Poco C85 Review: A Reliable Phone That Gets The Basics Right

Globally, Poco ended the year with the launch its flagship F series phones but in India, it's last phone of 2025 turned out to be the entry-level C85. Priced at Rs 12,499, the Poco C85 focuses primarily

on users who spend most of their time messaging, calling, scrolling social media for entertainment, and watching immersive movies. In other words, you use a phone for phone and have realistic expectations from it. For anyone in the market with such expectations and limited budget, the Poco C85 is a great value-for-money option in the entry-level segment. After using this device as a daily driver, here is an in-depth review. Let’s see whether you should spend your money on it.Poco C85 Review: Design

Alright, so when it comes to entry-level budget smartphones, they always compromise heavily on design, but the Poco C85 manages to deliver a clean, pleasant design language. Despite weighing 211 grams, the phone feels lighter than expected thanks to its excellent weight distribution. The back panel features a dual-textured matte and glossy finish. From afar and even when holding it, it looks clean, but yes, there is a downside: it attracts fingerprints if you have oily hands. To combat these prints, keep your phone covered.

The rectangular camera module looks minimalist, modern but not too loud or oversized, which helps in maintaining balanced asthetic. The polycarbonate frame feels sturdy in everyday use. Grip is comfortable, and the device doesn’t feel slippery, although the wider body may be slightly difficult to use one-handed for users with smaller palms like me. The side-mounted fingerprint scanner is quick and easy to reach, while the volume and power buttons feel slightly loose but functional. Overall, the design is simple, practical, and well-executed for its segment.Poco C85 Review: Display

The Poco C85 features a 6.9-inch IPS LCD flat display, making it great for content consumption like watching reels, movies, documentary and etc. The large display gives you enough screen size to enjoy the entertainment on the go. The HD+(1600x720) resolution is ofcourse not sharp as Full HD+, but for the this entry-level budget users if I say–The icons, texts appear adequately crisp.

So here comes a question – What makes the display of Poco C85 stand out?Well, its the adaptive refresh rate. So Poco comes with 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, what happens is that according to the use phone automatically keeps switching between 60-120Hz depending on how much refresh rate is needed by a particular app. For example, if you on chrome browsing something, so here the work is normal now phone will switch to 60Hz from 120Hz. This gives the UI a noticeably smoother feel, especially while scrolling through menus and social media feeds.The brightness levels are respectable, with 660 nits typical and 810 nits HBM, providing decent outdoor visibility. Colour reproduction is balanced, vibrant yet not oversaturated and skin tones appear natural. Blacks are not AMOLED-deep but are better than most LCDs in this price bracket.Poco C85 Review: PerformanceThe phone is powered by the Dimensity 6300 chipset, which delivers stable performance for everyday tasks. The combination of LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage helps the device feel faster during app loading and multitasking.Coming to the test score, which we tested in our Digit Test Labs, the phone scores 576040 on AnTuTu and beats its great competitor, the iQOO Z10 Lite.

On Geekbench, it scored 731, and on multi-core, it scored 1,957, which is a decent number for an entry-level budget phone.

This chipset has previously appeared in devices like the Realme Narzo 80 Lite and iQOO Z10 Lite, where it also provided reliable performance. Poco seems to have optimized the software well, as general usage feels smooth and responsive.In real-world testing, the device handled Instagram scrolling, YouTube playback, browsing with multiple Chrome tabs, and reading long articles without lag or overheating. Even after extended use of around 40–45 minutes of continuous browsing, the phone remained cool.Poco C85 Review: CameraPoco C85 comes with a 50 megapixel primary rear camera and an 8 megapixel front camera.In daylight, the main sensor captures pleasing photos with balanced colours and reasonable detail. For social media uploads and casual photography, the output is more than sufficient.

Indoors or in low light, images show some softness and visible noise, but are still acceptable for the price.

The 8MP front camera produces natural-looking selfies without excessive processing, making it suitable for video calls and general front-camera use.

Poco C85 Review: BatteryPoco C85 powers a 6000mAh battery, which sounds impressive on paper. So, as this device is my daily driver, I can say the battery was good for the price segment. In everyday usage—calls, WhatsApp, social media, YouTube, and light browsing, the phone comfortably lasts an entire day. It’s not dramatically long-lasting, but reliably good.Charging is handled by 33W fast charging, which is reasonable for the price point. A full charge takes around 1 hour and 40 minutes. The phone also supports 10W reverse charging, a useful extra for emergencies.Battery Drain Tests

• 1 hour of Google Maps: 7% drain
• 1 Hour of casual gaming: 6% drain
• 45 minutes of high-resolution video playback: 8% drain

These numbers reflect stable and predictable battery performance.My Two Cents:Poco C85 is a smartphone that is a value-focused device and gives its best when it come ti deliver a balanced experience across the segment. The 120Hz, 6.9-inch display delivers smooth interaction and an enjoyable viewing experience. The Dimensity 6300 chipset provides reliable performance for social media, browsing, and light gaming. The 6000mAh battery delivers consistent all-day use, while the camera is also adequate for casual users.So this smartphone is ideal for a budget-friendly user who wants a device for messaging, calling, browsing, and scrolling through social media. If your priorities include a large display, smooth UI, dependable performance, and a long-lasting battery, the Poco C85 is an excellent value-for-money option.