Realme X50 Pro Packs Support for ISRO's NavIC Navigation System, India CEO Madhav Sheth Reveals

Realme X50 Pro 5G was launched on Monday in India, and now, it has been confirmed to have to support ISRO's NavIC navigation system. The support was confirmed in a tweet by Realme CEO Madhav Sheth. "Yes, our ultimate flagship, the Realme X50 Pro features NavIC and even our upcoming phone will feature it as well. So, world's first, World's second, coming in a row, all for India. Plan to talk more on 5th March. See you there with 1500 Realme fans," Sheth said while responding to a tweet, where a person had pointed out that the specifications page of the X50 Pro showed it has NavIC technology.

"@MadhavSheth1 I saw on your official website, Realme X50 Pro features #NavIC. Is it world's first smartphone featuring #NavIC in India?" the user asked the Realme CEO on twitter. He was tweeting to Sheth's tweet announcing the launch of the Realme 6. The Realme X50 Pro 5G specifications page does clearly mention the NavIC support.

This makes the Realme X50 Pro the first phone to come equipped with NavIC support. The Realme X50 Pro 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC, the company's latest flagship smartphone processor. However, according to Qualcomm's announcement for NavIC tech support, it had only named the Snapdragon 720G, Snapdragon 662, and Snapdragon 460 SoC to have support. The company is now saying that it is adding NavIC support for Snapdragon 865 via a software update that will be available to the OEMs in April. 

"In October 2019, Qualcomm announced support for India's NavIC Satellite Navigation System in commercial chipset platforms and we are pleased to be working with ISRO in bringing NavIC to Indian consumers and enhance their navigation experience via more accurate location performance, faster time-to-first-fix (TTFF) position acquisition, and improved robustness," a Qualcomm spokesperson told Gadgets 360. "Recent Snapdragon Mobile Platform launches such as Snapdragon 765, 720G, 662 and 460 support NavIC. Snapdragon 865 is NaviC capable with the final software update coming to our OEMs around April 2020."

In reply to Sheth's tweet, Realme's Francis Wang shared a screenshot showing the Realme X50 Pro getting location data from NavIC.

Hence, it is yet to be confirmed that the NavIC on the latest Realme X50 Pro is a software based addition or does the chip does come equipped with the navigation technology developed by ISRO.

Apart from that, the iQoo 3, also launched this week also comes packed with the Snapdragon 865 SoC, however iQoo India told Gadgets 360 that the phone doesn't come with NavIC support. 

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