The Realme GT is the most affordable flagship killer of 2021.
Realme has been providing some very good smartphones in the mid-range, budget, and premium mid-range segment since its day of launch. The Realme X series and the number series are the most popular ones but this time they have the new GT series which consists of two smartphones namely - Realme GT Master Edition and Realme GT.
The Realme GT Master Edition (Review) is a good mid-range smartphone from Realme which seems to be a perfect all-rounder in the premium mid-range segment. Realme made its focus towards a flagship smartphone in 2019 and last year we saw the Realme X50 Pro (Review) that came with flagship specifications and was a huge selling point in the market.
The Realme GT is positioned to fill the gap for the most affordable flagship smartphone where we have competitors from OnePlus, iQOO, Xiaomi which have been ruling the budget flagship segment for quite some time. It runs on the Snapdragon 888 chipset which is the most powerful chipset of 2021 and is the cheapest smartphone to have this chipset.
Other features include a 120Hz AMOLED display, a unique design and color, a good set of cameras, and faster charging with good battery life. But it does come with certain compromises to keep costs lower. So is the Realme GT worth buying considering the flagship performance or should you consider some other smartphone? Let's find out in the full review.
Realme GT Design:
The Realme GT does have a unique design especially if you consider the Racing Yellow color where at the back there is a faux leather finish which Realme likes to call Vegan Leather and also you have a glossy glass finish that runs below the camera module that is black in color. The black glass has a downwards facing arrow pattern and the rectangular camera setup has a shiny look when light strikes at different angles.
This camera setup houses three cameras with a LED flashlight. The camera bump is not much protruding as it sits well. The Realme branding is to the bottom right and there is no such "Dare To Leap" logo which we have seen on other Realme smartphones. The Vegan leather fits very well to the sides and if you want other color options you do get two of them namely Dashing Blue and Dashing Silver.
The Blue and Silver colors have a V pattern that shines when light strikes them. The Blue color has a small hue from blue to black while looking from top to bottom. There is no IP rating which is slightly disappointing considering this is a flagship smartphone from Realme. However, it weighs 187grams which makes it slightly lighter than the competition like the iQOO 7 Legend weighs around 207 grams.
Around the sides, Realme has gone for a plastic frame which is slightly disappointing as the similarly priced OnePlus 9R (Review) and the iQOO 7 Legend have a metallic frame around the sides that curves at the top as well as the bottom. The dual SIM card tray and the volume buttons are on the right whereas the power button is located on the left side.
The top has a secondary noise-canceling microphone whereas the bottom has a USB Type-C 2.0 port, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Thankfully it is the only budget flagship smartphone to have a 3.5mm headphone jack. But smartphones like the OnePlus 9R and the newly launched Motorola Edge 20 Pro have faster USB Type-C 3.1 ports for data transfers.
Overall, this design is good but the lack of a glass back which most of its competitors have an IP rating is a big miss but if you look at the Racing Yellow that looks really good.
Realme GT Display:
The Realme GT sports a standard 6.43-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display where the display is an E4 AMOLED panel made by Samsung. The screen-to-body ratio is 20:9 which is good and this makes the smartphone slightly compact to hold. As it is an AMOLED display, the color reproduction is great and the viewing angles are not the segment-best but still good for an AMOLED display.
On the front, there is a punch-hole display with the punch-hole located to the top left and around the sides, the bezels are thinner nit at the bottom, it is slightly thicker compared to other smartphones like the OnePlus 9R and the iQOO 7 Legend. This display is protected by DragonTrail glass as there is no Gorilla Glass 5 protection which is slightly disappointing as it is a flagship smartphone.
With the AMOLED display, there is a 120Hz refresh rate which ensures smoother scrolling, faster multi-tasking between applications, and also while playing games like BGMI support 90fps which is very rare on flagship smartphones also. There are three options where you have the standard 60Hz (Standard), higher 120Hz (High), and an Auto Select option which switches to either 60Hz or 90Hz.
Also, you have a massive 360Hz touch sampling rate that ensures faster touch responses during gameplay. The Realme GT has two different color profiles - Vivid and Natural where in Vivid you get more saturated colors and in Natural you get true to source colors. The smartphone can achieve a peak brightness of 1000nits while watching HDR and the sunlight legibility is quite good also.
This display supports HDR10 which allows streaming HDR from Youtube and also there is Widevine L1 but unfortunately, Netflix does not support HDR content as of now. This AMOLED display also houses an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is fast and accurate. The face unlock also works faster. Overall for media consumption, the Realme GT is a great smartphone.
