Ahead of Mobile World Congress, there was one announcement that I was very excited about. And that was realme’s new concept phone. It’s the realme Ultra, which is an interchangeable lens concept phone that is absolutely incredible.
Before today’s announcement, I was able to spend some time with this concept phone and play around with it and the 10x telephoto lens, and boy am I impressed.
The realme Ultra has two camera sensors, along with a 1-inch CMOS sensor, which is used for the interchangeable lens. That’s a Sony IMX989 sensor. Which is used with an ultra-wide Sony IMX890 sensor and a Periscope Sony IMX989 sensor. These are all very capable cameras in their own right. But obviously, that 1-inch sensor is the star of the show.
To get started with the interchangeable lenses, you will need to install the adapter and then install the lens. The sample I got to use was an early engineering sample, so it was a bit finicky. But I will say, it was pretty easy to set up.
I spent most of the time using the 10x telephoto lens, which is a massive lens and does take some incredible pictures. Once you attach the lens, you can select the lens icon in the camera app on the realme Ultra. There are two lens icons, one for the smaller 3x portrait lens and one for this 10x telephoto lens. This 10x lens can also go all the way up to 60x. Now, without a tripod to hold it steady, it is really tough to take photos at 60x without becoming blurry. I found in my limited time with the concept phone, that 30x is about the most you’d want to do without a tripod for mounting the phone.
This particular lens has manual focus and aperture rings
Since realme is using a lens that has a manual focus and an aperture ring, which is also pre-production, it can be tough to get a very crisp photo. This comes down to the ergonomics as well. Because the lens is much heavier than the phone, you almost need another set of hands, of course, a tripod would really help here. And so would a grip, like what Xiaomi has on its Ultra models.
Once you get a subject in focus, the camera will light up in yellow, showing what is in focus, and you can then snap the photo. It’s pretty quick – not quite zero-shutter lag, but very close. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a lot of blurry photos. It does take some time to get used to this, but I absolutely love this idea.
The phone itself is an older one, running on a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which just goes to show you how long realme has been working on this concept. This is not the first interchangeable-lens concept phone that we’ve seen; Xiaomi announced one back in 2022 as the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, but it wasn’t put into journalists’ hands to check out. This realme Ultra was. And I like what I see.
Obviously, realme does want to sell this at some point, but as of now, it is not going to be on store shelves. It does still have a bit more work to do, as you’d expect. I, for one, cannot wait until this becomes a real product that people can actually buy.
A rather unique unboxing experience
The box that realme brought for me to check out is sort of a retail box, but not really. Essentially, there are two sides to the box; on the left side are the two lenses, and on the right is the phone with the adapter below it. There’s plenty of padding to keep everything safe and sound as well.
Unfortunately, you can’t use your favorite Sony, Sigma, Nikon, or Canon lenses on this phone, at least not yet. This is a concept phone, and that could change. If realme is able to make the Ultra compatible via adapters for these other lenses, that would really open the possibilities for this device. And it would make it an instant buy for me.
Lossless 10x zoom on a phone? Incredible
As mentioned, it is a bit awkward to use the realme Ultra because of the size and weight of the lens here, which makes it harder to get great photos without a tripod. On top of the fact that this is a concept phone, not everything is ironed out perfectly. However, when you do get focus and aperture correct, you can get some fantastic photos with this lens. The pictures below were taken in Barcelona this weekend at varying zoom levels from 10x to 30x.
It’s very impressive, and I’m excited to see what realme can do with a bit more refinement on the Ultra and what other lenses they are able to offer here.
