realme GT 5G review, the supercar with the price of a small car!

realme GT 5G review

We had to wait a few weeks after the launch in Asia but finally realme GT 5G has also arrived in our country. The top of the range of the house is ready to whiz through the hands of users bringing with it many interesting features.

It is a product that immediately attracted our interest due to its very high quality / price ratio and for its truly unique design, at least in the yellow / black color we received in test.

In our full review of realme GT 5G we will analyze what has the potential to become the best buy smartphone of this period. Did we mention that it is the cheapest smartphone with the Snapdragon 888?

Bumblebee is that you?

This realme GT in the Racing Yellow variant is hands down the smartphone with the most beautiful body I had the opportunity to try this year.

From the yellow-black color that recalls that of some very famous supercars, to the use of the combination of eco-leather and glass, up to the barely visible texture hidden under the darker part of the body through the chrome logo of the brand: this realme GT, when seen from behind, gives a hard time to many of the more expensive top of the range.

And it's not just the aesthetic aspect, the feeling in the hand is also unique. It was since the days of the Huawei Porsche Design edition that I hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy the body of a smartphone so much!

Despite being rigid enough not to be scratched and ruined simply with the fingernail of a finger, the fake leather on the rear of realme GT is soft and pleasant to the touch.

Premium feeling which unfortunately ends with the frames. Made of chromed plastic, and in a fairly dark color that gives the smartphone a look that does not disdain, to the touch unfortunately they break the illusion of having a smartphone with a fine finish in your hands. You get used to it quickly, however in my opinion realme could have put in a little more effort here.

Popular yellow visual accent placed on the power button and both the power button and the two separate volume buttons produce a loud click when pressed.

That's not all, realme GT 5G is also really light when compared to other competitors equipped with the same hardware and the same latest generation connectivity suite: only 186.5g (half a gram less for the other two colors).

This, together with the back cover, the imitation leather that increases the grip, helps to make a smartphone that certainly cannot be defined compact (158.5 x 73.3 x 9.1 mm). Like the latest Oppo and OnePlus products, realme GT also uses an optical fingerprint reader positioned in the lower part of the display.

Honestly it is such a pleasant product in the hand that I think it is a shame to use the transparent cover " fumé ”included in the package, which in my case, in addition to making everything less premium, is not even made with the right measures for the camera hole. However, it should be appreciated that realme includes a protective cover for those who intend to use it.

Big, fast and above all… flat!

A mixture of sensations is aroused by the front of the smartphone. On the one hand, the fact that the frames surrounding the display are not the smallest helps to disassemble the “premium” magic set up by the body. On the other hand, the fact that we are faced with an excellent 6.43 ″ AMOLED panel with FullHD + resolution and a refresh rate of 120Hz makes you speechless if we consider the price range to which this terminal belongs.

Of course, the curvatures of some higher-end models are not present but for some this is a positive thing. Furthermore, despite not the traits of an LTPO panel capable of varying its frequency between a huge range of values, the frequency of 120Hz can still scale down to save battery.

To meet the needs of gamer, realme GT also has a sampling frequency of the touch of 360Hz, this makes the smartphone extremely reactive to every gesture of the user.

I have not found any particular critical issues with this display other than the fact that the temperature of the whites was a little warmer (tending to yellow) than I would have preferred. Fortunately it is possible to calibrate this item from the settings even if there are no further display calibration options.

The brand has not declared the maximum brightness of this panel and, despite being compatible with HDR content and the difference with SDR images are clear, I can assure you that it will not blow your mind with dizzying peak brightness.

An interesting touch has been given by realme with the inclusion of a second sensor for automatic brightness on the back of the device, in this way the smartphone is able to more precisely regulate the use of the display.

The fastest in its category

There is no doubt that this smartphone can boast the fastest product crown in its class. Mind you, it's not because it reaches levels of performance we've never seen before, however it's because of its unbeaten (to date) value for money.

realme GT is in fact the cheapest smartphone available below. the hood is fitted with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 888. To complete the package of true top-of-the-range specifications there are 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 internal memory, the two fastest types of memory available on a smartphone today. A variant with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal memory is also available, however the additional RAM does not make a real difference and in our opinion should only be considered if you think 128GB is not enough for your type of use.

The Qualcomm SoC has allowed realme to implement the latest 5G connectivity suite (also capable of being activated automatically only in case of need) and Wi-Fi 6, connections that can also be combined to maximize data throughput.

The temperatures remained always under control during our test thanks to the new dissipation system introduced by the brand that worked exactly as expected, realme GT was never too hot or in any case not very comfortable to handle due to of excess heat developed.

“Copper provides excellent thermal conductivity and is wrapped in a stainless steel shell for added strength. The design provides 42% more strength than traditional copper VC (Vapor Chamber) cooling systems and solves structural stability issues faced by other designs. With the 3D graphite thermal conduction multilayer and a coverage of 100% of the core components, the GT has a significantly improved cooling efficiency ".

Interestingly, realme GT possesses a feature that on the top of the range more recent has become increasingly rare: a 3.5mm headphone jack.

