Last week, realme Malaysia announced both the 7i and the C17 on our shores. At the time, I noted that both phones were very similar, with the realme 7i already very similar to the 7 and 7 Pro. After having some time with the aforementioned C17, my initial impressions remain unchanged.
As before, one way to tell one model from the other is to look at the way realme uses reflections on the back. On the realme C17, it looks like a sun motif, with the reflection lines coming from the camera island. It’s a nice look overall, which makes the fingerprint sensor here look like it’s in the way.
Also as before, the back has its sides curved for a comfortable grip. This is maintained with the provided case, which you’ll want to use most of the time. The reflective back makes the phone very prone to collecting fingerprints, as nice as it is to look at.
While we’re here, let’s just get the cameras out of the way. The main camera here is a 13MP shooter, but beyond that, everything else is identical to the 7i. Which means it has an 8MP wide-angle lens, as well as a macro and monochrome depth sensor of unspecified pixel count.
Moving to the front of the phone, we have the familiar 6.5-inch HD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate. Again, this isn’t something that I’m consistently seeing. At the top left corner, there’s the 8MP front-facing camera. Then there’s the earpiece which, again, looks large enough to double as a speaker, but isn’t actually one.
On the inside, the realme C17 runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 chipset with 6GB of RAM. It has 256GB of storage, which is twice that of the 7i. The battery is, once again, identical, with a 5000mAh rating and the same 18W fast charging.
And finally, we come to the sides of the phone. Here, the realme c17 is basically identical to the 7i. The SIM tray sits on the left, and the volume rocker and power button is on the right. They even have the same groove around them. Then at the bottom, you have the USB-C charging port, which are flanked by the speaker grille and the 3.5mm audio jack.
To conclude, the differences between the realme C17 and 7i are very minor. Choosing between the two will basically come down to if you want to save the extra RM100, with the C17 being priced at RM899. That being said, the company has not said when it will actually be available beyond :coming soon”, and that Digi is a telco partner.
