Realme 9i made headlines last week when the device was spotted on Geekbench, and the day before, the device, along with Realme 9 Pro Plus, appeared on Indonesia Telecom and China Quality Certification (CQC) websites. The Realme 9i also appeared on AliExpress, just a day before Christmas, and by the end of 2021, it was quite obvious that the phone would be launched soon. However, the device has now been officially announced and it looks like the phone will be released in Vietnam first and not in other regions including larger markets like China and India. According to popular whistleblower Abhishek Yadav, the launch will take place on 10 January.
Realme 9i will first appear in Vietnam on January 10th.
Realme 9i will come with a triple camera
The teaser of the phone reveals the design a bit, especially its back, and it looks very similar to the design of the Realme GT Neo2 with a rectangular camera bump that houses three camera sensors next to the LED flash. However, we still can’t know everything from the teaser, but we do know for sure that the phone will offer a side-mounted fingerprint scanner built into the power button.
Fingerprint scanner on the side.
The phone will have a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
At the moment, little is known through official channels. However, the phone’s earlier appearance on Geekbench and AliExpress revealed many of the Realme 9i’s specs. A Geekbench listing has already revealed that the phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 SoC paired with 4GB of RAM with model number RMX3491. The phone has also been seen running Android 11 out of the box with Realme UI 2.0 on top. The phone will only ship with 4G as the chipset does not support 5G connectivity.
However, the AliExpress listing revealed much more. According to the listing, the Realme 9i comes with a 50MP main camera and a 16MP selfie camera. The listing also showed a Full HD display, and we already know from earlier leaks that the phone will offer up to 90Hz refresh rates.
If the AliExpress listing is correct, we can expect a 5,000mAh battery with 33W fast charging via USB-C. However, Realme 9i may not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. So, we know quite a lot about the phone at this point and it will be interesting to see if Realme comes with a Realme 9i variant with more RAM and storage. It is also currently known that the phone will be available in two color options – black and blue. We’re monitoring further developments ahead of launch and will share pricing and availability updates once it’s officially launched.