It just happened so soon, I got my hands on this Realme’s latest flagship phone, the GT 5 PRO, a flagship phone with 8 Gen3. Let me tell you the truth, some of Realme’s offerings before this seemed a bit cheap, but now, I can clearly see that Realme is changing its brand positioning. After a week of use, I must say that the Realme GT 5 PRO is truly a flagship product.
Unbox
The Realme GT 5 PRO comes in a black box that shows champagne-colored decorative lines with a reflective finish.
Opening the box, the package includes the phone, a 100w power adapter, a charging cable, and a case that has a leather-like texture on the back and decorative lines where the lens is located. The case is the accessory I like most, coming with excellent quality.
Design
In terms of design, it has changed quite a bit, and in my opinion, the phone’s design has gotten closer to mainstream and more in line with things people have been expecting.
I got this GT 5 PRO in a white leather version, officially named Bright Moon variant in Chinese. The leather color of the back cover is a bit close to Beige. The touch of this leather is excellent. Especially coming with the low-key beige color, the new GT phone’s build and tone are much upgraded, if comparing it with its predecessors.
Meanwhile, unlike the previous GT series, the back of the Realme GT 5 PRO is very restrained, with no other decorative elements on the back of the phone other than the lens module and the metal logo. If you compare the GT 5 PRO with the GT 5, I don’t think anyone would think it’s the same series.
Back to the lens module, the circular lens module… emm, It’s a design that can’t go wrong, and it’s worth noting that the interior of the lens module is designed with a radial pattern, paired with a rounded metal bezel around it. Among all phones with round lens modules, the Realme’s new GT is likely to be the most impressive one for me.
As for Realme’s logo, many people can’t understand the asymmetrical design and think it’s ugly and abrupt. But if you try to think like a designer, when completing an article, people tend to sign their names in the bottom right corner. So maybe Realme does it the same way, after designing the lens module, the whole phone is complete. After all, the part below Realme’s logo is blank.
The Realme GT 5 PRO has a micro-curved screen at the front, and if you compare it to the Vivo X100, you can see that the GT 5 PRO has a fairly narrow screen bezel, and personally, I prefer a straight screen. But I still have to say that the front of the Realme GT 5 PRO is quite impressive.
The Realme GT 5 PRO uses a metal frame and from some angles, it gives an illusion that the phone is very thin (But not thick actually). Since the edge is very straight, it’s not as rounded as it looks in the hand. But it’s still very comfortable.
What surprised me the most is that the Realme GT 5 PRO uses USB 3.2, and in a single large file write test, the transfer speed is about 5Gbps. good job, Realme.
Performance
The Realme GT 5 PRO comes with 8 Gen3. In Geekbench 5, the single-core performance is the strongest among the 8 Gen3 phones we have tested so far. Since we got an early version, there were abnormal stats in the multi-core test and the scores were on the low side. However, in Antutu benchmark the scores have surpassed the Xiaomi 14. Overall, with the flagship soc with LPDDR5X and UFS4.0 hardware combination, there is no need to worry about performance at all.
In the game test, Realme GT 5 PRO still performs very well, the frame rate fluctuation is very small, what’s more surprising to me is that Realme GT 5 PRO has a very strong temperature control, after 20 minutes of Genshin Impact, the surface temperature is only 43 °.
Camera
Realme GT 5 PRO has a big upgrade in the camera. First of all, the biggest improvement in hardware is of course the telephoto lens.
The telephoto len’s native focal length is 2.7x and supports macro shooting. In mid-range phones, a periscope lens indeed deserves a round of applause. I really like using the telephoto to shoot photos, so I also took some sample with it.
In daily life, the telephoto lens is easy to use and does not require much skill to take good photos. And in low-light environments, thanks to the telephoto 1/1.56-inch sensor, the image quality is very good. Since this telephoto lens supports OIS, you don’t need to worry about image stability when shooting night scenes.
In terms of video recording, Realme GT 5 PRO supports recording 4k60fps and 8k24fps videos. And the telephoto supports 4k 30fps Dolby Vision HDR video, this is amazing!
Screen
This phone has a customized 6.78-inch BOE screen, which is indeed excellent in terms of display effect. It is worth noting that this screen supports a maximum peak brightness of 4500nit, but of course only achievable in a small area. In actual use, Realme GT 5 PRO has a maximum manual brightness of 1000nit and an excitation brightness of 1600nit. Realme has done a very good job of giving us the power to decide the brightness.
At low brightness, it comes with PWM dimming, and at mid-to-high brightness, the phone shifts to DC-like dimming.
Battery & Charger
The 5400mAh battery kills the game and the Realme GT 5 PRO’s battery has an excellent battery performance.
On the charging side, 100W Supervooc charging can completely fill the battery in about 30 minutes. Not only that, the GT 5 PRO also supports wireless fast charging up to 50W. Although it is not as powerful as before, but it still performs well.
Software
In terms of system, Realme GT5 PRO comes with Realme UI 5 based on Android 14.
There are two features I really like – First, it supports manual setting of specific app’s refresh rates, so, finally, you can enjoy a high refresh rate on popular apps like Tiktok.
Exclusive Game Memory is my favorite feature, it can effectively prevent games in the background from being taken down. If you play games a lot, you would know how exactly it boosts the gaming experience. Realme seems to know exactly what gamers want.
Conclusion
I can say that the Realme GT5 PRO is a big change from Realme’s previous offerings, the camera has been improved and the look has changed dramatically. However, as a reviewer, I admire the courage, and the change by far is impressive. At least what’s going to be sure is that, the Realme GT5 PRO has become more versatile, while Realme still maintains its tradition of delivering good hardware and experience that exceeds its price point.
