Realme 9 Pro live blog launched: Realme’s new cheap phones are coming soon

One hour to start – if you want to slow cook a snack, now is the time to start.

Since this is the “Realme 9 Pro” launch, does that mean we won’t see a non-Pro version?

It seems so, but that probably doesn’t mean a standard Realme 9 doesn’t exist, because that just wouldn’t make sense. Surely you can’t have a Pro version if you don’t have a normal version.

Maybe we’ll see that in the coming weeks – we imagine Realme will keep it a bit under the radar, maybe with a quick press release, but we’ll still report on it when it does appear.

The other feature that Realme had already announced is that the Pro Plus will get a heart rate sensor.

What’s the point of that? Well, we’re not entirely sure, because phone-based sensors won’t be exactly accurate, not compared to proper tech or even just fitness trackers.

But we’ve seen phones with this feature before, namely older Samsung flagships, so maybe there’s an audience for them. Or maybe not – Samsung ditched heart rate monitors a few years ago.

One of the features Realme has already teased for the 9 Pro Plus is its color-changing back, which apparently changes its appearance in sunlight.

Looking out the window at the moment, we can tell this feature wasn’t designed for UK buyers, as we haven’t had a single drop of sunshine for about five days.

We’ll still be covering the Realme 9 Pro global launch as usual, as we hope to secure international pricing and availability.

But if you want to know all about the phones right away, like their specs and cameras, you can check out coverage from TechRadar’s Indian office here.

So, something quite strange happened… The Realme 9 Pro is already launched.

It turns out that in India the launch event for the phone took place a few hours ago – a launch live stream has already been published. Realme told us that this is an India-only launch, with the global launch happening soon.

Realme has already had a first approach in India, and the brand is huge in the country, but we imagine interest in launching later today will be reduced considerably. People aren’t going to tune into a launch if they can get all the details hours before.

There’s a lot of stuff we’d love for the company to debut, if it were to show off more tech today.

First, we’re big fans of the Realme GT range of powerful mid-rangers, so we’d love to see the GT 2, or the rumored GT Fold, soon.

In 2021 the company unveiled MagDart which is a magnetic charging solution for its phones – think Apple’s MagSafe but with a slightly different name. We haven’t seen a phone released with this technology, and we’d love to.

Finally, we saw the company’s first tablet last year in the Realme Pad, but that’s a budget slate – we want to see the company try something more powerful and flashy in the tablet space soon.

So what are we waiting for to debut at the launch of Realme 9 Pro? Well, this phone and the Pro Plus, obviously. But something else?

We have no idea for sure, but our instinct is “no”. The reason? MWC 2022, an annual smartphone conference, will take place at the end of February, and Realme has confirmed its participation.

So if Realme had more devices coming soon, it would make more sense for the brand to save them for MWC, and launch the Realme 9 Pro devices now. In fact, we’re surprised the company hasn’t registered its new phones for MWC anyway.

Welcome to our live blog! The Realme event kicks off a bit earlier than the others – in the UK we’re used to our early afternoon launches, but this one takes place on point at midday.

That means less live blogging and more action!