January is going to be jam-packed with new phones from Realme. Their first flagship series, the Realme GT 2, is dropping on January 4. Realme also has the more value-focused Realme 9 line in store for us. Word isn’t officially out yet, but the Realme 9i has appeared in a string of leaks. And it’s now listed on a third-party retail store, all-but-confirming its upcoming launch.
You can find the Realme 9i store listing on the official Realme page at AliExpress. Previews aren’t included in the post, but detailed system specs are. Based on those, the 9i (once again) is the more budget-friendly edition in the series.
The Realme 9i features the Snapdragon 680 at its heart. It’s a 4G chip built on a 6nm node. The new process makes it more power-efficient, and the CPU clock speed has been upped to 2.4GHz. But the GPU is still borrowed from the last-gen. Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 680 only recently.
The chip works with at least 4GB of memory (an 8GB variant is also in the cards) and 128GB of internal storage. It’s all powered by a 5000 mAh battery. And the charging speed has been upgraded from 18W to 33W. However, it’s not all improvements because, according to the listing, the Realme 9i lacks a 3.5mm audio jack. If true, you can expect the other two Realme 9 phones to ditch the headphone jack too.
The design of the Realme budget new model (as revealed by previous leaks) is pretty cookie cutter. We find three lenses inside a raised camera rectangle. And the screen houses the front camera inside a hole punch. Lastly, Realme has merged the fingerprint scanner with the power button.
We’re looking at a 6.59” 1080P IPS LCD. The refresh rate isn’t specified, but unless Realme is planning a downgrade, it should peak at a smooth 120Hz. The screen fills a comfortably wide 18:9 aspect ratio. The primary camera on the back has a 50MP sensor behind it. And the selfie camera is 16MP.