Realme GT Neo 2 is a perfect device that proves to be a safe bet.
Realme smartphones have been very popular in the market though there are many other competitors from OnePlus, Xiaomi, Samsung, etc. This year we have the Realme GT series which includes the Realme GT (Review) and the Realme GT Master Edition (Review) which have been quite successful with good specifications but there was a gap between both smartphones which has been fulfilled by the newly launched Realme GT Neo 2.
The Realme GT Neo 2 is the second installment in the GT Neo series with some new changes compared to the Realme GT Neo aka Realme X7 Max (Review). The Realme GT Neo 2 packs in a new build and design and comes with all the specifications like a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset, a good set of triple cameras, and has a 4500mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging.
With the budget flagship segment being very popular with some of the smartphones like the Motorola Edge 20 Pro (Review), Realme GT, OnePlus 9R (Review), it is a very hard time to find a gap for a smartphone to make a strong strong statement for itself, so does the Realme GT Neo 2 have enough potential to stay strong and is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.
Realme GT Neo 2 Design:
The Realme GT Neo 2 sports a refreshing and new design which we have come across with other Realme smartphones. The front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and the back has AG Glass where it has a matte finish and there are two black stripes running where the thinner strip has the Dare To Leap statement running continuously from top to bottom.
The thicker strip has the word Realme etched on it that gives it a distinctive design and look as you are not getting those flash rainbow design that we have seen on previous Realme smartphones. The back has a rectangular camera module that consists of three cameras with dual LED flashlights. The camera hump does not protrude much and you will not feel it when kept flat on the table.
The Realme GT Neo 2 is available in two more colors that including - Neo Black and Neo Blue both of which have a reflective back with the word Realme only that shines when light strikes at different angles and do not have black stripes as present on the Neo Green color. The back of all these three colors does not catch fingerprints or smudges.
The back is slightly curved on both sides which makes it easy to hold in hand but the weight is slightly on the heavier side at 200grams and also it is slightly thicker at 8.6mm compared to other Realme smartphones. The back does not have an IP rating, so you are getting just a P2i coating making it somewhat splash resistant.
The sides of the smartphone have a plastic frame instead of metallic which Realme has done to keep costs lower and this houses the power button on the right side and volume buttons on the left. The bottom houses the USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grille, and a dual SIM card slot. There is no microSD card slot for storage expansion and also you miss out on a 3.5mm headphone jack.
On the front, there is a single punch-hole display at the top with minimum bezels to the sides. The top houses a secondary noise-canceling microphone only. Overall, the design is good as you get a glass design and some very interesting color options but not so exciting.
Realme GT Neo 2 Display:
The Realme GT Neo 2 sports a slightly larger 6.62-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display which is an E4 panel made by Samsung. This display is slightly larger than the 6.43-inches display that we have seen on most Realme smartphones. As this is an AMOLED display, the viewing angles and color reproduction is great.
There is a 120Hz refresh rate present which makes smooth scrolling between applications, playing games, and much more. You get three options - Auto Select, Standard, and High where if you set the display to Auto-Select, the display will automatically switch between different refresh rates like 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz depending on the application that is being used.
While keeping on High (120Hz), everything felt smoother but in all games, the Realme GT Neo 2 is locked at standard 60Hz and Realme needs to fix this issue with a future software update. The display is plenty bright as it can go as high as 1300nits of peak brightness while viewing the content in HDR and the highest brightness achieved was around 698nits.
Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, there is a massive 600Hz touch sampling rate which ensures faster touch response during games. In terms of color profiles, there are two modes present - Vivid and Gentle where the setting to Gentle, the colors look more natural and setting to Vivid makes the color punchier and has more contrast.
The Realme GT Neo 2 has an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that is fast and accurate. The display also has support for HDR10+ so Youtube videos can run on HDR and also the OTT platforms. However, still, Netflix cannot stream HDR as it is restricted to HD only now. Still, you get a good display for media consumption.
