Over the last few years, our list of the best Android phones has featured a smaller and smaller array of brands. That's not because we're biased towards particular companies; it's just that some of our favorite manufacturers have been winding down operations.

The last Nokia phone I reviewed was in 2022, the same goes for Realme, and we haven't published a full review of a Vivo or Nubia phone since 2024 (not including Nubia's RedMagic sub-brand). LG and Asus are two other high-profile brands that have retired from the mobile game in recent years, and I'm surprised that Sony is still ticking along (though its new mobile offerings are scant).

Unfortunately, it sounds like OnePlus might join that esteemed crowd very soon. Tech commentators have been down about what seems like a 'writing on the wall' situation for the Chinese brand; OnePlus is beloved among testers, and it's maintained a dedicated corps of fans online, too. But while rumors of OnePlus' demise certainly aren't nice to hear, in the long term, I think this could turn into a great thing for smartphone buyers. Let me explain.

What's happening to OnePlus?

Since the year began, rumors of OnePlus' imminent closure have been swirling. While the brand has denied these reports, it's clear that OnePlus has slowed down its usual product launch cycle (where's the OnePlus Nord 6?). Many assume that the brand's ditching the West to focus on Chinese and Indian markets, and indeed OnePlus itself has confirmed to Android Authority that it's "evaluating its regional roadmap and product strategy".

Most recently, we've heard that OnePlus could merge with Realme, its sister brand (both are owned by Chinese giant BBK Electronics, like Vivo and Oppo), which also stopped selling phones in Europe about four years ago.

Again, OnePlus has denied these reports to the Financial Express, but its statement only refers to "OnePlus India" and "local operations". Reading between the lines, that seems to confirm that global changes are afoot.

It's unclear what such a merger could look like; OnePlus also merged with Oppo back in 2021, and from the outside perspective, this didn't result in many changes.

But best case scenario — and again, this is total speculation — the companies could start to combine some aspects like R&D, distribution, and marketing, in order to save costs while remaining in operation. That's likely what the OnePlus and Oppo merger resulted in, and it's quite telling that Oppo remains active in Europe despite not being a household name.

It's a bad time to be a phone company

Why are so many phone brands struggling? Well, it's no secret that mobile sales are down globally. According to Counterpoint Research, shipments in the first quarter of 2026 were down 6% year-on-year, with "the shortage of DRAM" and "weaker demand" to blame for troubles in the mobile market.

Without wanting to put too fine a point on it, that latter is code for 'the cost of living crisis', with various factors encouraging buyers to hold onto a phone for longer before buying a new one, and sticking to tried-and-true brands rather than up-and-coming Chinese competitors.

Only the biggest companies, like Apple, seem to be keeping their head above water — Counterpoint also points to Honor, Google, and Nothing as other brands that are growing year-on-year, but basically everyone else is down.

In short, it's not a great time to be selling phones, unless you're a well-known company (mind you, even Samsung's sales were down, according to Counterpoint's data). But this has all led to total stagnation in the smartphone market.

The need for flagship-killers has never been greater

When OnePlus began, it brought rise to a phrase: "flagship killers". Its phones had mid-range prices, yet specs to rival the big dogs of the time. The OnePlus One was a Samsung Galaxy S5 rival that cost half the price.

For most of its existence, this strategy served OnePlus well, and other companies copied it. I remember the first Xiaomi phones I tested being incredible-value mid-rangers, and Oppo first came to my attention through its Reno handsets.

Yet if you look at any of these companies now, you'll see they've all joined the top-end game. Oppo and Xiaomi are pumping out fancy Ultra phones that cost thousands (see the Oppo Find X9 Ultra and Xiaomi 17 Ultra).

What's left around the mid-range Android market is a load of fine mobiles that do the job, but it's been years since I've seen a lower-cost handset that'd seriously compete with Samsung, Apple, or Google's latest flagships. And if I, a tech reviewer, can barely get excited for affordable phones, I can't expect buyers to. Handset companies are leaving the market, but the need for flagship-killers has never been greater.

Realme to the rescue?

Now here's where I've got to admit something: I'm not coming to this article as a OnePlus fan — it's a solid brand, which has made some great phones, don't get me wrong — but instead as a Realme fan.

Back when the brand used to release phones in the UK, I was constantly giving its handsets glowing reviews. I awarded four and a half stars to the affordable, colorful Realme 9 Pro Plus, the midrange powerhouse Realme GT, and the affordable camera phone Realme 8 Pro, and four stars to the super-cheap Realme C35 and Realme 7 Pro.

Even after Realme stopped selling its phones, I kept using them. My daily driver is, when I'm not testing a handset, the Realme 13 Pro Plus, and my laptop is the Realme Book. And I still cover the brand's tech from time to time, like when I took the Realme 15 Pro Game of Thrones Limited Edition to some castles in 2025.

What made Realme such a great brand is that it took the mantle from OnePlus: its gadgets were reasonably priced, and offered features or designs that made them indistinguishable from high-end rivals. The Realme 9 Pro Plus, for example, changed color in the light, while the Realme GT was a leather-clad compact phone with loads of gaming power.

I get the impression that, since leaving European markets, Realme has followed its siblings in focusing on high-end mobiles over tempting mid-rangers. But crucially, I don't think any other brand has followed in its footsteps.

A plan to save OnePlus

If OnePlus is planning to wind down operations, and if it does end up merging with Realme — two big 'ifs', I know — it could look a lot like a dignified retirement for a once-great brand. Perhaps this is the end for OnePlus after all (indeed, some Redditors have suggested that the merger "is going to be a disaster").

But if, as one can hope, it's more of a hibernation phase, to reduce overheads and weather the current economic storm, the story could be a lot different.

The tech world is full of comeback stories, some glorious and others not. Many legacy brands have been saved from the landfill site of history by mergers and buyouts.

Nokia survived for years through HMD Global. Apple was only saved from bankruptcy in 1997 by a massive Microsoft investment. Blackberry made a brief return thanks to OnwardMobility. Harman was saved by Samsung (although many audiophiles still mourn the death of still-operating Harman brands like AKG, so this last case is debatable).

So, maybe, just maybe, this will be another one of those cases: two Chinese tech brands circling their wagons to protect each other in the hopes of continuing onwards into the future. And if that does come to pass, the renewed collaboration could be really exciting for phone fans.

Realme still seems to retain some of that "flagship killer" magic that OnePlus lost along the way, and so if one of the brands does return to Western markets, that sparkle could come back too.

I'm so bored of the iPhone / Samsung Galaxy / Google Pixel triumvirate that's been dominating phone headlines for the last few years; these phones are great, but they're all equally and predictably great. I want something weird, something unexpected, a real challenger for once. Will that be OnePlus or Realme? Not soon, by the looks of it, but I can't see anyone else coming to save us.

Until then, if I want a handset that looks competitive or interesting, I'll turn to the best cheap phones. They lack some of the pizazz that competitive mid-rangers once did, but at least they still give you value for money.

