After our Redmi K40 and K40 Pro reviews last week, today, we are bringing another flagship killer, the Realme GT. If you have been following the brand and this phone over the past few weeks, you must already know which model this phone is targeted at. The placement of the Realme GT is like the brand making a bold announcement —  ‘we are coming for the Redmi K40 Pro’.

Even when Redmi had announced the pricing of the K40 Pro, Realme just came forward and said that the GT was going to be priced lower. And the brand didn’t go back on its word. The 8+128GB version only sells for 2799RMB, which is 200RMB cheaper than the same version of the K40 Pro. 

So how exactly does this flagship killer compare to an already great smartphone – the Redmi K40 Pro? 

Let’s find that out!

Realme GT Review: Design

At first glance itself, we realized that the Realme GT had little chance to defeat the K40 Pro in the design department. But the good news is that the Realme GT is even more compact than the K40 Pro, which had already surprised us with its thin and light body. The GT weighs only 186g but at the same time features a slightly smaller 6.43-inch display.  

Thanks to its smaller display, It is easier to hold the Realme GT as compared to the K40 Pro.

Perhaps due to cost limitations on such an aggressively priced model, the camera module on the Realme GT is still a matrix design. This design is shared by almost all of Realme’s smartphones. And after looking at so many models using this camera module style, it’s hard not to feel a little bored with this design. The blue and silver color versions are also the same color schemes that have been used before. The yellow leather-like version is kind of nice, however, it is only available for the 12GB RAM + 256GB ROM variant.

The Realme GT has, the now rare, 3.5mm headphone jack, which is almost hardly seen on smartphones these days. I have to give the brand some credit for including this dedicated port. But all in all, I don’t think the Realme GT looks good enough to please most people.

The 6.43-inch Super AMOLED display features a resolution of 2400 x 1080, a refresh rate of 120Hz but it doesn’t use the latest E4 light-emitting screen. The hole-punch area is also relatively larger if we compare it to the K40 series. This display is still one of the most popular options for a 2021 mainstream model, however, there’s nothing that stands out. One thing to note here is that the overall maximum brightness of the Realme GT’s display is only around 600 nits while the K40 Pro has an overall maximum brightness of 900 nits. So when using the GT under direct sunlight, the insufficient brightness makes it a bit difficult to look at the display especially when compared to the K40 series. 

Realme GT Review: Benchmarks & Hardware

Since the phone comes with the letters GT in its name, Snapdragon 888, LPDDR5, and UFS 3.1 are naturally not absent. All of this performance-related hardware are the best options for an Android Phone in 2021. With GT mode on, in Antutu Benchmark, the Realme GT scores over 740,000, and in 3D Mark, it scores around 5800.

In another benchmark, the Geekbench 5, we got a result of 1142 points in the single-core test, and 3703 points in the multi-core test. So from all the results we mentioned, the GT achieved a similarly high level of performance as the other snapdragon 888 phones and was even a bit better than most Android phones we’ve ever tested.

Realme GT Review: Gaming

In the actual gaming test, the results are also excellent. In the thirty-minute test of Genshin Impact, the GT achieved an average frame rate of 55.03 fps. It started to throttle down the CPU clock speed after three and a half minutes, but still managed to maintain a good gaming experience.

And in another game, the Nimian Legends, the Realme GT surprised us with an average frame rate of 51.75 fps, considering this game especially tested the phone’s cooling effects. Like Genshin Impact, it experienced a slight performance down throttling but still maintained a good gaming experience thanks to the excellent cooling effect.

And the hottest it got was around 51℃. I wouldn’t say this temperature is low, but at least it’s better than many Snapdragon 888 models which struggled to maintain such high performance. From our tests, it looks like the Realme GT is worthy of its GT name. 

Realme GT Review: Camera

Like the K40Pro, the camera system is also GT’s weak point, so let’s talk briefly about its camera performance. The Realme GT comes with a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, and another 2MP macro lens.

Just to be clear, the general sample shots are taken with AI colour on, auto HDR and the rest are left at default, except for special scenes.

Primary Camera

The main camera outputs strong and vivid colors with a good dynamic range. The color contrast is high and colour gradation is relatively natural. The general images often showed an eye-pleasing style.

Night – Primary Camera

At night, the Realme GT’s Auto mode performs very well, with good exposure and accurate colours. Compared to the K40 Pro, the GT also performs much better in the dynamic range and image detail departments. And because Realme GT’s night-scene algorithm was automatically activated in its auto mode, there was little difference in the night images when we manually turned on the Night mode. 

Ultra Wide Angle Camera

The images shot on the Realme GT’s wide-angle camera are basically the same as what we had on the main camera. But the purple fringing issue is a bit remarkable for the wide-angle samples. In normal night scenes, except for the dynamic range which is slightly better on the Realme GT, there is no obvious difference between GT and the K40 Pro. Because the K40’s Wide-angle camera doesn’t integrate the night algorithm for auto mode, it suffers in extremely dark conditions.

Macro Camera

For macro shooting, the samples shot on the Realme GT’s macro lens cannot even compare to the images cropped from the original samples of the main camera. And this macro camera’s closest point of focus is limited to 4cm, so this sensor is pretty much useless and you may even assume it doesn’t exist. 

Realme GT Review: Charging

If we had to point out something that is really well-done on the Realme GT, it is the 65W charging technology. The phone charges to 21% in just five minutes, 61% in 15 minutes and it took just 31 minutes to charge to 100%. Although it’s not the fastest charging speed we’ve ever seen, it is still the best in its price segment when you compare it with rivals. Despite its high charging power, it doesn’t sacrifice battery capacity. With a 4500mAh battery, it consumed 6% of power each for 30-minute tiktok and 30-minute web video playback, 19% for 30-minute Genshin Impact gaming and 16% for 20-minute Nimian Legend gaming.

Considering its excellent gaming performance, battery life performance is really impressive. 

Realme GT Review: Verdict

So that’s what you should expect from the Realme GT. The phone really did a great job in the performance and gaming departments. Even when compared to the K40 Pro which was released around the same time, the Realme GT seems to have been able to better optimize the 888 chipset.

As a challenger trying to win the competition against the K40 Pro, Realme knows it needs solid features in order for the GT to come out as a better value for money product. And they have managed to do this to a considerable extent. But it’s a bit disappointing that its design and camera module didn’t bring us much surprise. While, at least on the K40 series, we were excited about its new design profile.

So which model are you going to pick between the K40 Pro and the Realme GT? And for what reason? Please leave your comments down below and share your views with us.

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