Realme GT Performance:
The Realme GT is powered by the most powerful Snapdragon 888 chipset that has been found in other flagship smartphones like iQOO 7 Legend, OnePlus 9 (Review), etc. This chipset does provide great performance in all the daily activities whether it is scrolling, multi-tasking, rendering videos, etc. without breaking a sweat. It is built on an efficient 6nm process and has the Adreno 660 GPU.
All heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, BGMI, etc ran smoothly without any stutters or lag and in BGMI, the smartphone could achieve Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates. Even there is support for 90fps graphics which is very rare on an Android flagship smartphone that costs higher than the Realme GT.
The BGMI gameplay was very smooth and the 360Hz touch sampling rate ensures faster touch response and the animations also feel smoother. After long hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone did heat up quite a bit but still, it felt less warm compared to other smartphones that are powered by the Snapdragon 888 chipset.
This is achieved due to the large copper cooling system surrounding the stainless steel and multiple graphite layers are embedded on the chipset to prevent it from heating. This thermal throttling is a big issue as there is no consistent performance with huge ups and downs in CPU throttling tests but still, the vapor cooling system does sustain peak performance quite a bit.
For gaming, there is a GameSpace that has all games organized and that provides some extra gaming performance. There is support for 5G as you can have dual 5G SIMs both at a time and also there are multiple 5G bands which are really good and this makes it future proof compared to other smartphones like the OnePlus 9R that has just a single band of 5G though being priced similarly.
In comparison to this, the OnePlus 9R is slightly better as it throttles lesser and also does not heat much though sporting a less powerful and more stable Snapdragon 870 chipset that is placed just under the Snapdragon 888 chipset. The Realme GT comes in two variants - 8/12GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage speeds. There is no microSD card slot for storage expansion.
Compared to other Realme smartphones, there is a new GT mode also which does increase the CPU and GPU performance to the maximum for better results. Even the benchmarks scores are a lot higher like it scores around 803442 in Antutu v8. If you can live with the slight heating issues, then the Realme GT is a great smartphone as it has the best in class performance as well as gaming.
Realme GT Software:
The Realme GT has the RealmeUI 2.0 running out of the box and has the latest Android 11. Here the RealmeUI provides a good software experience as the look is almost close to Stock Android. However, you get a toneful of bloatware in the form of some unwanted third-party applications like Moj, Takatak, etc, but you can uninstall them easily.
There are also Realme's own applications like Phone Manager, Realme link, and much more. The Realme browser throws in a lot of notifications and also quite some ads are present but can be disabled. The look and feel of RealmeUI are equivalent to that of ColorOS seen on Oppo smartphones. You can customize everything when you go to the Personalization feature.
Personalizations include the change of icons look and feel, shape and size, new themes and wallpapers, and also there are some new styles for Always-On display. There is DC dimming that prevents display flickering during the night while watching any content. Other features are Smooth Scrolling under Realme labs, a system-wide dark mode with three different colors like black, light, and dark gray.
In terms of software updates, Realme guarantees two years of Android OS updates and three years of security updates which is good. Realme also provides virtual RAM technology where you can increase 2/3/7 GB RAM that can total up to 19GB as it converts the unused storage to extra RAM for better usage. Overall, the software experience is good but the presence of bloatware does hamper a bit.
Realme GT Cameras:
The Realme GT sports a triple camera setup where we get the 64MP f/1.8 Sony IMX682 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.3 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP macro camera. In terms of cameras, the Realme GT does not excite much as you are getting the same camera sensor as the Realme X7 Max (Review) and there is no OIS also. There is no larger 108MP camera sensor though being a flagship smartphone.
On the front, there is a 16MP f/2.5 camera. The main camera takes images with a good amount of detail but the dynamic range is not so good compared to other cameras. The noise is quite lower but the contrast is on the higher side. There is some oversharpening in the background as the colors do not look so natural. But when you zoom in, you can see the blown-away highlights.
(Credits: The EJ Tech Show)
The images during low-light come out good but there is a considerable amount of noise and the dynamic range is not as good as some other smartphones. There are blown-out highlights in shadows and also and with the dedicated Night Mode the color saturation improves and the noise is also considerably lower.
Without Night Mode:
With Night Mode:
(Credits: The EJ Tech Show)
The 8MP f/2.3 ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of dynamic range and the details look good. The color saturation is not so natural and there is no oversharpening as such. There is a lot of noise around the edges and when you zoom into the images, the details look very bad but still the wider 119-degree field of view ensures more objects in the frame.