Realme GT Neo 2 Performance:
The Realme GT Neo 2 is powered by the Snapdragon 870 chipset which has been found in many smartphones like the Xiaomi Mi 11X, OnePlus 9R, and the Motorola Edge 20 Pro. The Snapdragon 870 chipset is a flagship chipset that provides great performance and also gaming capabilities. It sits lower than the Snapdragon 888 chipset but due to flagship performance and better stability, Realme used this one.
All tasks were handled very well and multitasking was a breeze whether it is rendering videos, playing games, or even media consumption. Many games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc. ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings. BGMI ran smoothly at HDR graphics with an Extreme frame rate. You can usually switch to a Smooth frame rate also. There were no frame drops as such during gaming.
After long hours of gaming, the smartphone does not feel warmer as Realme has equipped a stainless steel vapor cooling system with seven layers and also has a larger 4129mm2 surface area which is by far the largest in size on any smartphone dissipates heat faster. There is also silica gel coating above the chipset area to prevent further heat.
In terms of benchmarks, the Realme GT Neo 2 maintains sustained performance and this shows in benchmarks also like Antutu v8, Geekbench 5.1, etc. Even in CPU throttling tests, the Realme GT Neo 2 performs much better compared to other Snapdragon 870 powered by other smartphones as the maximum throttling is not noticed most of the time.
The Realme GT Neo 2 is available in two variants that include - 8/12GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128/256GB storage with UFS 3.1 speeds. There is support for 8 5G bands which makes it future-proof whenever 5G comes and also you have carrier aggregation present. Overall the performance and gaming feel great.
Realme GT Neo 2 Software:
The Realme GT Neo 2 runs on the RealmeUI 2.0 with Android 11 out of the box and is yet to receive the newer RealmeUI 3.0 based on Android 12. Like all other Realme smartphones, there is a tone of customizations present whether it is the app drawer layout, icon size, and shape as well as the Always-On Display that now comes with some new styling elements.
There are some very handful features like an assistive ball, floating window, split screen, etc. However, there is a handful of bloatware still present which makes the software experience jarring and these can be uninstalled. There were no ads present in the user interface but constant notifications from apps like Browser and certain Realme specific applications were irritating.
And since this is a GT series smartphone, there is a GT mode present which when turned on enhances the gameplay by tweaking the CPU and GPU, changes the refresh rate to 120Hz, the touch response turns to 600Hz and the haptic feedback also improves. In terms of software updates, you are guaranteed two years of Android OS updates and security patches.
Realme GT Neo 2 Cameras:
The Realme GT Neo 2 sports a triple camera setup that includes a 64MP f/1.8 Sony IMX682 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. The front of the smartphone has a 16MP f/2.5 camera. This camera setup is almost close to what we have on the Realme GT that has the same sensor found on this smartphone.
The images from the main camera come out with good details that look sharper but there is a considerable amount of noise present. The colors look oversaturated and there is also a lot of oversharpening taking place in the background. The dynamic range is above average but the contrast is good. Using the 64MP mode results in sharper-looking details and slightly cropped images.
During the night, the images have good shaper-looking details but the dynamic range as said earlier is not so good. There is a lot of oversharpening taking place and noise is also present. However, using the dedicated Night Mode, the images have very little noise, the dynamic range improves, and also the highlights in shadows are restored but still, Realme needs to improve the color saturation a bit.
The 8MP ultrawide camera takes images with decent dynamic range and the details look good, not sharper though as there is quite some noise present. The 119-degree field of view ensures more details into the frame and around the edges, there is a lot of distortion. Colors also look washed out with too much oversharpening in the background.
The same goes for images taken during the night that result in a large amount of noise and too much oversharpening. The images taken during the night using the dedicated Night Mode provides slightly better details and improved dynamic range in most of the scenarios. However, noise is still prevalent in the images.