• The Realme P4 Power has a 10,001mAh battery
• Despite that huge capacity, it weighs just 219g
• It's launching in India on January 29, with a global launch to be confirmed

We seem to be in the middle of a battery capacity revolution, as following on from the likes of the 7,300mAh OnePlus 15 leaping ahead of the 5,000mAh smartphone standard last year, now Realme has teased a phone with a 10,001mAh battery.

Dubbed the Realme P4 Power, this phone is launching on January 29, but the company has already shared a lot of details about it, including that the phone can apparently manage 185.7 hours of music playback, 21.3 hours of navigation, 32.5 hours of YouTube, or 72.3 hours of call time on a single charge.

So this is a battery that for most people will probably last at least a few days, and which could feasibly keep going for up to around a week if you’re a light enough user. Despite that, the Realme P4 Power weighs just 219g, which is about the same as the 5,000mAh Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and less than the 5,088mAh iPhone 17 Pro Max.

This is largely thanks to silicon anode technology, which can store more energy than the graphite used in traditional lithium-ion batteries. Also used in some EVs, this tech means a higher energy density for a similar weight, which helps the P4 Power avoid brick status.

Fast charging and built to last

The P4 Power also charges at 80W and offers 27W reverse charging, which makes this very viable as a means to power up other devices.

Plus, the phone has passed military-grade shock tests, and its battery health should be able to stay above 80% for up to eight years, so it won’t wear out fast.

Battery aside, the Realme P4 Power has a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Ultra 5G chipset, a 50MP main camera, and a 144Hz screen with a peak brightness of 6,500 nits, so its other specs sound promising too.

Pricing and availability are the big remaining questions, with the initial launch seemingly just being for India – but with a battery like that we certainly hope it goes global.

I've been writing about the best phones for almost 20 years now, but 2025 proved that phone makers can still surprise experts like me.

Take Realme, for example, which decided – with the Realme GT8 Pro – to offer a feature I never realized I wanted: an interchangeable camera housing.

Yes, you read that right. Not content to equip its latest phone with merely a very good smartphone camera, Realme has put two different camera housing designs in the box with the Realme GT8 Pro, along with the necessary screwdriver to easily swap them out in under two minutes.

In offering these modular, or interchangeable, components, Realme joins a few other phone makers, including Fairphone and Nothing, and I hope more phone makers follow suit with this level of smartphone customization in 2026.

Meet the Realme GT8 Pro's changeable camera design

Before unboxing the Realme GT8 Pro a few weeks ago, I had no idea that it offered an interchangeable camera housing. At first, I dismissed it as little more than a gimmick, but then I changed the housing from the default round design to the included square version, and fell in love with the idea of being able to swap it out at will.

This interchangeability isn’t just limited to the regular Realme GT8 Pro, but is also a feature on the gorgeous green F1 Aston Martin Aramco version (pictured above). I was able to mix and match the black and green housings on both devices for some really eye-catching results.

Realme also offers additional color options across both versions of the GT8 Pro, giving users the opportunity to truly stand out from the crowd in both their choice of finish and the camera housing they opt to equip at any given time.

Realme isn’t the only tech product with modular components

As alluded to already, Realme joins a slowly growing yet still nascent list of phone makers experimenting with modular and interchangeable components in smartphones. The GT8 Pro is the latest in a line of phones that have attempted to make customization easier, but it's also the best example to date.

The most prominent other example is the Fairphone 6, a fully modular, sustainability-focused phone that makes it easy to swap out key components like the battery or display when needed. In theory, Fairphone offers infinite customization options, but the complexity of implementing them has kept its smartphone a mostly niche product that has yet to achieve true market fit.

Then there’s Project Ara, the ill-fated Google project which saw the Pixel maker attempt to build a fully modular phone. This was ultimately canceled due to complexity and cost issues, but it also wasn’t the right time for such a product when it was announced at Google I/O in 2014. A decade on, could now be the right time to attempt such a product again?

The semi-interchangeable add-on industry

We’ve also seen other companies pursue a semi-interchangeable approach through device add-ons.

The most renowned of these attempts came from Motorola, with its infamous Moto Mods lineup, which extended the Moto Z's features through magnetic snap-on accessories that connected to the phone with pogo pins. Some of these features included powerful JBL speakers, Insta-Share projectors, Mophie and Incipio batteries, and even 5G connectivity, long before it was as ubiquitous in smartphones as it is today.

LG followed suit with a much less successful range of add-ons for the LG G5, and more recently, HMD has attempted the same with certain devices under the Nokia brand. Dubbed Smart Outfits, these add-ons include a ring light for selfies, a rugged case with an IP rating, a battery booster, and a gaming controller with joysticks and buttons.

Most recently, we saw Nothing take a similar approach to HMD with the CMF Phone 1, which features screw-in accessories like stands, card holders, and magnetic mounts. CMF also took the Realme route by letting users change the design, color, and materials of the Phone 1, rather than simply add specific features. This made the CMF Phone 1 one of the most unique phones you could buy at the time of its launch, and CMF has continued that approach with the excellent CMF Phone 2 Pro.

And then there's some of the best camera phones – specifically the Vivo X300 Pro, Oppo Find X9 Pro, and Xiaomi 15 Ultra – which all feature add-on photography kits that include an additional telephoto lens to further their respective cameras' zoom capabilities beyond what’s natively possible.

I hope more tech makers follow suit

Building a smartphone is incredibly challenging, and with the cost of components increasing (especially RAM in the current AI-dominated era), each phone requires companies to make trade-offs to achieve the right price and product positioning. As such, each phone maker is forced to launch many variations of its flagships, each one designed for a different type of consumer. But what if there’s another way?

Imagine being able to buy a single base model of a phone – say, the upcoming Galaxy S26 – and then swap out the core components, such as the camera lenses or battery, to make a phone that’s designed specifically for you. This was part of the dream and allure of Project Ara, and one of the reasons why I really like the Realme GT8 Pro's interchangeable camera design. And while Google's project failed a decade ago, now could be a good time to try again.

Alongside giving users more customization, offering add-on accessories and components would also help phone makers increase their average revenue per user. The success of Vivo’s and Oppo’s photography kits proves that some customers will buy additional components to achieve the best features, so I hope that more phone makers follow Realme and others by attempting to bring add-on accessories and components to the mass market.

I’ve seen my fair share of pop culture special edition smartphones in my day: the Batman Rog Phone 6, an Iron Man Poco X7 Pro, and the Star Wars-themed Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, to name a few. But recently, I was sent a device from a franchise whose universe has absolutely nothing to do with smartphones: meet the Realme 15 Pro Game of Thrones Limited Edition.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was to see a Game of Thrones smartphone appear at my door in 2025. Despite the mixed (read: furious) reaction to the show's final season in 2019, the fact that Game of Thrones spin-offs are still on our screens makes it clear that interest in the franchise is still high (House of the Dragon season 3 and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms are both slated for a 2026 release).

