And the lineup is growing. Realme Philippines, the top smartphone brand in the country, has added another member to the 9 series, following the launch of the Realme 9i locally.

Realme’s latest number series model has a suggested retail price of P11,990 (roughly $229) for 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage and will be available online and offline beginning tomorrow, May 5.

Even better, as an introductory offer for Shopee users, the Realme 9i will get a P1,200 ($23) discount until May 7, dropping its price to just P10,790 ($206) for a limited time. The successor to the Realme 8i comes in Prism Black and Prism Blue colors with a glossy rear panel featuring a micro-pattern of vertical lines — a design the company calls “stereo prism,” inspired by light and the prisms it creates with its refractions.

Designed for adventure-seekers, the Realme 9i upgrades to a power-efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 4nm chipset, which is built on a 6nm process node, although its punch-hole LCD display maxes out at 90Hz, compared with the Realme 8i’s 120Hz screen.

Battery life should not be a concern, as the phone is powered by a 5,000mAh battery that supports 33-watt fast charging using the brand’s Dart Charge standard.

“We know that with the ever-evolving needs of today’s consumers, battery life and power efficiency remain of utmost importance,” Realme Philippines vice-president for marketing Austine Huang said.

SEE ALSO: Realme 9i review: An upgrade here, a downgrade there

The Realme 9i retains the 16-megapixel selfie camera of its predecessor, in addition to sharing the same 6.6-inch screen size and FHD+ resolution as the 8i. For taking pictures, it still relies on a 50-megapixel main camera that sits on a rectangular camera island, alongside dedicated macro and monochrome sensors.

On the software front, the smartphone boots Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11, though the firmware update bringing Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0 should be out this quarter, according to the company’s updated software roadmap.

Realme 9i specs

• 6.6-inch LCD display, FHD+ resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, 180Hz touch sampling
• 6nm octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor
• Adreno 610 GPU
• 6GB LPDDR4X RAM (expandable up to 5GB via virtual RAM)
• 128GB UFS 2.2 storage
• Triple 50-megapixel (main), 2-megapixel (monochrome portrait), and 2-megapixel (macro) rear cameras
• 16-megapixel front camera
• Side fingerprint reader
• 5,000mAh battery with 33-watt USB-C charging
• Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11
• Colors: Black, blue

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