Best Of MWC 2025: Realme Ultra

Smartphone photography on a whole new level

Smartphone photography has come a long way over the years and it’s to the point that most people rely on their smartphones for a majority of the pictures they take, but Realme wants to improve things even further with the Realme Ultra, a phone concept that we found so intriguing that we decided to give it an award at Mobile World Congress 2025.

The Realme Ultra is a smartphone concept with an interchangeable camera lens system. The main camera unit on the back of the phone is a large circular housing with interlocking pieces for the lenses. These are essentially larger lenses like you would see for a digital camera. So, when you fasten them to the phone, you basically have a more professional camera at your disposal, capable of producing some amazing quality images that wouldn’t normally be possible with a smartphone camera.

Although this is just a concept phone for now, it’s still a very exciting concept product that we hope Realme actually brings to market. Because there isn’t much else like it, and there’s certainly nothing available to buy. And that’s why we decided to give it the award for Best of Mobile World Congress 2025.

A 1-inch CMOS sensor is what makes this phone shine

The magic behind this product is the 1-inch CMOS sensor on the back. This is what makes those two lenses work and give the phone its capabilities to produce some higher-quality images. The phone also has two other camera sensors, an ultra-wide Sony IMX890 sensor and a Periscope Sony IMX989 sensor. Together, all three sensors work to produce some incredible shots.

That 1-inch CMOS sensor is what really makes the camera shine, however. We also found that some of the capabilities of each lens were quite impressive. Specifically the 10x telephoto lens. However, the 3x portrait lens is equally impressive with how good the bokeh shots come out.

The telephoto lens can go up to 60x zoom

A smartphone with a 60x telephoto zoom isn’t something that you see. Some phones offer digital zoom options well above 60x, but these don’t work as well as a proper zoom that’s based on the actual hardware and not the software. That’s what really made this phone so intriguing. A 10x telephoto lens that can go up to 60x if you so desire to use it. That being said, it is challenging to stabilize the photos while using a zoom that high.

So you would need a tripod to make sure the photos don’t come out blurry. Nevertheless, a tripod is something you’d want to use with a phone like this, at least if you’re using the lenses. If you want to stick to the 10x zoom, Realme says this is lossless, which should mean you’ll end up with incredible clarity in those shots. Overall, Realme has come up with a really interesting device here, and we’re really hoping that it ends up being available to buy.