This spin on the Realme 15 Pro maintains most of the specs of mid-July’s basic model, but with a few hardware and software changes that I’ll get into later. I’m sorry to say now that, as far as I can tell, neither the base model nor the Game of Thrones Limited Edition will go on sale in the US or UK, based on precedent from Realme.

I was sent the Realme 15 Pro Game of Thrones Limited Edition at an interesting time – that is to say, the day prior to my travelling to some medieval towns on a holiday. Admittedly, Game of Thrones wasn't filmed at any of these locations: Salzburg in Austria, with its imposing fortress and looming mountains, and then Munich in Germany, where everyone was dressed in traditional garb (for Oktoberfest, not in Lannister gold and red, unfortunately). But the timing gave me an idea, and so I took the phone with me to test out some of its new features.

A real twist on a Realme

Before we get to the IRL performance of the Realme 15 Pro Game of Thrones Edition, let's take a closer look at its hardware.

Spec-wise, it’s the same as the base model: it has a 6.8-inch, 1280 x 2800, 144Hz display, a Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 chipset paired with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage (the base model has a few more variants), a 7,000mAh battery with 80W charging, and two rear 50MP cameras (one a wide-angle, the other an ultra-wide). Appearances suggest that there are actually three rear cameras, but one of these is presumably a light sensor or similar.

Before we even get into the Game of Thrones elements of the device, I want to flag two features of the phone that I really liked. First, around the ultra-wide camera lens, there’s a circular LED indicator, which will light up if you’ve got a notification, are receiving a call, are listening to music, or another customizable trigger is, well, triggered. I really liked this as a noninvasive notifier if I received a message while on silent mode, and I wish more phones had similar (it used to be more of a feature, but I haven’t seen it much recently).

Secondly, while most phones have a white flashlight on the back, the Realme has two, with a warmer red one joining the cool white one. This was fun for portrait photography as it let you play with the colors of a snap, adding a front-facing fill lighting as the camera app lets you vary the intensity of both lights. It also added a little bit of color when I was using the torch to look around in the dark.

Now, onto the Game of Thrones additions. The phone comes in a pretty big box with some show-inspired extras like character postcards, a pop-up phone holder, and, perhaps my favorite of the lot, an ornate SIM card removal tool.

Perhaps the most noticeable design trait of the new Realme is the Targaryen dragon on the back, as well as the show’s logo on the back and the dragon claws on the raised camera section. Look closely and you can see the various House banners chequered on this section, and around the two larger camera mounts are sayings from the show (of course, ‘Winter is Coming’ is one).

According to Realme, the black-leather back of the phone is color-changing and will turn red if warm water is applied. My first instinct was to put the handset in a mug of warm water to see what happened, but despite the IP68/IP69 and MIL-STD-810H ratings, it didn’t feel that wise to dunk a smartphone in liquid as soon as I received it. Maybe once this article goes live…

There are software tweaks to the phone, too, thanks to the addition of some themes. You get Game of Thrones-inspired animations, a fingerprint scanner, backgrounds, and interface logos, which mostly affect the pre-installed apps, but occasionally I’d download an app logo that’d be fully Thrones-ified.

Another feature stood out to me when I was reading the review guide: Realme has added a few Game of Thrones-inspired camera filters, modeled after the color grade of certain locations of the show. And when I saw this, knowing that I was about to visit Austria the next day, the lightbulb in my head went off: I needed to take the phone with me.

Arming up

I know, I know, camera filters aren’t exactly the sexiest feature a phone can have, but I was curious after sample pictures provided by Realme showed them to have a more dramatic effect than most.

The filters are inspired by the looks of locations in Westeros and, more specifically, the color grades used in these settings. The first is called Northland, evidently inspired by Winterfell and the North, which has a cold, blue look. The other is called Kingdom, which evokes ideas of King’s Landing with its warmer appearance. In all honesty, the filters simply change the color balance of a snap, but from my testing, it was still enough to change their overall feel.

And what was that testing? Mostly, it was me taking pictures of Salzburg’s Fortress Hohensalzburg, and the Untersberg mountain outside town, as these felt like Game of Thrones-y subjects to me.

Most of the pictures you’re about to see were taken on the Realme’s main camera, simply because I don’t like the way ultra-wide snaps look (and I don’t imagine Game of Thrones’ cinematographers used such lenses anyway).

I played around with a few modes, so you’ll see some tilt shift and night mode in use below, and I also cropped a couple of the snaps to match the 16:9 aspect ratio of the show. However, beyond cropping, nothing below has seen the light of Photoshop. And because I’m not reviewing the phone itself – I'm just looking at the Game of Thrones elements – I’m not going to get bogged down with a full analysis of the snaps.

I took loads of pictures during my holiday, but given that half of the trip was to Oktoberfest, I’m too smart to share them all – instead, I’ve picked five. To best test the filters, I took almost every single vacation snap three times: in the default camera mode, with the Kingdom filter, and with the Northlands one. I know, I’m great fun on holidays.

Through the lens

I’m going to start with my favorite photo, partly because it looks great looking out over kilometers of land, and partly because it took me ages to get to the lookout vista and I want to brag about it. In the near ground you can see some trees while the middle distance has the Fortress Hohensalzburg and in the far distance, beyond some clouds and mist, you can see the peak of Untersberg.

In the standard picture, there’s quite a warm color profile anyway, and that’s because I took the photo shortly before sunset – they call it the golden hour for a reason. Seeing those streaks of gold on the branches of the tree, and the citadel further away, I was curious to see what the warmer image would make of it.

So, we move to Kingdom, and the warm look adds a nostalgic hue, even if the yellower look leads to a reduced contrast with the sunny belts on the walls. It’s a great way to look at holiday snaps, reflecting the haze of time (and, given the second half of the trip, the haze of memory…) but I don’t remember Game of Thrones looking so cozy.

That’s where Northlands comes in, sapping out the warmth. However, in the show, these areas are bleak and unforgiving, which the Austria-Germany border here certainly isn’t, and so I can’t help but feel that the filter’s coloration is at odds with the subject.

That dissonance isn’t the case when we get a little closer to the fortress, though, as my second test photo shows – this one was taken in the town of Salzburg itself, looking up at the castle on the hill. In the Northlands picture, its stark protrusion into the sky, combined with the color scheme, makes it look cold and imposing.

However, the gray of the castle and sky feels a little bit too similar to make the picture distinct, or add that much (possibly an issue with my own photography, as much as the subject). In fact, a problem I constantly found with Northlands is that it crushed the dynamic range to such a degree that pictures lost nuance, and sometimes so much color that they looked almost monochromatic.

The walls are clearly a different shade in both my standard and Kingdom pictures, but these images are also pretty similar to each other. That’s another thing I noticed during my testing – a picture taken at the right time of day didn’t benefit much from the warmer white balance.

