Apple caused quite a stir when it released the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max with their Dynamic Island. It looked strange at first, but now we kinda dig it. And so does Android OEM Realme, it seems.
Enter, the Realme C55, a new Android phone that sits at the budget end of the price range — so very much not in the same league as Apple’s best iPhone. But the two phones do have something in common…
They both have a Dynamic Island.
Dynamic Mini Capsule Island
Realme calls its Dynamic Island something different, but it’s very similar indeed. The name is Mini Capsule, but it offers much of the same functionality that we’ve come to expect from Apple’s island.
For example, GSMArena (opens in new tab) reports that Realme says the Mini Capsule will display things like current charging status, battery alerts, step count, and more. Although that last one, plus walking distance information, won’t be available on day one. You’ll need a future software update to get them.
In some ways, and as much as this is clearly a Dynamic Island rip-off no matter which way you slice it, we kinda like what Realme is doing here. And why shouldn’t it?
There’s one place where Realme isn’t copying Apple, though. The C55 still has a 3.5mm headphone jack which Apple nixed many years ago, but in other ways, Realme’s offering actually trumps the iPhone.
For starters, this thing can charge at 33W, which is impressive and better than the iPhone’s maximum of just 20W. There’s also a 64-megapixel camera, although we doubt it’s up to par with Apple’s 48-megapixel whopper thanks to the awesome onboard image processing power of the iPhone.
Oh, and there’s USB-C. So maybe Apple will be copying Realme when we get to iPhone 15 time this September. Maybe we can expect the pedestrian 20W charging speed to be increased at the same time. Assuming it isn’t limited to only Apple’s cables, that is.
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