Aside from the 14 Pro series making their global debut, realme has revealed its Ultra concept at MWC 2025, revisiting a familiar concept involving mounting camera lenses on smartphones. We were able to see the Ultra in the flesh at realme’s booth in MWC 2025, and here are our thoughts:

How does it work?

Similar to what Xiaomi introduced with its 12S Ultra concept, the realme Ultra has a 1-inch sensor (which is said to be an IMX989 sensor) that’s placed behind a protective sapphire glass. The huge camera bump is a mounting point for the lens adapter that accepts Leica’s M mount lenses.

Unlike with Xiaomi’s concept where they used a Leica 35mm 1.4 Summilux lens, realme’s approach makes use of two lenses: one being a 73mm 1.4 equivalent lens and the other being a 234mm f/1.5 equivalent lens.

How does it perform?

Despite its looks, the realme Ultra can take significantly sharper photos compared to conventional phones—even those using a 1-inch sensor. Like with Xiaomi, realme’s concept proves that using an external lens is one way smartphones can take sharper and clearer photos.

Looking back on the quality of the images shared by realme prior to the official reveal at MWC 2025, the 234mm equivalent lens was able to capture more detailed images with the 1-inch sensor compared to the usual flagship. While you’re getting better images, there are caveats to that.

What are the caveats?

Aside from the challenges of shooting at a distance without a tripod (there’s no built-in stabilization on the 1-inch sensor), the bigger challenge is that you’re limited to manual focus when taking a shot. As much as we like the idea, there are still limitations with realme’s concept–but nonetheless we give them props for giving us a proof of concept that works.

Being a concept device, it remains to be seen if realme will launch a device with such feature in the future. For now, we appreciate the likes of realme and Xiaomi for exploring other ways to make mobile photography better–and on a whole new level.