This picture shows that more than most. You’re seeing these snaps of a dark gate back-to-back, so you can easily tell which has the Kingdom filter on, but when I foolishly changed the order when preparing to upload these photos, I couldn’t tell at a glance which was which. This is largely true because this was taken with Night Mode, which often results in yellowy pictures on most phones.

I played with tilt shift a fair bit during the camera tests, and that’s because I often find it takes its most interesting pictures of cityscapes or when you’re at a distance from your subject, using the linear-blur effect to isolate one specific element of the snap. In this picture, I did it for the first row of buildings over a river, while losing everything else.

It’s also an image that interestingly illustrates the filters and the effect on the photo. On the standard snap, you can see that the buildings have slightly different colors, adding a quirky pastel look which is commonplace in European cities.

Now to Northlands. This desaturates the row of buildings so they all appear white or gray – if you hadn’t seen the previous picture, you’d be hard-pressed to be able to tell which colors the buildings were previously. It looks clean and clinical but also slightly unwelcoming and devoid of warmth… just like Winterfell in the show.

Then onto Kingdom, which retains the colors of the original picture but adds some vibrancy and warmth to the surrounding blurred areas, too. Immediately, this seems more inviting, like a little toy town you can rush into and explore. Admittedly, the Salzburg in this picture doesn’t have that in common with King’s Landing, which saw more than its fair share of murder, war, and death, but it’s a great counterpoint with the other versions of this picture anyway.

For the last picture, we’re looking at mountains again – not the staggeringly beautiful Unterberg, which towers over the town and captured my imagination for every second I was in the city, but from the ramparts of the fortress to glimpse at the Bavarian Alps.

This isn’t exactly an artistic picture, but I am always captivated by mountains in the distance and wanted to see how well the phone camera would pick up the cloud-hidden peaks in the distance. And I think it’s another example of how the color filters – and the emotional attributions we assign to them – can manipulate our viewing of an image.

In this line-up, I think I prefer the Northlands filter, particularly the slight contrast between the mountains' different shades of gray, and the cloud that cuts through them. The peaks look imposing, looming up into the distance, and yet somehow alluring. It's just a shame that the filter makes the foreground houses and castle roof look too blue.

In the standard picture, those closer elements look natural, and the verdant greenery of the landscape looks safe and calm compared to the misty formations of the background. Then in Kingdom, the same juxtaposition stands, but with the warm yellow haze looking almost sickly, and I'm not sure the filter's effects add much to the shot.

I enjoyed testing the camera's filters because even when they didn't add much to a shot, or even made it look worse, they were more heavy-handed and effective than the standard ones you see on a smartphone. They let me play with the white balance and look of a shot without having to spend too much time in Pro mode to deliver the same effect. And for some of the shots, I really like the resulting images.

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• There's talk that the next Realme phone battery could hit 8,000mAh
• Most consumer phones offer around 4,000mAh or less
• It's unlikely the phone will be sold in the US, UK, or Australia though

As smartphone owners, we all want more battery life from our devices – and it looks as though Realme could raise the bar for flagship consumer phones with the introduction of a handset with an 8,000mAh capacity battery.

This is according to veteran tipster Digital Chat Station (via Notebookcheck), and it sounds as though several different capacities are being considered for an upcoming phone – possibly the Realme GT 8 Pro due sometime in 2025.

According to the leak, the phone could have a 7,000mAh, 7,500mAh, or 8,000mAh battery. There is a trade-off though: the higher the capacity, the lower the charging speed and the time it takes for the battery to fully charge up.

Apparently no final decision has been made – but if Realme were to go for the 8,000mAh option, we'd certainly welcome it. It would make a refreshing change to see a handset that didn't have to be charged every single night.

Batteries by the numbers

An 8,000mAh battery wouldn't be the biggest we've ever seen, because previous handsets have had batteries up to 22,000mAh in capacity. However, those phones are very chunky and not really practical as everyday smartphones.

If Realme does pick 8,000mAh for the capacity, it would be the biggest yet in a consumer phone that doesn't look like it's had a power bank glued to it. At the moment, a select number of handsets offer around 7,000mAh.

It would certainly beat the likes of the Apple iPhone 16 (3,561mAh) and the Samsung Galaxy S24 (4,000mAh) – though of course a lot of factors affect battery life, including chipset efficiency, so it's not all on the capacity of the battery.

Sadly, Realme doesn't sell its phones in the US, the UK, or Australia – focusing instead on markets like China and India. Let's hope that changes, or that Realme's advanced battery tech makes its way across the industry to other smartphone makers.

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If you care about charging speeds above all else then the Realme GT 3 is for you, as this new mid-ranger charges at a remarkably fast 240W.

That’s almost ten times the charging power you’ll get with a Samsung Galaxy S23, and while that’s the headline feature of Realme’s new phone, it’s not the only thing worth talking about.

Below then, you’ll find all the information on the Realme GT 3, including how much it costs, when you’ll be able to buy it, and its various specs and features.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? The latest powerful mid-ranger from Realme
• When is it out? Hitting stores soon
• How much will it cost? $649 (roughly £540 / AU$960)

Realme GT 3: release date and price

The Realme GT 3 was announced on February 28, 2023 at MWC 2023, though confusingly it’s actually a rebadged Realme GT Neo 5, which was unveiled in China a couple of weeks earlier on February 9.

In any case, the phone will be sold globally as the Realme GT 3, and we know it will be going on sale in Europe soon, though there’s no exact date yet. It may well land in Australia as well, but details of a launch there haven’t been confirmed, and we wouldn’t expect to see it in the US.

Despite that, oddly the only price we have for it is in dollars, with the Realme GT 3 set to cost $649, which equates to around £540 or AU$960.

Realme GT 3 design and display

The Realme GT 3 has 6.74-inch 1240 x 2772 AMOLED screen with a very high 144Hz refresh rate, 451 pixels per inch, and a peak brightness of 1,400 nits.

It has a matte glass back in a choice of white or black shades, and it also strangely has a huge camera block, which for some reason additionally houses a fake Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset visible under the surface. It’s an odd design, and part of the camera block can also light up to alert you to notifications.

There’s a punch-hole camera in the top-center of the screen, and the Realme GT 3 comes in at 163.9 x 75.8 x 8.9mm and 199g.

Realme GT 3 camera and battery

You get a triple-lens camera on the back of the Realme GT 3, made up of a 50MP f/1.9 wide camera with optical image stabilization, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide with a 112-degree field of view, and a 2MP f/3.3 microscope camera, for extreme close ups and tiny subjects. That’s one of this phone’s more unusual features.

The phone can also shoot video in up to 4K quality at up to 60fps, and there’s a 16MP f/2.5 camera on the front.

Moving on to the battery, and that’s 4,600mAh, which is a middling capacity. However, as noted above it supports 240W wired charging, which is ridiculously fast. That’s enough for it to go from zero to 100% in just 9.5 minutes according to Realme.

