Realme had a big 2019, fast becoming a major player in the smartphone market in some parts of the globe by offering well-specced and good-looking phones at aggressive prices, like the Realme X2 Pro shown above. This week the company made one final announcement before the calendar flips into 2020, but fans of Realme may not be as thrilled as they would be for a new phone reveal.
Realme will begin placing ads in its custom ColorOS skin for Android in 2020. The "content recommendations" as Realme calls them will appear on phones running ColorOS 6 and above next year.
These ads will include app promotions as well as commercial links. They'll show up in two places: the Phone Manager app and the Security Check page that appears after you install new apps.
There is a bit of good news here, though, and that's that you'll be able to disable these ads if you want. You'll just have to head into Settings > Additional Settings > Content Recommendation and flip the toggle there and the adds will stop being displayed on your phone.
As for why it plans to begin showing ads on its phones, Realme says that it wants to "continue offering more surprises for you and maintain a healthy and sustainable business model".
Some Realme users might be frustrated by ads appearing on their device because they paid money for it and use it every day. It is good that Realme will allow their customers to disable these "content recommendations", though, and hopefully that option sticks around.
