This is an exciting time for smartphone lovers in India as newer, mostly Chinese, smartphone brands are paving a way for a new era of premium features at low prices. One such Chinese player is Realme. Today, the company launched its fourth handset in India, the Realme U1, in two variants.

Realme, a company that is over just six months old, has managed to captivate the Indian audience. The company has apparently crossed the 3 million mark already, Madhav Seth, CEO of Realme said at the event in New Delhi.

Coming to the Realme U1, the handset boasts a premium AI-enabled 25-megapixel Sony IMX576 sensor at the front, along with a 13-megapixel plus 2-megapixel rear camera setup and a massive 6.3-inch full HD+ display. Moreover, the display gets the ‘dewdrop’ notch, which is the tiniest notch currently in vogue among premium phones. Notably, the camera AI features have been customised especially to suit an Indian audience, the company says.

With such high-end features on board, the Realme U1 surely makes for an attractive product. And its attractiveness is further enhanced by its pricing. The 3GB/32GB variant of the Realme U1 has been priced at Rs.11,999. The 4GB/64GB model will cost Rs.14,499.

Somehow every time, the nascent company has managed to surprise its audiences with incredibly frugal pricing. The new phone will be available from December 5th and will be retailed exclusively via Amazon India. On the sidelines, Realme also launched a smartphone case/cover priced at Rs.499 and new earphones also for Rs.499. The ‘Realme Earbuds’ apparently offer 160 percent louder bass, are made of Kevlar fibre, have an Integrated magnet and boast 3 button functions.

In terms of colour options, Realme is offering the new phone in three colour variants: Black, Blue and Gold. The transparent case cover will be offered in Gold and Black colours.

Finally, the Helio P70 chipset also makes a global debut on Realme U1 promises a steady 60fps when playing video games, thanks to gaming optimizations made by Realme. For improved multitasking, there are Sidebars that offer quick access to key apps. Also there’s a multiple system optimisation on the new phone, which offers ‘smooth and fast’ performance, the company claims.

Apart from that, Madhav Seth announced a design contest in which participants stand a chance to win an internship at Realme Global as well as prizes up to Rs.10 lakhs. The contest begins on December 3rd.

Realme U1 specifications

The dual SIM smartphone boasts of a 6.3” IPS LCD panel with 1,080 x 2,340px resolution and apparently covers 90.8 percent of the front display. The most noteworthy feature is the 25 MP Sony IMX576 sensor with 0.9µm pixels that can be binned for better low-light performance.

There’s 13+2MP dual camera at the rear but misses out on 4K video capture capability. The new Helio P70 chipset, which has faster image processing hardware. The chipset features four big Cortex-A73 cores (plus for A53), along with a Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. Besides, the phone packs a 3,500mAh battery. The 12nm chipset features a revamped resource allocation system that keeps usage power and temperature in check. The phone supports standard 10W charging over microUSB.