It can also hit 20% in just 80 seconds, and a 30-second charge is enough for up to two hours of use the company claims.

For reference, the Samsung Galaxy S23 only supports 25W charging, the Galaxy S23 Ultra tops out at 45W, and even most genuinely fast charging phones fall well short of this, with the OnePlus 11 for example charging at up to 100W.

Realme has also said that the battery should hold on to over 80% of its original charging capacity for at least 1,600 charging cycles, which is notable since fast charging can sometimes wear a battery out faster.

There’s clever tech on board which likely helps with that, as the phone can use AI to detect the situation in which you’re charging it and adjust accordingly. If you’re charging it overnight for example then it will hold at 80% until just before you wake up, while if you’re away from home it might judge that you need charge quickly, and go straight to 100%.

However, there’s no wireless charging here, so it’s not a complete charging win.

Realme GT 3 specs and features

The Realme GT 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. That’s one of the most powerful chipsets from 2022, but not as good as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that we’re seeing in most 2023 flagships. Of course, this is more of a mid-range phone, so that tracks.

That chipset is joined by a choice of 8GB, 12GB or 16GB of RAM, and 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. At the top end that’s more storage than most phones offer, and up there with the most RAM you can get on far more expensive handsets.

The Realme GT 3 also supports 5G, has an under-display fingerprint sensor, and runs Android 13, overlaid with the company’s Realme UI 4.0.

How fast do you need to charge your phone? Because Realme thinks – no matter how quick your current device is – it's not quick enough. That's based on the international launch of its new flagship, the Realme GT 3 – which boasts impressive 240W fast charging.

The company used Mobile World Congress 2023 as the stage for the launch of the Realme GT 3, which comes one year on from the global release of the Realme GT Neo 3 – one of the first smartphones to feature 150W fast charging.

While Realme is billing the GT 3 as its new flagship phone, in truth it's essentially a rebadged Realme GT Neo 5: a premium mid-ranger that made its debut in China only a couple of weeks prior, on February 9.

This marks the first time we've seen a Neo-branded device materialize as a full-fledged GT flagship-class phone in its transition to global markets and perhaps more interestingly, Realme has chosen to hold fire on launching a Realme GT 3 Pro model, as it did last year with the Realme GT 2 and GT 2 Pro.

The use of a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip, rather than Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is par for the course, where the company's non-Pro models are concerned. However, it's still built to deliver a responsive experience by way of a 144Hz display, up to 16GB of RAM, and, of course, that next-generation fast charging.

It's worth noting that while the Realme GT Neo 5 / Realme GT 3 now supports "the maximum charging power for mass-produced Type-C smartphones," to quote Realme during the GT 3's launch, only hours earlier, rival Xiaomi served up footage of a modified Xiaomi smartphone replenishing its 4,100mAh battery to 100% in under five minutes by using a specialized 300W charger.

It's the fact that Realme's phone is actually going on sale soon that really cements its position as the current leader in terms of fast-charging phones, and the stats that the company dropped during the launch certainly suggest those with battery anxiety might find the GT 3 particularly appealing.

According to Realme, the phone's 4,600mAh cell can hit 100% charge in 9.5 minutes, but it's perhaps the even-shorter examples that really impress. The phone can refill from flat to over 20% in just 80 seconds (actually hitting 23% in the live demo we were treated to at the launch), while just 30 seconds of charge time should result in up to two hours of use.

Won't charging that fast destroy the battery over time?

Of course, 240W SuperVOOC fast charging is nothing if the battery can only hold half its charge after a year of use and Realme has thought of that, too, promising a resilience of 1,600 cycles (compared to what Realme claims is a typical industry standard of 800) before the battery holds only 80% of its charge compared to new.

An integrated AI Charging system also alters the phone's charging behavior based on use case. If the GT 3 detects you're at the airport, it'll give you the full 100% as quickly as it can. However, if you're sleeping or driving, it'll stem the flow to hold the phone at around 80% charge until just before you wake up or arrive at your destination, at which point, it opens the gates again to hit 100% while minimizing battery wear and tear.

Assuming these ludicrous speeds ring true (and we'll be putting them to the test in a full Realme GT 3 review soon), you might be interested to know when and where you can pick one up. We don't have availability yet, but it should be making its way to European markets very soon, with a somewhat confusing starting guide price of $649 (confusing because there's no US release planned), which equates to £540 or AU$960.

Even without concrete plans to bring this ultra-fast charging to the US, the SuperVOOC technology is the same as what's found in Oppo and OnePlus phones. The latter usually uses its small but growing US footprint to showcase leading-edge designs and technology.

In the meantime, check out our rundown of the best Android phones and our hands-on Xiaomi 13 Pro review: one of the other big mobile launches that just took place in Barcelona.

If you’re looking for one of the best cheap phones then there’s a chance you’ve found it, with the Realme 10. We won’t know for sure until we’ve put it through a full review, but this new phone certainly has some promising specs on paper, and sounds like a significant upgrade on the Realme 9.

Highlights include a 90Hz AMOLED screen, a slim design, a big battery, and improved power. But there’s lots more to this phone too.

Below you’ll find all the key details about the Realme 10, plus details of the Realme 10 Pro and Realme 10 Pro Plus, which are only out in Asia at the time of writing, but will be launching more widely.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? An affordable new Realme phone
• When is it out? Now, in select parts of Europe
• How much does it cost? €279 (around $280 / £245 / AU$430)

Realme 10 European release date and price

The Realme 10 was announced on November 9, 2022, and is available in select region like Poland, Italy and India. Currently there's no Realme 10 availability in the UK, US or Australia. 

As for the price, it starts at €279 (around $280 / £245 / AU$430), though we wouldn’t expect an exact conversion in other regions. Still, this is sure to be an affordable phone everywhere it’s sold.

Then there's the Realme 10 Pro and Realme 10 Pro Plus, both of which launched on December 8, 2022 but only in parts of Asia.

The Realme 10 Pro then starts at $319 (roughly £260 / AU$470), while the Realme 10 Pro Plus starts at $379 (approximately £310 / AU$560).

Realme 10 design and display

The Realme 10 has a design that the company claims is inspired by “particles that travel at light speed”. In practice, that means it comes in a choice of ‘Clash White’ or ‘Rush Black,’ but these aren’t plain white and black shades – both contain a ripple of colors, with tiny white dots spread across them.

The phone is 159.9 x 73.3 x 7.95mm and 178g, and the company notes that this is the slimmest Realme phone ever offered for the global market. It has a punch-hole camera on the front and two large camera housings on the rear, as you can see on the pictures in this article.

The Realme 10 is likely clad in plastic, but the company hasn’t specified that. There’s also no mention of water resistance, but that’s not surprising at this price.

As for the screen, the Realme 10 has a 6.4-inch 1080 x 2400 Super AMOLED display, with a 90Hz refresh rate, a brightness of up to 1000 nits, and Gorilla Glass 5 protection. Those are the same specs as the Realme 9’s screen, but in our review, we were impressed with that phone’s display.

