Today I’m going to review the Poco C85 4G, one of Xiaomi’s budget-friendly phones. It brings a nice bump in battery capacity, charging speed, and screen brightness, but it still deals with the usual hardware limits you’d expect at this price.
Compared to tough rivals like the Galaxy A07, the Poco C85 4G definitely has the upper hand in battery life and screen smoothness thanks to its 6000mAh battery and 120Hz refresh rate. However, using older eMMC 5.1 storage and a weaker chip compared to its Korean rival is its Achilles heel, meaning it’s really mostly good for everyday tasks. So the big question is: is this phone really worth buying? I’ll answer all that in this review.
Design
You can get the Poco C85 4G in three colors: Black, Green, and Purple. It comes in two versions, a 128GB model with 6GB of RAM and a 256GB model with 8GB of RAM. The phone also supports memory extension. That means on the 8GB version, you can borrow up to 8GB from the internal storage to boost your RAM to 16GB, which can help the phone run a bit smoother in certain games.
The back of the phone looks pretty nice. Xiaomi says it’s inspired by dancing northern lights at night. There is a vertical line right down the middle of the back panel that splits it in two, which reminds me of the Poco X7 Pro where they first started doing this.
You’ll also spot a fairly large square camera module and that classic huge Poco logo on the back, along with a little signature text. The back panel and frame are made of plastic. It’s about 8mm thick and weighs 205 grams.
At the bottom, you’ve got a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microphone, a Type C port, and the speaker. On the right side, there’s the volume rocker and the power button, which doubles as the fingerprint scanner. The top is totally clean, and on the left side, you’ll find the SIM tray where you can put two 4G SIM cards at the same time along with a microSD card. It even has an IP64 rating, which is awesome for a cheap phone.
Display
The Poco C85 4G has a 6.9-inch IPS LCD panel on the front. It features a 120Hz refresh rate and 810 nits of brightness. That’s good, but you might find it a bit hard to see what’s on the screen if you’re standing right under direct sunlight. The 720×1600 resolution with a 254ppi gives you decent clarity, just don’t expect flagship level sharpness.
The display covers 84% of the front panel, and you’ll see an old waterdrop notch at the top. I still have a problem with this notch on Android phones and I really think they need to ditch it on all models. The bezels are a bit thick, especially the bottom chin, which definitely gives away that it’s a budget device.
Performance
The Poco C85 4G uses the MediaTek Helio G81 Ultra chip. It isn’t a super powerful processor, but it’s perfectly fine for daily stuff like web browsing, scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, and watching YouTube videos. But if you try to install and run heavy apps, you’re definitely going to see some lag and stuttering.
It’s a 12nm, octa-core processor with six 1.8 GHz Cortex A55 cores and two 2.0 GHz Cortex A75 cores. The RAM is LPDDR4X and the storage type is eMMC 5.1. As you can see, it’s very much a budget phone, but despite being cheap, you can still play some light games on it.
For my test, I actually played Call of Duty on it. You can run CoD on the Poco C85, but you have to keep your expectations in line with the price tag. Right off the bat, some Graphics settings are disabled because of the budget processor, and you’ll need to drop the settings as low as possible for a smoother experience. During gameplay, it gives a steady frame rate of around 30 to 32 FPS, and after half an hour of playing, the phone’s temperature only hit 38°C, which is really good.
Camera
On the back, there’s a 50MP main lens with an f/1.8 aperture, sitting next to a QVGA depth sensor. Up front, you’ve got an 8MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture.
The main camera is what you’d expect from a cheap phone. If you have good lighting and take your time focusing, you can get a good shot, but don’t expect too much. It captures an okay amount of detail, though it’s obviously not the best out there. If you want to snap some pictures of your meals, I think it’ll do the job and keep you happy.
The selfie camera is decent in daylight too, and if you keep your hands steady, you can get a picture with acceptable details. But once you move indoors or into low light, the performance definitely drops off.
You can shoot 1080p video at 30fps with both the front and back cameras. You’ll clearly notice shaky hands in the footage, though the rear camera definitely offers slightly better quality than the front one.
Battery & Charger
I saved the best part for last. The Poco C85 4G packs a massive 6000mAh battery that lets you watch videos for around 20 hours. With moderate to heavy use, it easily lasts a full day.
Using the 33W charger included in the box, you can get it to 50% in 30 minutes and fully charged in about 80 minutes. It also supports 10W reverse charging.
Guys, this reverse charging feature can be a lifesaver, especially if you’re traveling or camping. It acts just like a 6000mAh power bank right in your pocket, letting you charge up your earbuds, smartwatch, and other gadgets.
