Buyers in Kenya can now lay their hands on the first Android smartphone in the region with an iPhone 14 Pro-style “Dynamic Island”, the realme C55.
What is the Dynamic Island?
The Dynamic Island is a feature that was introduced by Apple over half a year ago on its iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max that makes the notch a lot more functional than just another cutout that sits on the centre of a device.
A notch is a small cutout at the top of a smartphone with an all-glass front that can be either placed on the side or at the centre, mostly to accommodate the front-facing camera.
Because of how everyone has implemented it on their devices, various terms have been used to refer to the notch: tear drop, water drop, pin, etc. Recent advancements in optical and display technology, as is the case in the Galaxy Z Fold4 from Samsung, have seen it become possible to have an all-display surface devoid of the notch with the selfie camera being accommodated underneath the display. The camera on the Z Fold4 isn’t the best, however, underscoring just how young the technology still is at this time.
So, that means we still need the notch, right?
The notch on Apple’s iPhones has usually been significantly larger than that on Android devices because in addition to housing the front-facing camera for Face ID (what Apple calls its facial recognition technology), it also houses a bunch of other essential sensors including some that you may have heard of in Androidland like proximity (most common use case: it determines when you have placed your phone on your ear and shuts off the screen during a call) and ambient light (most common use: it auto-adjusts brightness on the display) sensors.
As such, that notch has all but been ugly, if we are being honest. Very prominent at the top and occupying valuable screen real estate.
With the iPhone 14 series, Apple sought to do things a little bit differently. What if the notch could be made a lot more fun and functional beyond what it already was?
Enter Dynamic Island, a pill-shaped cutout that replaces the notch. It’s an “Island” because it is a dark cutout floating at the top of the phone all by itself in a sea of bright pixels and it’s “Dynamic” because it varies in shape and size based on what’s happening on the phone. The Dynamic Island is as much a hardware feature (that cutout) as it is a software feature (the extended physical area around the cutout that software transforms into a “display within a display”), surfacing useful information, alerts and app shortcuts on demand, in addition to providing the traditional notch roles of a selfie camera and a bunch of sensors for the facial recognition technology and other use cases.
So, yeah, in many words, this is the feature that the realme C55 has gracefully picked from the Apple iPhone and introduced to the Android world. Several dozen apps on the Play Store will also let you mimic the Dynamic Island on your smartphone with varying results.
About the realme C55
The Dynamic Island imitation aside, the realme C55 packs a 6.72-inch Full HD+ display with a 90Hz refresh rate, a series first 64-megapixel main sensor at the back that is accompanied by a 2-megapixel black and white sensor at the back and an 8-megapixel sensor on the front, 8GB RAM, 256GB internal storage (expandable up to a terabyte using a microSD card), a MediaTek Helio G88 chipset and a 5,000mAh battery (with 33W SuperVOOC fast-charging).
It runs on realme UI 4.0 with Android 13 underneath.
It has NFC connectivity.
The realme Dynamic Island, which is called Mini Capsule, will display low battery alerts, the phone’s charging status, and data consumption.
The device is going for Kshs 24,900 and comes in two colours: Sunshower and Rainy Night. As usual, we recommend checking with some of our recommended merchants if you’re looking to purchase the device.