(Credits: The EJ Tech Show)
The low-light images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details but the dynamic range and contrast are average. There is a lot of noise in the images. But the ultrawide camera does get a dedicated Night Mode which results in slightly sharper details, better dynamic range, and also the noise is lesser.
The 2MP macro camera does a decent job in terms of dynamic range and the colors look washed out as there is a lot of noise and this is a big disappointment as many of the smartphones use the ultrawide camera for macros and that results in better images. In terms of portraits, the main camera takes some very good portraits that have sharper details, good dynamic range, and also the edge detection is good.
The background blur is implemented well but there is some noise present when you zoom into the portraits. The selfies come out good from the 16MP camera as it has sharper details and the dynamic range is also good. There is a dedicated Night Mode for the selfie camera also. The portrait selfies come out with good dynamic range and edge detection also but there is slight oversharpening present.
In terms of videos, the main camera can go up to 4K video recording at 60fps. Sadly there is no 8K video support. The videos have a good dynamic range and the colors are almost natural. There is some oversharpening as such but some amount of noise is present. The ultrawide camera can do only 1080p at 30fps as there is no support for 60fps also.
The ultrawide videos have a decent dynamic range and there is a lot of noise present. The colors look oversaturated but you do have an Ultra Steady Mode that does work for the ultrawide camera also. There is no OIS present on the main camera but you do have EIS which does help in some stabilization as there is some jitteriness. The selfie videos come out with good dynamic range and the color saturation is natural.
Overall, the cameras are good but not the best as the main camera lacks OIS, the ultrawide camera is 8MP which is very low and the macro camera is just decent.
Realme GT Battery Life:
The Realme GT sports a 4500mAh battery which is not the largest but can get through one day with heavy usage that includes playing Call Of Duty Mobile for 3-4 hours continuously, streaming videos from OTT platforms, and also scrolling through webpages. With normal usage, the smartphones easily lasted for one day and a half which is good as the 120Hz display does consume some battery.
The standard screen on time was around 5-6 hours which is quite good considering the battery drain we have noticed with the Snapdragon 888 chipset-powered smartphones. But Realme has bundled a 65W SuperDart charger inside the box that can take the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent in 35 minutes. The 0 to 50 percent takes around 20 minutes which is very fast.
There is no support for wireless charging here as this is a flagship from Realme but considering this is a budget flagship, you do get a fast charger and the battery life is good.
Realme GT Audio Quality:
The Realme GT sports a stereo speaker setup where the top earpiece and the loudspeaker grille at the bottom sound together and the output are very good. The bass level is good but the sound does feel slightly muffled when you are at the highest volume levels. Still, the sound quality is good and there is Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound effects.
There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack which has good sound quality and we would give kudos to Realme to provide the 3.5mm headphone jack in a flagship smartphone which is very rare and there is also support for HI-Res audio also. So for gamers as well as media consumption, the Realme GT is a great smartphone.
Verdict:
The Realme GT is a great budget flagship smartphone that packs the best of everything like a good build and design especially if you consider the Racing Yellow color with the vegan leather finish that provides a premium experience, the 120Hz AMOLED display with stereo speakers is great for media consumption, RealmeUI provides a good software experience as it is feature-rich and you do get faster charging speeds also.
The biggest talking point about the Realme GT is the Snapdragon 888 chipset which handles all tasks and also games with ease. And Realme has packed in a vapor cooling chamber to dissipate heat so it does not heat much like other Snapdragon 888 chipset-powered smartphones. However, there are some compromises that Realme has done to price it lower compared to other budget flagships.
There is support for 5G and you get multiple bands of 5G which is good and makes it future-proof. Other than the Racing Yellow color, there are two other colors both of which have a polycarbonate back instead of a glass back which most of the budget flagships have. There is no official IP rating and also support for wireless charging.
The cameras are good but not the best as you are getting the same 64MP Sony IMX682 sensor that is found on Realme mid-range smartphones and the other two cameras (ultrawide and macro) is not so good. RealmeUI though provides a good software experience is still loaded with bloatware which is sort of disappointing to see on a budget flagship smartphone.
So on an overall basis, if you can live without the compromises like decent camera performance, software experience with some bloatware, heating issues, and a polycarbonate back instead of glass, then the Realme GT is a complete package and this makes it worth buying as you have stellar performance as well as it is great for media consumption also.
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