The Realme 10 Pro and Realme 10 Pro Plus meanwhile look somewhat similar, but with what the company describes as a "hyperspace design" inspired by refracted light. You can get an idea of how this looks in one of the images below.

Both the Pro and Pro Plus come in Hyperspace, Dark Matter and Nebula Blue shades, with seemingly only the Hyperspace option offering the look described above.

They both have a 6.7-inch screen with a 120Hz refresh rate and a Full HD+ resolution, but while the Realme 10 Pro is flat and has tiny 1mm size bezels, the Realme 10 Pro Plus's screen is curved.

Realme 10 camera and battery

The Realme 10 has a dual-lens camera on the back, and this is one aspect of the phone that sounds less impressive, as although its 50MP f/1.8 main snapper has reasonable specs, that’s joined by just a 2MP f/2.4 black and white (i.e. monochrome) camera.

Not only that, but the Realme 9 actually has a triple-lens camera – including a 108MP primary sensor – so the Realme 10 might be a downgrade here.

That said, Realme claims its new phone offers an enhanced night mode that reduces noise, and that the shutter speed is 121% higher than on the previous model. There’s also a 16MP f/2.45 camera on the front.

As for the Realme 10 Pro, that has both a 108MP f/1.75 main camera and a 2MP f/2.4 portrait lens, while the Realme 10 Pro Plus has a 108MP main snapper, an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide one, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro one. Both phones also have a 16MP selfie camera.

For the battery, Realme has gone with a 5,000mAh power pack in all three phones, which is a decent but fairly standard size. This supports 33W charging in the case of the Realme 10 and 10 Pro, which Realme claims can get the phone from zero to 50% in 28 minutes. The Realme 10 Pro Plus meanwhile supports 67W charging.

There’s no mention of wireless charging on any of them, but we wouldn’t expect that at this price either.

Realme 10 specs and features

There’s a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset inside the Realme 10, which is a fairly low-end but modern chipset, and it’s joined by 8GB of RAM. However, the phone also lets you leverage storage as virtual RAM, bringing it up to 16GB.

The company claims that gaming performance with this phone is strong for the price, giving the example that you can play PUBG Mobile at 40fps in Balanced mode.

There’s a choice of 64GB, 128GB or 256GB of storage, along with a microSD card slot – though these versions may not all be available in all regions, and this is just a 4G phone, so one major thing missing here is 5G.

As for features, the Realme 10 has a 3.5mm headphone port, an ‘UltraBoom’ speaker, which promises Hi-Res audio at 200% volume, and it runs the company’s Realme UI 3.0, based on Android 12.

The Realme 10 Pro should be a bit more powerful, as it has a Snapdragon 695 chipset, along with 6GB or 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. It also supports 5G.

The Realme 10 Pro Plus is better still, with a MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM (plus 12GB of dynamic RAM), 5G, and up to 256GB of storage.

The Pro and Pro Plus also have more recent software, as they run Realme UI 4.0, based on Android 13.

Realme has been pretty busy pumping out themed spin-offs of its latest Android phone, the Realme GT Neo 3, with Naruto and Dragonball Z versions already launched. However, a new version inspired by the latest Marvel movie is a little less impressive.

There's a new version inspired by the latest in the long line of Marvel films, Thor: Love and Thunder, which has been unveiled in India. It's not clear if it'll go on sale elsewhere, but some of the other themed versions launched in Europe too (not the US though - Realme doesn't sell its phones there).

You probably know what's in the box already, because you've already scrolled past the picture of the 'Realme GT Neo 3 150W Thor Love and Thunder Limited Edition' as they're calling it. You get a Nitro Blue version of the phone as well as some stickers, cards, a badge and a themed SIM removal tool. 

Of all phones, the Realme GT Neo 3 is perhaps the best pick to be themed around the God of Thunder, because it charges lightning-fast. It has 150W powering, which gets the phone from empty to full in just 15 minutes - at the time of writing, there isn't a faster charging phone on the market.

So maybe this Thor phone will appeal to Marvel fans... however as mobile tie-ins go, this is a pretty lazy one.

Analysis: not exactly a huge redesign

Sometimes, when we see pop-culture versions of Android phones, they have some interesting redesigns - the Dragonball version of the Realme GT Neo 3 was bright orange and blue, for example.

So what's special about the Thor: Love and Thunder version? Uh - absolutely nothing. The phone included in the pack is the Nitro Blue one which is already readily available on sale.

Not only is this a little lazy on Realme's part, but it's not great for Thor fans either. The new design has nothing to do with the new Marvel movie - it's literally a racing strip on the back.

This isn't the only time we've seen lazy tie-ins, but it's certainly a shame for fans of Thor: Love and Thunder. Don't expect to see this on our list of the weirdest phones of the year.

Two-minute review

At this stage in the Realme story, we pretty much know what to expect from the brand: solid, unspectacular, good value smartphones, and quite a lot of them. The Realme 9 is one of the latest to arrive, and it offers some appealing features for the very reasonable price of £249 in the UK.

It's interesting to compare the phone we're reviewing here directly with the Realme 9 5G – which, as the name suggests, adds 5G. The standard Realme 9 sticks with 4G, although it does have a faster wired charging rate and an OLED rather than an LCD screen. It seems that Realme is trying to cover as many bases as possible. 

Even just within the current Realme range, the Realme 9 risks getting lost in the noise, and that's before you've weighed it against other smartphones around this price point, like the Oppo A74 5G and the Samsung Galaxy A33 5G. It's a tough section of the market to carve out space in and you could argue that the Realme 9 doesn't quite do enough.

While it lacks 5G, it does have a bright, crisp OLED screen running at a 90Hz refresh rate, and notably good battery life – this is a phone that will stretch to two days between charges if you're careful with it. It also has a rear camera that's better than you might expect at this price point, one that's actually capable of taking shots at night (not always a given when you're spending this amount of money on a phone).

On the downside, as well as missing out on 5G you don't get waterproofing or wireless charging. The internal specs are nothing to write home about, and while this doesn't make the phone particularly laggy and sluggish, you'll get better performance across a longer time frame from something more expensive.

Keep a close eye on the pricing of the Realme 9, because if you can get a good deal on it then it might be worth investing in. In general, though, we'd like to see a few more features that we could get excited about.

Realme 9 price and availability

• UK price of £249
• Availability looks limited
• No US/Aus availability

Realme has stated that the Realme 9 will go on sale in the UK for the very reasonable price of £249, although availability might be an issue... at the time of writing we can't find it for sale anywhere in the UK, including Realme's own UK site, so watch this space for updates. As is normal for Realme, the phone isn't going on sale in the US or Australia.

