Realme’s Ultra Phone Concept

credits: Realme

Realme showed off a new concept phone at MWC Barcelona—the Ultra, a smartphone with interchangeable lenses. It uses Leica’s M-mount, but Leica isn’t involved—Realme just liked the design and built its own lenses.

The phone has a big 1-inch Sony sensor and comes with two manual-focus lenses: 73mm and 234mm. It works more like a real camera than a phone, but handling is awkward—no grip, no shutter button, and the big screen doesn’t tilt, making some shots tricky.

Realme compared it to the iPhone 16 Pro Max to show how much better real glass is, but the matchup wasn’t exactly fair.

No word yet on price or release, but it’s cool to see phones pushing into real camera territory. Interestingly Xiaomi also just recently did something similar, is this becoming a new thing for smartphones?

You can see Realme’s presentation on YouTube here