If you take into account the fact that Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity and a pair of stereo speakers are also present, realme GT becomes quite interesting for those who listen to their music in many different contexts (with headphones, in the car with AUX cable, from the speakers together with the emics, etc ...).

The speakers have a very high volume and it can be said that they are quite pleasant. There is a little clarity in the mid frequencies (vocals) and there is less bass than I would expect at the volume these speakers can reach. Overall though, there are indeed many more expensive models that sound significantly worse.

From 0% to 100% in 35 minutes

Just like the supercars this smartphone embodies, realme too GT has a decidedly impressive 0-100 value, only in this case instead of talking about kilometers per hour we are talking about the percentage of battery during charging!

The 4500mAh cell that gives life to this product is in in fact, able to recharge completely in just 35 minutes thanks to the included 65W power supply. In practice, if you ever need to recover some energy in anticipation of an evening with friends, in the time of a shower you will have your smartphone fully charged.

Compared to other competitors with 5000-6000mAh realme batteries GT suffers a little on its own but normally it has never abandoned me before the end of a day except when we have used it very intensively, with long gaming sessions and remaining connected to the telephone network.

On quieter days, despite the display set at the maximum possible frequency and the 5G connectivity always activated (not always connected however), we have always reached between 4 and 5 hours of active screen.

We can do better? Certainly. Is it a bad result? Absolutely not, it is not surprising but it is sufficient for the use that a person can do in the course of a traditional day with their device. functions that are being cut to contain smartphone prices.

Better as a model than as a photographer

It was quite logical to expect it, it is not the first time that we have dealt with a "budget "With top-of-the-range specifications. The aspect on which all manufacturers of this kind of product decide (or are obliged) to make compromises is that of the cameras.

At the rear of realme GT we find a main camera from 64MP f / 1.8 with Sony IMX682 sensor, an 8MP f / 2.3 ultra-wide angle camera and a macro lens alone and meager 2MP with f / 2.4 lens.

Lacking a real telephoto lens, realme GT makes a crop. ) on the main 64MP sensor, beyond the 5x zoom do not expect anything incredible but at low magnification levels it can be a convenient function.

Unfortunately the smartphone suffers in low light conditions, a little due to the lack of OIS optical stabilization on the main camera, partly due to the low brightness of the lens used for the secondary camera.

Overall the images are more than enough but we are not facing the new cameraphone par excellence. The colors in the photos are generally very pleasing although I have noticed a tendency to over-saturate certain shades of color on certain occasions. There is also little coherence in the shots captured even in sequence at different zoom levels, nothing that cannot be fixed with a little editing with smartphone applications but it is to keep in mind.

The camera 16MP front is plagued by the same problem of low-light lenses, with a focal aperture of f / 2.5 in the dark do not expect images without noise. Another detail to underline is the presence of the beauty mode (which smooths the skin and in general changes the face of the subjects) activated by default. For best results, I recommend disabling it.

Where realme GT lacks in quality, recovers in versatility and functions: the realme GT camera application is full of original and fun shooting modes to use. For example, there is a mode for taking photos to be used on documents (such as CI, passport, etc ...), a manual mode that certainly helps the most experienced to get better shots and the various night shooting modes such as Starry Night and Super Nightscape, among others.

A pleasant experience

The excellent hardware of realme GT is powered by Android 11, the latest version available at the time of writing this article. This is not a stock version, even if the so-called realme UI 2.0 is very close to it.

The interface derives from Oppo's ColorOS, a similarity visible above all in the area dedicated to Quick Toggles and in the System Settings, but it cuts down on customizations for an experience very close to that designed by Google for its operating system. Too bad for the many apps pre-installed at the first start, which however can be easily removed without too many problems if not necessary.

Generally the realme interface can be defined as "without infamy and without praise": from a on the other hand we have an experience quite close to the standard, on the other hand the additions made to the system are useful and pleasant if we exclude the bloatware.

In my period in the company of this skin I have not found any bugs or problems whatsoever, it is a well-made software and above all that focuses on cleaning and attention to detail rather than filling the smartphone with functions left halfway or malfunctioning.

Conclusions

We are facing what can really be considered the flagship killer of 2021, realme GT is a real note of freshness from an aesthetic point of view in a market that seems difficult to shake and its exceptional quality / price ratio will probably remain unbeatable. Attuto for many months.

With a list price of 449.00 euros for the 8GB / 128GB version and 549.00 euros for the 12GB / 256GB cut it is really hard to find reasons not to recommend it. And if you manage to take advantage of the Early Bird promotions put in place by the brand at the launch (only for the fastest users) you will really get a bargain like few: realme GT is in fact available at 399.00 euros for the basic model and 499, 00 euro for the larger version on the official website!

It is a smartphone that particularly impressed us from an aesthetic point of view, in the version we received, and what a technical side to everything you might want from a top of the range: ultra-fast charging, Snapdragon 888, 120Hz display, lots of internal memory, clean and fast software. It also has a very versatile photographic sector, even if not among the best on the market.

If you know what compromises you are going to meet and are willing to live with them, for example if you rarely use the camera and it is not a priority for you, it is difficult to think of a smartphone model that could be more interesting than this realme GT!