Realme 9 design

• Standard smartphone looks
• Rippled effect on the back
• Room for a headphone jack

There are no real surprises or innovations in the design of the Realme 9 – and nothing to particularly put you off the phone either. In terms of its aesthetics, it's about as standard as a smartphone gets in 2022, with the thin bezels around the display, the punch hole notch in the corner of the screen, the gently rounded edges and corners, and the rear camera module stuck on the back up in the top left corner. There's also a fingerprint sensor embedded in the display for easier unlocking.

And we say the camera is just stuck on, we do mean stuck on: there's no finesse in the way that the rear camera module has been attached to the plastic back of the Realme 9. It would've been nice to see Realme do something a bit more subtle or tasteful here, but it's not a complete disaster. There's nothing in the design of the Realme 9 that would catch your eye in a shop window or particularly put you off buying the handset, though the back of the phone does have a reasonably interesting ripple effect that catches the light quite nicely. Black, white and gold (the one we had) are the color choices.

If you're wondering if the handset is going to fit in your pocket, its dimensions are 160.2 mm x 73.3 mm x 8 mm (that's 6.3 inches x 2.89 inches x 0.31 inches) and it weighs 178 grams (or 0.39 lbs). It feels comfortable and solid in the hand, and it's not a phone you're going to easily drop. One bonus worth mentioning: there's a thin protective layer on top of the screen that's already in place when you take the smartphone out of its box, though the phone itself isn't waterproof or dustproof.

As you look at the phone from the front, the volume keys are down the right-hand side of the handset, with the power key on the left. At the bottom, Realme has found space for a headphone jack, and there's a USB-C port for charging and data transfer. In the box and there's both a USB-C to USB-A charging cable and a power adapter – that latter inclusion is something of a rarity these days, though you get a European-style two-pin plug rather than the standard 3-pin one for the UK. A simple plastic case is also included.

Realme 9 display

• 6.4-inch Super AMOLED
• 90Hz refresh rate
• High brightness level

The screen on this phone is a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED panel that runs at a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels and a refresh rate of 90Hz. Ramp it up to the maximum brightness and it's actually a decent screen: crisp, vibrant and sharp. In the display settings on the phone, you can pick between a Vivid (P3), Natural and Pro mode, and adjust the screen temperature using a separate slider.

During our time with the Realme 9, we watched some videos, browsed the web, flicked through photos, checked social media, navigated around using maps, played some games, and did all the other tasks that you generally do on a smartphone. The screen stood up very well in each case. We'd say it's one of the highlights of the phone.

If you're being particularly picky you might say that the display could be bigger, but that's really down to personal preference. The OLED technology deployed here works really well, and we don't think anyone who picks up the Realme 9 as their next smartphone is going to be disappointed with the display.

Realme 9 camera

• Decent shots a lot of the time
• 108MP main camera sensor
• No optical zoom available

The Realme 9 comes equipped with a triple-lens 108MP wide + 8MP ultrawide + 2MP macro camera. The most noticeable part of that is the 108MP main camera lens. That's up to flagship levels in terms of megapixel count, though of course photo and video quality aren't all about the number of megapixels. On the front of the phone is a 16MP selfie camera that isn't particularly notable. Video recording tops out at 1080p and 30fps.

In use, the rear camera is capable of producing some very good shots. Pictures come out sharp and detailed, with well-balanced colors that are only occasionally oversaturated by default. The HDR processing works well to keep the lighter and the darker parts of images visible.

The Realme 9 rear camera also performs pretty well in low light conditions – not quite as well as the cameras on top-level flagship phones, but still well enough to get usable photos. There's a dedicated night mode in the camera that helps bring out more details and reduce the noise in darker images, as well as a pro mode that gives you more control over ISO, white balance and so on.

Considering the price you're paying for the phone, the camera quality is fine really – a lot of the time you're going to get perfectly decent shots, and there are lots of modes and settings to play around with. A more expensive phone will get you a camera that does better at night and has optical zoom, but the Realme 9 does okay.

Realme 9 camera samples

Realme 9 performance and specs

• Average performance
• Runs all your apps and games
• No 5G connectivity

Invest in the Realme 9 and the specs you get in return are a Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. That isn't quite scraping the barrel in terms of specs for running an Android smartphone, but in terms of raw speed, this is a long way behind the premium phones on the market. The Realme 9 racks up Geekbench 5 scores of 381 (single-core), 1566 (multi-core), and 431 (OpenCL), so you can see that it's by no means a powerhouse of a smartphone.

That said, you're going to be able to run everything you need to run on the Realme 9, including high-end games (even if loading times might be significantly slower than they are on something like the Samsung Galaxy S22). There's none of the lag and delay that you get on cheaper phones than the Realme 9, and everything hums along reasonably well – you just might notice a bit of a performance drop if you open up dozens of browser tabs, or perhaps after a year or two of use.

Unlike other handsets in the Realme 9 series, this standard edition of the phone comes without 5G. While that might not be a dealbreaker, what with 4G speeds being perfectly respectable, it does feel a bit odd to have phones launching without 5G technology at this stage. We'd prefer to see it included, especially as these next-gen networks roll out in more and more parts of the world.

Realme 9 software

• Android 12 on board
• Realme UI 3.0 is adequate
• Lots of settings

The Realme 9 runs Android 12 with Realme UI 3.0 on top of it. Realme UI is a relatively intuitive and straightforward operating system, though we have to confess to preferring the standard, clean stock Android most of all – this is more about personal taste, though, and your mileage may vary.

There's a bit of bloatware here, including apps for Amazon and Booking.com, but it's easy enough to get rid of them. Realme provides its own apps for setting alarms, viewing photos, managing files and so on, but it's easy to switch to the superior Google equivalents, and in general, everything feels uncluttered.

As tends to be the case with Android phones from China, there's an extensive Settings screen with bonus features you won't find in Android: features like a Smart Sidebar, floating windows, and a quick launch panel. How useful these features are is debatable, but they're there if you need them.

Realme 9 battery life

• 5,000mAh capacity battery
• Up to two days of use
• 33W wired charging

Battery life is no doubt one of the highlights of the overall Realme 9 package: the 5,000mAh capacity battery fitted here is good for two days if you don't use it all that often. Most days you'll make it comfortably from morning to evening and still have plenty of juice left before you go to bed. More time between battery charges is one of the benefits of a lower-spec processor and the absence of 5G.

In our standard one-hour video streaming test, the battery level dropped by just 5%, indicating an impressive overall video playback time of 20 hours. That was with the display brightness ramped up to the max though, and the volume set reasonably low, so you'd be able to get even more time if you dimmed the screen and used headphones.

As you might expect from a phone at this price point, there's no wireless charging on the Realme 9. In terms of wired charging over USB-C, the 33W charging should be enough to power up the phone from 0% to 100% in as little as 75 minutes, so you won't have to wait around long for it to charge up.

Should you buy the Realme 9?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: June 2022

How we test

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

Two-minute review

As with previous GT phones from the brand, the Realme GT Neo 3 offers several flagship-challenging specifications in a reasonably priced mid-range package.

