Realme 3 Pro/XT and Realme 5 Pro/X Android 10 kernel source code now available

XDA

By Arol Wright

Published Mar 27, 2020

Realme is updating kernel sources for the latest Android 10 releases on the Realme 3 Pro, Realme XT, Realme 5 Pro, and Realme X.

Realme devices have been competing for the mid-range crown against Xiaomi for quite a while now, and one area where Realme is trying to catch up with Xiaomi on is the former's developer-friendliness. ColorOS (or, well, Realme UI, which is still based on ColorOS for the most part) is not everyone's cup of tea on either OPPO or Realme phones, and some people might even dislike it more than Xiaomi's MIUI, another heavily-customized OEM skin. For the most part, though, Realme devices have a vast selection of AOSP-based custom ROMs to choose from, made possible by kernel source drops from Realme. The company also likes to promote the development community from its side by sending some devices over to developers.

Now, the company is updating these sources for the latest Android 10 releases. The Realme 3 Pro and the Realme XT have received a unified kernel source for their Android 10 release, which were recently released as an OTA update just a couple of months back. Both devices are pretty similar in their internals, sporting Snapdragon 71x processors, and they received Android 10 around the same timeframe, so it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that they are running unified software based on this. Oddly enough, though, neither of these phones had unified kernel sources when these were first released last year, corresponding to their Android Pie release.

Realme 3 Pro/XT Kernel Sources | Realme 3 Pro XDA Forum | Realme XT XDA Forum

In the same fashion, the Realme 5 Pro (which was also marketed as the Realme Q in China) and the Realme X have also received unified kernel sources. Again, both phones received their Android 10 update right around the same time, so this makes sense when looking at it that way.

Realme 5 Pro/X Kernel Sources | Realme 5 Pro/Q XDA Forum | Realme X XDA Forum

All 4 of these phones have received their fair share of custom ROMs so far, and the fact that we have unified kernel sources opens up the possibility of unified custom ROMs and kernels as well, which should take some weight off some developers' shoulders.