Due to various constraints, it is currently difficult for Russian enterprises to acquire advanced-process chips. However, the situation is slightly better in the consumer goods sector, allowing some Russian manufacturers to obtain chips for smartphones, albeit through potentially non-compliant import channels.
According to news released by the APPSIM channel, Russian domestic manufacturer ROSA plans to launch a smartphone produced and sold within Russia next year. This smartphone, named R-FON or Р-ФОН, will be equipped with a MediaTek chipset.
Leaks suggest that the ROSA R-FON will run the company’s “independently developed” operating system, based on Linux, named ROSA system. This system includes a built-in app store and is compatible with Android applications. In reality, the ROSA system is a re-skinned version of Android, allowing compatibility with both store-provided apps and user-downloaded APK files.
In terms of hardware, the ROSA R-FON is powered by MTK Helio G99, an 8-core processor launched by MediaTek last year. Manufactured using a 6nm process, the CPU operates at 2.2GHz, with a GPU of Arm Mali-G57 MP2. Overall, this chipset’s performance is comparable to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 730G.
The ROSA R-FON comes with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB storage. Its camera setup consists of three lenses, with the primary camera being 50MP.
Overall, this smartphone bears resemblance to the vivo v25e in terms of appearance, chipset, and notch design. It’s possible that ROSA took inspiration from vivo v25e’s industrial design.
Finally, the phone’s manufacturing has been commissioned to Russian domestic manufacturer Rutek JSC, a company also involved in producing laptops and other electronic products.