Redmi 15C Review: A Large Phone That Sticks To The Basics, But Is That Enough?

I usually know pretty quickly whether a phone feels right in my hand. Coming from compact phones around 6.3 inches, the Redmi 15C felt comically huge the moment I picked it up. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, just something that took a bit of getting used to.

Once that was settled, the rest of the experience became clearer. And that’s where the conversation around value really begins, because with phones like this, it’s less about what’s missing and more about whether what’s here is actually enough.

So, let’s get into the review.

PROS

• Excellent battery life for everyday use
• Large 6.9-inch screen for media and reading
• Headphone jack and expandable storage still included
• Light enough for its size and comfortable to hold

CONS

• HD+ display looks soft on a 6.9-inch screen
• Teardrop notch makes the display feel dated
• Mono speaker limits the media experience
• Performance falls behind rivals at this price
• Software includes a lot of bloat

Redmi 15C Price in India

The Redmi 15C sits firmly in the budget segment, and the pricing reflects that.

• 4GB + 128GB: Rs 12,499
• 6GB + 128GB: Rs 13,999
• 8GB + 128GB: Rs 15,499

I tested the 6GB + 128GB variant, which feels like the most sensible option of the three. It gives you a bit more breathing room with multitasking without pushing the price too close to phones that are clearly stronger overall.

At these prices, the Redmi 15C isn’t trying to undercut everything aggressively. Instead, it positions itself as a value-focused phone where you’re paying for battery life, screen size, and the basics being done right.

Whether that trade-off works for you depends on how much you’re willing to compromise elsewhere, which becomes clearer as you move through the rest of the review.

Design And Build Quality

For a phone this big, the Redmi 15C is surprisingly manageable. Yes, it’s wide and tall, but at 211 grams, it doesn’t feel as heavy as you might expect for a 6.9-inch device. The plastic build actually helps here, keeping the weight in check and making the phone easier to handle during daily use.

My review unit came in Moonlight Blue, which is easily the most eye-catching of the three. It has a calm, slightly glossy look that reminds me of ocean waves and doesn’t scream budget. The other two colour options, Dusk Purple and Midnight Black, are more understated if you prefer something simpler or less flashy.

You also get IP64 splash resistance, which adds a bit of peace of mind, even if it’s not something you’ll actively think about day to day. The side-mounted fingerprint sensor sits on the power button and works reliably. Face unlock is available too and works well in good lighting.

Despite its size, I felt comfortable using the phone without a case for most of my time with it. It doesn’t feel slippery, and the weight distribution is decent. You also get a headphone jack here, which feels increasingly rare now, even at this price.

Overall, the design won’t win awards, but it’s practical, relatively light for its size, and visually pleasing enough, especially if you pick the right colour.

Display And Audio

This is where the Redmi 15C’s budget positioning becomes the most obvious.

The phone comes with a large 6.9-inch display, but the experience is held back by two things: the HD+ resolution and the teardrop notch. On a screen this big, the low resolution stands out. Text and icons don’t look very sharp at close distances, and if you’re used to higher-resolution panels, you’ll notice it almost immediately. The notch also makes the display feel dated, especially when plenty of phones in this price range have moved to punch-hole designs.

That said, it’s not all bad. Color reproduction is decent, and I’d strongly recommend switching the display colour profile to Vivid. It boosts saturation and makes videos and images look more lively. The phone also tweaks colours depending on the content, which helps the screen look better than the specs suggest, especially while watching videos or scrolling through social media.

Audio is another mixed bag. The Redmi 15C uses a mono speaker, which immediately puts it at a disadvantage compared to phones with stereo setups. For watching videos or playing games without earphones, the sound feels flat and one-dimensional. The upside is volume. With the Volume Boost feature enabled, the speaker gets surprisingly loud. Bass is average and lacks depth, but for casual use, it gets the job done.

Overall, the display and audio experience is serviceable, but clearly not a strength. It’s fine for everyday scrolling and occasional video consumption, but if screen sharpness and speaker quality matter to you, this is one area where the Redmi 15C makes noticeable compromises.

Performance And Gaming

The Redmi 15C isn’t trying to be a performance phone, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise. Powered by the Dimensity 6300, it’s tuned for steady, everyday use. In our AnTuTu runs, the phone consistently landed in the 5.6 to 5.7 lakh range, while Geekbench scores came in at 730 for single-core and 1,951 for multi-core. Those numbers match the real-world experience. It feels smooth enough for daily apps, but there isn’t much headroom once you start pushing it.

Placing it next to phones we tested in our YouTube comparison adds some useful context. The Moto G57 Power performs better overall, despite being offered in a single 8GB variant. The Realme P4X, tested in its top configuration, sits a tier above, hitting close to 1 million on AnTuTu. A big part of that gap comes down to storage. The Realme’s UFS 3.1 storage makes app installs and file transfers noticeably quicker, while the Redmi sticks to UFS 2.2, which is fine but nothing special.

