Barely a day after Realme announced the launch of its first handset from the 9-series in India, the company is seeking to explain why the Realme 9i only launched with the 4G version the country.
In a chat with 91Mobiles, Realme India head and global VP Madhav Sheth confirmed that there would be no 5G version of the Realme 9i coming to India any time soon. In fact, he appeared to suggest that though 5G was popular with consumers who were ready to spend extra bucks on them, Realme would continue to launch 4G devices.
The Realme 9i smartphone was launched in India yesterday as a budget offering that brought a decent chipset and a triple-camera array for a reasonable price. Of course, the downside was the absence of 4G support, though the fact remains that India will have to wait longer before 5G services start rolling out.
Since Realme and other Chinese phone makers began launching 5G-enabled devices for over a year now, the rollout of a 4G variant in a smartphone that otherwise came with solid features, appeared a tad off the straight. However, this is where Sheth has stepped in and confirmed that upcoming Realme handsets will be 5G-enabled.
Madhav Sheth goes on to suggest in his chat with 91Mobiles that Realme would keep democratising the market for its 5G smartphones while also catering to the needs of a diverse range of consumers. He says a good chunk of Realme users look for 4G devices and therefore the company would keep launching them as well.
Realme 9i - price, availability, features and specs
Realme 9i's base variant with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage is available in the market at a price of Rs 13,999. The high end variant of the device with 6GB RAM and 128GB onboard storage is priced at Rs 15,999.
The device gets a 6.6-inch FHD+ IPS LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 480 nits. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 chipset and operates on the Realme UI v2.0 is based on the Android 11 operating system.
Realme 9i flaunts a triple rear camera setup, including a 50MP primary snapper, 2MP secondary snapper, and a 2MP portrait snapper. The smartphone houses a 16MP front camera for attending video calls and capturing selfies. It comes equipped with a 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging support.
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