Realme announces super-cheap flagship phone with pop-up selfie camera

Realme has announced the Realme X, a phone that the company describes as the first entry in its first line of flagship devices. It’s by far the most powerful and spec-laden smartphone yet to come out of the new brand, but it maintains an aggressively low price point.

Realme is a company that was originally spun out of Chinese smartphone giant Oppo to specifically target the Indian smartphone market. Devices like the Realme 3 have demonstrated impressive design and performance at low prices, and the company has already become one of the most popular smartphone brands in India.

The Realme X isn’t a truly high-end phone, but it’s still pretty potent. It has a Snapdragon 710 processor, a 6.53-inch 19.5:9 1080p OLED screen with no notch, a 48-megapixel camera with Sony’s IMX586 sensor, a 16-megapixel pop-up selfie camera, an in-display fingerprint sensor, a headphone jack, a 3,765mAh battery, and Oppo’s VOOC 3.0 fast charging.

Realme hasn’t confirmed the X’s pricing yet, but a representative tells me it’ll come in between $250-300, presumably for the base model. The phone will be available in configurations with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, 6GB/64GB, and 8GB/128GB.

Basically, the Realme X has a lot in common with the new OnePlus 7 Pro for way under half the price. It also makes Google’s new Snapdragon 670-powered Pixel 3A look like a much worse deal, at least in terms of the spec sheet. Even Oppo’s own Reno with a Snapdragon 710 looks expensive next to the Realme X.

The Realme X will go on sale through Realme’s own site and various other Chinese online channels on May 20th. It’ll likely come to India at a later date.