Earlier this month, a media report claimed that Realme UI will be merged with Oppo’s ColorOS to help reduce R&D costs. We had a conversation with Realme India, and the brand confirmed that going forward, Realme smartphones will indeed launch with ColorOS. Well, ColorOS 17 to be specific.

Realme said this move is aimed at streamlining things and simplifying the update process. While the Oppo sub-brand didn’t tell us which Realme smartphone will be the first to launch with ColorOS 17, it’s safe to say that we’ll see ColorOS 17 on Oppo smartphones first.

Realme also confirmed that ColorOS 17 will be rolled out for existing smartphones that are eligible for OS upgrades. For example, the Realme GT 8 Pro that launched last year with Realme UI 7.0 and the promise of four Android OS upgrades will be updated to ColorOS 17 and later versions.

Realme GT8 Pro 5G (China)

From a user’s perspective, we doubt much will change as Realme UI is quite similar to ColorOS. The differences aren’t night and day. Moreover, early Realme smartphones launched with ColorOS anyway, and the shift to Realme UI happened in 2020.

Oppo Find X9 Ultra running ColorOS 16 • Realme GT 8 Pro running Realme UI 7

The Realme 3 Pro and Realme XT were the first to switch to Realme UI, while the Realme C3 was the First smartphone to run Realme UI out of the box.

That said, it’s worth noting that Realme India’s confirmation of the switch to ColorOS applies only to India, but we guess other markets will follow too.