The upcoming realme GT 8 Professional smartphone is not only the primary on the earth to supply interchangeable digicam islands, it’s additionally the primary signal of a realme and RICOH Imaging long-term strategic partnership.
4 years within the making, the imaging collaboration between realme and RICOH IMAGING will debut with the GT 8 Professional collection and, the businesses declare, “boasts deep customization to reinforce each shutter press for customers and co-promote avenue images tradition.” RICOH is the newest identify added to the checklist of images firms which have joined efforts with smartphone manufacturers: Hasselblad’s cooperation with Oppo, and Leica with Xiaomi are examples of partnerships that goal to alter the way forward for smartphone images.
RICOH Imaging and realme partnership will make its official debut on October 14, ushering in a brand new period of cell avenue images. After 4 years of preparation, this collaboration is positioned as one of many trade’s most profound imaging partnerships and, to have a good time the cooperation, the 2 firms launched the “4 Years in One Snap” video, highlighting 4 years of co-engineering and teasing options of their first co-created product, designed particularly for the realme GT 8 Professional.
Identified for its partnerships with Warner Bros, for the realme 15 Professional Sport of Thrones Restricted Version smartphone – or the Aston Martin Formulation One Staff for the launch of the co-branded version of the GT 7 smartphone — the realme GT 7 Dream Version, realme companions with RICOH for a joint journey beginning, the businesses says, “from cell consumer ache factors”.
Within the video, realme Vice President and CMO Chase Xu mentioned with Kazunobu Saiki, Common Supervisor of Digital camera Enterprise Division at RICOH IMAGING COMPANY LTD., the weather that introduced two manufacturers collectively, which grounded on a shared understanding of consumer calls for. realme noticed that younger folks struggled with two foremost ache factors in cell images: more and more related {hardware} and over-processed algorithms that stripped images of authenticity. “Persons are getting bored with the identical ‘excellent type’ images. An increasing number of, everybody desires to point out their very own type, as a substitute of copying the identical look.” Chase Xu defined.
The answer for the issue resides within the RICOH GR collection, that has been often known as a “avenue images hero” due to its sharp high quality, portability, and fast response. “That’s precisely what we worth,” Xu stated. Saiki echoed this: “RICOH Imaging and realme share a base of younger, inventive customers. Our collaboration isn’t solely about innovation in merchandise, but in addition about tradition to encourage a brand new technology to take pleasure in avenue images and uncover the great thing about on a regular basis life.”
Designed for “those that love images”, the GR gives a taking pictures type that gives direct suggestions to the photographer’s senses, for capturing these shifting moments. In line with RICOH’s definition of the GR collection, “simply by carrying round this small digicam, you develop into conscious of valuable, on a regular basis particulars. That may make anybody right into a creator. Within the pictures taken with this digicam, the world, and the folks in it sparkle with life. The GR continues to evolve with these concepts in thoughts, together with followers who really feel the identical manner.”
The RICOH GR is, in all probability, the unsung hero of basic images. Some facets of the persevering with lineage of the GR reveal its path, at odds with developments and fads, since its first mannequin, in 1996, to the latest GR IV, introduced August 2025. Paying no consideration to the handy zoom lens, the GR has continued to make use of a wide-angle, design is easy and rustic at a look, and the design language of the GR is unchanged every time there’s a mannequin change. In line with RICOH, “the GR places emphasis on the main points that can’t be expressed within the specs of the catalog.”
When on the lookout for a accomplice to broaden its smartphone images, realme discovered that the philosophy behind the RICOH GR collection was what they wanted. This shared spirit is why the 2 manufacturers got here collectively: to offer younger folks instruments that permit for genuine seize and private expression, carrying the custom of standard digicam into cell images. All this shall be current within the GT 8 Professional, which brings GR heritage to younger folks’s pocket.
Via intensive customizations between realme and RICOH GR’s R&D groups, the GT 8 Professional gives an unprecedented imaging expertise, reaching groundbreaking improvements in optical capabilities, coloration algorithms, imaging tones, and a tailored UI design that mimics the texture of a RICOH GR digicam.
This system seamlessly blends practically 30 years of RICOH GR heritage, together with its iconic film-like aesthetic and 5 basic picture tones, with realme’s strengths in cell imaging and profound insights into the preferences of present generations, creating a novel synergy that advances avenue images tradition by way of joint improvement and co-engineering. Greater than only a competitors of specs or uniform filters, it infuses temper and emotional heat into each photograph, encouraging younger customers to doc their every day lives with authenticity.
“Snap By No Guidelines”
This partnership isn’t nearly a product, it’s about extending avenue images tradition into the cell period. 4 Years in One Snap marks a milestone, encouraging younger folks to freely document and categorical their lives. “It’s a recent, younger option to take images. You don’t wait or attempt to make the right shot however simply press the button and seize the second — Snap by No Guidelines,” stated Xu.
“Via this collaboration, we hope that even those that don’t normally use devoted digicam would expertise snapshot images with the GT 8 Professional,” Saiki famous.
The journey now heads towards October 14, when realme and RICOH GR’s partnership will make its official debut, ushering in a brand new period of cell avenue images.