Where the Redmi 15C does hold its ground is stability. In CPU throttling tests, it managed to sustain around 94 percent of its peak performance, and in the Wild Life Extreme stress test, stability was close to 99 percent. That’s reassuring. It doesn’t chase short performance bursts and avoids aggressive throttling. Heating was also well under control during longer sessions. In fact, compared to the Moto, which showed some throttling in extended tests, the Redmi felt more consistent.

We’ve embedded the comparison video below if you want to see these differences play out in real time.

Gaming

In Genshin Impact, the phone’s limits show up quickly. The game defaults to the lowest settings with a 30fps cap. It runs, but it’s not enjoyable, and the large, low-resolution display doesn’t help. This isn’t a phone meant for heavy gaming.

Games like BGMI are a much better fit. The Redmi 15C supports Smooth + Extreme (60fps), and for the most part, gameplay feels smooth. There are occasional jitters during intense scenes, but it’s still a far better experience than heavier titles. In our comparison, both the Redmi and Moto top out at 60fps, while the Realme P4X goes a step further with 90fps support, which is a meaningful advantage if BGMI is your main game.

Lastly, Redmi’s Game Turbo overlay is handy, offering quick toggles for memory cleanup, DND, screenshots, and screen recording. The one thing missing is an FPS counter, which would’ve been useful for tracking performance.

Software

The Redmi 15C runs Android 15 with HyperOS 2 out of the box. Redmi promises two major Android updates up to Android 17, along with four years of security updates, which is reassuring for a phone in this price range. That said, with Android 16 already out, it would’ve been fair to expect the phone to ship with the newer version. Starting on Android 15 isn’t a deal-breaker, but it does make the software feel slightly dated from day one.

Day to day, HyperOS 2 is familiar and functional. Animations are kept simple, which suits the hardware well. You do get Circle to Search, which is genuinely useful, but there aren’t any AI photo editing tools built into the Gallery app. For features like Magic Eraser or Unblur, you’ll need to rely on Google Photos.

The bigger drawback is clutter. There’s a fair bit of bloatware and system promotions, and while you can disable or uninstall some apps, ads don’t disappear entirely. Once you spend a few minutes cleaning things up, the experience improves, but it takes more effort than it should.

Camera

In good lighting, the Redmi 15C’s cameras are perfectly usable, which honestly says a lot about how far smartphone cameras have come. With enough daylight, it’s hard to get a truly bad shot. Most photos look pleasant at first glance, and for quick social media posts, the results are generally fine.

The 50MP main camera does a decent job with detail, but it relies heavily on oversharpening. That tends to take away some of the natural look, especially when you zoom in. HDR is a bit inconsistent too. Highlights can get blown out, particularly in shots with people or bright skies. When the HDR balance is right, though, I do like how some images turn out.

One area I liked is skin tone handling. It’s not overly warm or reddish, and portraits often look slightly moody in a good way because shadows are preserved instead of being crushed. You can also manually adjust background blur in portrait mode, which gives you a bit more control.

Indoors, things fall apart a little. Photos look softer and more artificial, with boosted colours and the same sharpening issues. The 8MP selfie camera is decent at best indoors. Beauty mode can help with skin smoothening and blemishes, but it’s worth dialing it down before shooting.

Video is clearly limited. There’s no 60fps option at all, even at 720p. Footage also looks shaky, with visible banding, so you need steady hands. It’s fine for casual clips and social sharing, and audio quality is okay, but that’s about as far as it goes.

Overall, the Redmi 15C’s cameras are serviceable. They’ll capture moments reliably, but they won’t impress you, and they definitely aren’t a reason to buy this phone.

Battery Life And Charging

Battery life is easily the Redmi 15C’s biggest strength. The 6,000mAh battery delivers excellent endurance. In the PCMark battery test, which runs until the phone drops to 20 percent, the Redmi 15C lasted 26 hours and 38 minutes, putting it in a very comfortable spot for daily use. After that, the phone can deliver an additional 7 hours and 22 minutes on battery saver, and around 6 hours without it, making it a clear battery-focused device.

In real-world use, battery anxiety wasn’t an issue. With plenty of YouTube streaming and regular daily usage, the phone can easily last two days. Even with heavier tasks like extended video recording or gaming, it should still comfortably get through a full day.

Charging is solid, too. Using the 33W charger in the box, the phone went from 3 percent to 97 percent in about 80 minutes. In another session, it climbed from 13 percent to over 50 percent in under 30 minutes, which makes quick top-ups genuinely useful. If long battery life is a priority, the Redmi 15C delivers where it matters.

Verdict

On its own, the Redmi 15C’s main selling point is its big battery. A 6,000mAh cell still counts, and if you look at the phone in isolation, battery life is one area where it holds up well. But once you step back and see what else is available in this segment, that advantage quickly fades.

In our video comparison, phones like the Moto G57 Power and Realme P4X don’t just offer bigger 7,000mAh batteries; they also deliver better performance and a more complete overall experience. Put side by side, the Redmi 15C simply doesn’t offer enough for the price it’s asking. At its current pricing, it’s hard to justify when spending a bit more gets you far more value.