Realme is launching an Android 12 Beta soon, but only for its flagship in China

After three Developer Preview releases of Android 12, Google officially released the first Android 12 Beta at Google I/O 2021 earlier today.

Several OEMs have already confirmed their intentions to release an Android 12 beta for their flagship phones. Now, Realme is also joining the Android 12 beta party.

In a press release, Realme has confirmed it will be releasing Android 12 Beta 1 this month for the Realme GT, its Snapdragon 888-powered flagship that launched in March. The only catch is that you will have to be in China to get your hands on it, as the phone hasn’t launched globally yet.

Realme hasn’t communicated exactly how and when later this month it plans to release Android 12 Beta 1 for the Realme GT, though they did say that the beta for the “global version” of the phone will be available “within this month” in the Realme community forums. It’s also unclear whether other flagships in the company’s portfolio will be getting an Android 12 beta later down the road.

Realme tells us that this Beta release won’t bring a new version of Realme UI and is intended only for developers to test their apps against the new OS version. No other Realme device will be eligible for the Android 12 Beta release today. The reason, we think, is that the only chip platform that Qualcomm has released an Android 12 preview BSP for is the Snapdragon 888, which aligns with the pattern from Android 11’s beta release last year.

Realme isn’t the only OEM to call dibs on Android 12 Beta 1. OnePlus, Xiaomi, ASUS, and OPPO have also confirmed to roll out an Andriod 12 beta to their flagship devices. Notably, Realme was among the first to release an Android 11 beta for its flagship X50 Pro last year.