up to 1 TB (dedicated)
- Main Camera: Dual cameras (8 MP f/2.0 + depth sensor), LED flash
- Selfie Camera: 5 MP f/2.2
- Connectivity: micro USB, 3.5mm jack, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS/GLONASS
- Others: Rear fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock, FM Radio
- Cellular: 4G network, dual SIM, dual 4G standby, VoLTE support
- Battery & Charging: 5,000 mAh battery, 10W charging
- Colors: Power Black, Royal Blue
- Price: ₹8,499 (4 GB RAM and 64 GB storage)
- Availability: 10th April 2023 at 12 PM on Flipkart
- Offers: ₹700 off on credit and debit card transactions
Design, Display, & Build Quality
On the design front, the POCO C51 offers a leather-like finish design on the rear side, similar to its sibling POCO C50. POCO has been using the leather-finish design on other smartphones too such as the POCO C55. The POCO C51 comes with IP52 dust and splash resistance meaning it can survive water splashes and light rains.
The rear side also equips dual cameras with an 8 MP primary camera, and a fingerprint scanner while the rest of the surface has a leather-lookalike textured surface. We got the Power Black color, the POCO C51 is available in two color variants – Power Black, and Royal Blue.
On the display front, the POCO C51 has identical screen specs to the POCO C50, it has a 6.52-inch HD+ display (1600 x 720 pixels resolution) with a standard 60 Hz refresh rate and 120 Hz touch-sampling rate. The display comes with an aspect ratio of 20:9, a brightness of 400 nits, and is protected by scratch-resistant glass.
The right side has power and volume keys while the left side has a triple-slot SIM tray with two 4G SIM card slots and a microSD card slot. The bottom side has an age-old micro USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack, a loudspeaker, and a microphone. The top side has another microphone and a loudspeaker at the earpiece.
Software, User Interface, & Features
The POCO C51 runs on the new Android 13 Go Edition operating system and the security patch available on the phone is dated 1st February 2023. POCO India says the smartphone will receive 2 years of security updates. As an entry-level smartphone, you get several Android 13 features available in the low-spec Go Edition and features that are supported on the phone.
The Android Go Edition has a clean and bloatware-free interface for a seamless experience. The Go Edition OS requires minimal hardware with the basic performance of the CPU. The MediaTek Helio G36 equips octa cores which will offer decent performance on the Android 13 Go Edition operating system.
About the OS, you will design changes in the new version – a bunch of new features which include upgrades in design, better background efficiency, optimized processing, as well as longer battery life. The UI performance is fair, we didn’t notice any huge lags in the interface in our initial usage. Some pre-installed apps found on the phone are Facebook Lite, Spotify, ShareMe, FM Radio, and a few more from Google. You also get the MIUI dialer and MIUI Camera app on the phone.
Hardware, Performance, & Gaming
For the internals, the POCO C51 is powered by the MediaTek Helio G36 octa-core SoC clocked up to 2.2 GHz. The SoC comes paired with 4 GB LPDDR4x RAM and 64 GB eMMC 5.1 internal storage, and an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU for gaming and GPU tasks.
This is an entry-level SoC manufactured in a 12nm FinFET process and consists of 8x Cortex-A53 CPUs. The eight ARM Cortex-A55 cores are power-efficient cores clocked at 2.2 GHz.
Compared to POCO C50, the CPU has been revamped from quad-core Helio A22 clocked at 2.0 GHz to octa-core Helio G36 clocked at 2.2 GHz. This means the performance has been significantly improved on the POCO C51 compared to the POCO C50.
The Helio G36 SoC is very similar to Helio G35 with slight modifications, it delivers identical performance to the Helio G35 (present on the POCO C31) when comparing both of their specs and performance. The performance of the processor is fair in this price segment and good for Android Go Editions.
About the variants of the smartphone, the POCO C51 comes in a single variant i.e. 4 GB RAM with 64 GB storage. The RAM can be expanded +3 GB extra making up to 7 GB via its RAM expansion technology (Turbo RAM) and the storage can be expanded via a microSD card up to 1 TB. The RAM is an LPDDR4x type and the storage is an eMMC 5.1 type.
Cameras
The POCO C51 hosts a dual camera setup on the rear side with an 8 MP primary camera. You don’t get any fancy camera setup, just an 8 MP to support your camera needs, the secondary is a depth sensor while the front side comes with a 5 MP selfie camera for selfies and video calling. It is clear that the smartphone is aimed at the entry-level budget segment, hence you see limited camera capabilities.
The camera specs seem to be average comparatively, it largely relies on the 8 MP primary camera while the other features you get are very minimal. No dedicated wide-angle camera or macro camera is available in the setup, you get a basic camera setup on the back.
You can see the camera interface which is quite similar to what we see in the POCO smartphones, you get Portrait Mode, Photo Mode, Video Mode, Short Video, Timelapse Mode, Tilt-shift, Beauty, and that’s all. The main camera allows users to record 1080p videos at 30 fps.
Moving to the quality of the cameras, the 8 MP camera takes fair shots in the bright daylight, but do not expect anything better. Take a look at the camera samples below that we took from POCO C51.
POCO C51 Camera Samples
Battery Life & Charging
Moving to its battery and charging features, the POCO C51 uses a typical 5,000 mAh battery with support for standard 10W charging. You can expect the smartphone to last up to 2 days depending on your usage. About its charging, the 10W charger might take a while to charge the phone, you should expect up to 2 hours to charge the phone completely from 0% to 100%. An 18W charger is significantly faster compared to a 10W charger.
Verdict – POCO C51 Review
The POCO C51 is extremely budget-friendly, starting price of ₹8,499 for its 4 GB RAM and 64 GB lone variant. It offers a decent package, it comes with a MediaTek Helio G36 CPU with fairly good performance, a splash-resistant leather-like design, a 5,000 mAh battery, support for dual VoLTE & VoWiFi support, and offers a bunch of new features from the Android 13 (Go Edition). For this price, it’s a good value for money, those who are tight on budget and looking for an entry-level 4G smartphone under sub-₹8K price, consider the POCO C51 for all your basic smartphone needs.
POCO C51 Price in India – Where To Buy?
The price for the POCO C51 starts at ₹8,499 for its lone 4 GB + 64 GB variant. The POCO C51 is available on Flipkart, you can grab the smartphone with ongoing offers which include ₹700 off on credit and debit card transactions (₹7,799 after the discount).
