Affordable smartphone unveiled with an iPhone-like design, but there's a catch

Oukitel has unveiled the C18, an entry-level 4G smartphone with a rear camera design resembling Apple's recent iPhone 18 Pro models.

The C18 has a rectangular rear camera island in the upper-left corner, with three circular elements arranged in a triangular pattern alongside an LED flash. Its two-tone rear panel, raised camera module and flat frame contribute to the familiar design. However, Oukitel lists only one functional rear camera.

On the front, the smartphone features a 6.517-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1,200 x 540 pixels, a 20:9 aspect ratio and a 60Hz refresh rate. Oukitel claims a 93% screen-to-body ratio, a 1,200:1 contrast ratio and typical brightness of 450 nits. The front camera sits in a waterdrop-style notch.

The smartphone uses a Unisoc T310 quad-core processor with one Cortex-A75 core clocked at 2.0GHz and three Cortex-A55 cores running at 1.8GHz. It also includes a PowerVR GE8300 GPU. The chipset is paired with 4GB of physical RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of storage. Oukitel advertises up to 12GB of additional virtual RAM, bringing the marketed memory total to 16GB. A microSD card can expand storage by up to 1TB.

The same Unisoc T310 processor is used in the Cubot Pocket, which we reviewed previously. That model has a much smaller 4-inch display and a 3,000mAh battery, while the C18 offers a larger screen and a higher-capacity battery.

The C18 has a 5,000mAh battery with 10W charging support. Oukitel advertises up to 700 hours of standby time, 35 hours of talk time and 10 hours of video playback. The camera setup includes a 13MP rear sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and autofocus, alongside a 5MP front camera with the same aperture. Its camera software offers portrait, beauty, HDR, panoramic and professional modes.

The C18 runs Android 16 with Gemini AI integration. It also features a 3.5mm headphone jack, dual-SIM 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 and a USB Type-C port. For navigation, it supports GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo.

The Oukitel C18 measures 163.6 x 75.9 x 9.3mm (6.44 x 2.99 x 0.37 inches) and weighs 198g (0.44lb).

Pricing and availability

Oukitel lists the C18 at a regular price of $179.99, with a promotional price of $129.99 on its official store. The listing also advertises an additional $10 preorder discount and gives November 23 as the estimated shipping date.