There is no dedicated telephoto camera but the main camera offers 2x digital zoom which results in images having good dynamic range and lower noise. The colors look accurate and natural but if you zoom above 2x, the colors look washed out and there is plenty amount of noise. However, still, these images are not as good as other telephoto cameras present on other smartphones.
The 2MP macro camera offers a decent dynamic range and plenty of noise in the images. The colors looked washed out and it is better to take close-up images using the main camera. This is a fixed focus camera with no autofocus and the contrast is also very bad. In terms of portraits, the images have good edge detection and dynamic range with natural skin tones.
The background blur is well implemented. On the front, the selfies come out with good details and dynamic range. The noise is very less but the skin tones look oversaturated and also the contrast is just average. The selfie portraits have good edge detection but there is a lot of oversharpening taking place in the background.
In terms of videos, the rear main camera can record 4K videos at 60fps and the videos have good sharper-looking details and decent dynamic range. The noise is quite present and also there is a lot of distortion in the videos as there is no OIS. Switching to 1080p at 30/60fps, the EIS kicks in resulting in videos having better dynamic range and more saturated colors.
The ultrawide camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps with a decent dynamic range and slightly oversaturated colors. There is a lot of noise in the videos but Realme has equipped an Ultra Steady Max Mode which helps in stabilizing videos and this also works for the main camera also. The main camera uses the Ultra Steady Mode only for 1080p videos at 30fps.
The videos from the front camera have good dynamic range, good stabilization as EIS kicks in, and also some amount of noise is present. The portrait videos from both the front and the rear come out good but the front one has lot of oversharpening in the background and a lot of noise also. Overall, the cameras are quite good not the best.
Realme GT Neo 2 Battery Life:
The Realme GT Neo 2 has a larger 5000mAh battery which is slightly larger than the competition that has a 4500mAh battery and this results in good battery life. With casual usage like social media or playing smaller games, web browsing, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days without charging and the display was set to 120Hz.
With heavy usage at 120Hz, the Realme GT Neo 2 lasted a single day easily with some charge left and this is very good considering it has a 5000mAh battery. The average screen-on time was around 6-7 hours which is really good. RealmeUI 2.0 provides some very good battery optimizations and on top of this, you also get support for faster charging using the 65W SuperDart charger.
The dedicated charger takes the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent in under 40 minutes which is very fast and since Realme GT Neo 2 has a vapor cooling system, the back does not heat during charging. Overall, the battery life is really good.
Realme GT Neo 2 Audio Quality:
The Realme GT Neo 2 sports a stereo speaker setup with the earpiece and loudspeaker grille at the bottom both together sound very good with clear bass levels and also the volume levels are good. However, when compared to other stereo speakers, the audio output is slightly on the shriller side. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack but you do get support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound effects.
Verdict:
The Realme GT Neo 2 packs in everything that a budget flagship should have like an interesting design especially the colors, a larger 120Hz AMOLED display that is great for media consumption, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset that handles all the tasks with ease, and also all heavy games like BGMI, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc. without any frame drops, a good battery life with support for faster charging.
The software experience is good as you get a lot of personalization features but the considerable amount of bloatware that does consume memory and also constant notifications hamper the user experience. When it comes to optics, the Realme GT Neo 2 does not do so great as the cameras offer images with decent-looking details and dynamic range but still get the work done.
The weight of the Realme GT Neo 2 is slightly on the heavier side but it depends from person to person and Realme has cut corners by offering a plastic frame. Other than the Realme GT Neo 2, there are some other competitors like the OnePlus 9R, Motorola Edge 20 Pro, etc. that have almost everything that a budget flagship needs. So on what basis shall you consider the Realme GT Neo 2?
If you want a good-looking smartphone with a great display for media consumption and playing games, a powerful chipset that provides sustained performance, and also good battery life with support for faster charging, although cameras are not the highest priority, then the Realme GT Neo 2 is the best all-rounder that can be considered in this highly competitive budget flagship segment.
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