Chinese smartphone brand Realme has been around for a little over a year now. The impact that the brand has on the Indian consumer, however, is significant. Within this short timespan, Realme has become one of the most popular smartphone brands in the country challenging established brands likes Xiaomi and Honor. Almost all of its budget devices have been well received by consumers and reviewers alike. What started off as OPPO’s small sub-brand is now a well-recognized brand in India. In an interesting twist, Realme recently officially entered the Chinese market by launching a new product called the Realme X. We were able to catch up with Realme CEO Madhav Sheth during the launch event and ask him a few questions about Realme’s plans for India. Here are some of the things Madhav Sheth revealed during the event
Realme devices to get Android updates for 2 years
At Google I/O 2019 most of us were surprised to see the humble Realme 3 Pro included in the list of handsets that will receive an official update to Android Q. Priority updates apart, Realme now also promises a 2-year update cycle for most of its devices. This means the Realme 3 Pro you purchased in 2019 will receive assured software updates till 2021. Madhav went on to add that they have also improved the UI and other elements of ColorOS and attributed several of those improvements to Google’s Project Treble. He also revealed that Realme values user feedback a lot and that they will continue to listen to what users want and eventually bring these features to their devices. For example, a recent update to ColorOS brought support for Dark Mode. Taking a dig at Xiaomi, Madhav also confirmed that Realme would never show ads on their devices.
Realme X India launch in June
Realme’e newest handset, the Realme X was announced just a few days ago. Realme is looking at launching this new handset in India after the second week of June. The company will also launch Special Edition Realme X devices in the country. However, these will come in different color options in India. The Onion and White Garlic color options, for example, will not be launched in India. The Realme X is a mid-range device from the company and features an AMOLED display and an in-display fingerprint reader. The handset is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 chipset and gets a 48MP camera at the rear. Realme also plans to launch 5G capable flagship class handsets later this year in the country.