The headline feature, in this variant at least, is a 150W wired charger that can get your battery up to 100% in 15 minutes. The implementation isn’t massively reassuring (why do we need to toggle it on?), and it’s a shame the battery has been somewhat downscaled by way of a trade-off, but this is impressive stuff for a phone of this price.

Also reasonably impressive is the Realme GT Neo 3’s 50MP main camera, which showcases a flagship-level Sony IMX766 sensor. It would have been more noteworthy had we not already seen this component in even cheaper phones like the Realme 9 Pro Plus and the OnePlus Nord 2T, but it’s capable of taking decent pictures in a variety of lighting conditions nonetheless.

We’re much less impressed with the phone’s two supplementary cameras, which provide sub-par ultra-wide shots and forgettable macro snaps. There’s no telephoto either, though that’s far from a given at this price.

Performance here is unimpeachable. While it’s true that the Realme GT Neo 3 misses out on a recognized flagship processor, the Dimensity 8100 chip it runs on is impressive in all the ways that count.

At this price, the Realme GT Neo 3 faces stiff competition from Google’s Pixel 6, which tops it for its stand-out design, clean software, wireless charging provision, and class-leading camera. But the Realme GT Neo 3 competes well while providing a few telling benefits of its own.

It doesn’t dazzle in the way that the Realme 9 Pro Plus did a few months prior, either with its design or its value proposition, but the Realme GT Neo 3 is a fine upper-mid-range choice nonetheless.

Realme GT Neo 3 price and availability

• Will cost around £599 (about $750 / AU$1,040)
• Confirmed to be coming to the UK

The Realme GT Neo 3 will cost £599 (about $750 / AU$1,040) for the sole 12GB/256GB version that’s set to launch in the UK.

At this UK pricing, the Realme GT Neo 3 is running head-on into the Pixel 6 and the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE (at least with its contemporary pricing), whilst comfortably undercutting the iPhone 13 and the Samsung Galaxy S22.

Realme GT Neo 3 design

• High screen-to-body ratio
• Similar design to the GT Neo 2

Holding the phone alongside its predecessor the Realme GT Neo 2, the GT Neo 3 looks and feels very familiar. It has very similar proportions at 163.3 x 75.6 x 8.2mm, though it shaves off 12g to weigh a more reasonable 188g.

The main difference relates to the rear panel, which has a slightly textured finish rather than its dead-smooth forebear. It’s still slightly slippery, but this represents a handling improvement. The new texture also makes the GT Neo 3 more resistant to fingerprints.

Our model comes in Asphalt Black, but we detected a slight green shimmer from certain angles. The model that’s getting most of the attention is the Nitro Blue version, which comes with two go-faster stripes and Realme’s ‘Dare to Leap’ slogan emblazoned on the back. Your mileage may vary over which is preferable.

Another difference is a slightly reconfigured camera module with more prominence given to the new super-sized wide sensor. Around the front it’s much the same, but with the hole-punch notch shifting from the left corner to the center.

There’s a very impressive 94.2% screen-to-body ratio, which reflects the fact that the bezels are uniformly minimal. Less premium is the phone’s plastic frame, though it doesn’t feel especially cheap to hold.

That display is fronted by Corning Gorilla Glass 5, which should make it suitably scratch resistant.

Another welcome touch is the provision of stereo speakers, though we’re seeing such a provision making an appearance in an increasing number of mid-range and even budget phones now. They’re loud and clear, if a little reedy compared to more expensive phones.

Realme GT Neo 3 display

• 6.7-inch 1080 x 2412 screen
• 120Hz refresh rate

Realme has supplied a large, good quality 6.7-inch AMOLED display for the GT Neo 3. It packs a 1080 x 2412 or FHD+ resolution, and benefits from a full 120Hz refresh rate.

This isn’t the kind of LTPO panel that you get with flagship phones, which means this refresh rate isn’t totally flexible. That’s not great news for the screen’s efficiency, but it doesn’t make a difference when it comes to sheer responsiveness, which is on point.

The GT 3’s screen upper brightness setting is fine, though it falls short of out-and-out flagship phones when in strong outdoor lighting. In all other conditions, it proves more than adequate.

There’s a responsive in-display optical fingerprint sensor towards the bottom of the device. Like the Realme 9 Pro Plus before it, this can be used as a heart rate monitor if you dive into the Realme Labs section of the Settings menu.

Realme GT Neo 3 camera

• Decent 50MP main sensor
• No telephoto lens

While the headline addition to the Realme GT Neo 3 might be that 150W charger, its camera upgrade might prove to be the more meaningful addition.

The phone’s 50MP wide camera is backed by a Sony IMX766 sensor. It’s not the freshest or most impressive image sensor on the market any longer, but it’s still a flagship (or at least flagship-adjacent) component. This main camera yields suitably crisp, vibrant shots in most lighting conditions, elevating it above much of the mid-range crowd.

That said, if this isn’t exactly the same camera system that can be found in the significantly cheaper Realme 9 Pro Plus, as well as the OnePlus Nord 2T, then it’s at least very similar indeed. The same Sony IMX766 sensor lies at the heart of all three phones.

We have no issue with the shared main sensor, but we’d expect some improvements from that 8MP ultra-wide camera, which represents a noticeable step down in detail, dynamic range, and color balance. The difference in quality is not a flattering look.

Meanwhile, the shared lack of a dedicated telephoto is slightly harder to swallow in a £600 phone than it is in a £400 phone. No, the Pixel 6 doesn’t have one either, but we complained about it in that review too, and Google’s phone takes even more impressive pictures elsewhere to make up for the omission.

Google didn’t bother including a pointless 2MP macro sensor on its own mid-range phone either. We understand the box-ticking merits of bundling it into a cheaper phone, but at this end of the market its inclusion feels faintly insulting.

Realme has included an optional AI camera mode, which is off by default. In general shooting, this serves to brighten and punch up the colors, which helped even out some challenging HDR situations (such as when shooting up at a tower against a bright but cloudy sky) and murkier food shots. In general landscape shooting, however, the AI could make scenes look a little artificially colorful, and we preferred to leave it off.

Night shots are decent quality, courtesy of that large 1/1.56" main sensor and OIS. Realme’s Night mode does well to brighten scenes out without making them look too false.

The 16MP front camera takes adequate selfies, provided there aren’t any extremely bright areas to blow things out, though there’s a certain softness and a lack of depth to its snaps.

Camera samples

Realme GT Neo 3 specs and performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chipset
• 12GB of RAM

Realme has equipped its upper-mid-ranger with a brand new MediaTek Dimensity 8100 chip. Built using a thoroughly modern 5nm process, it’s firmly towards the top end of the mid-range processor tier, and even troubles a few flagship rivals.

This is evident from average Geekbench 5 scores of 966 single-core and 4061 multi-core. That latter score in particular handily beats flagship phones powered by the Exynos 2200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 by 400 to 600 points.

With 12GB of RAM as standard, together with 256GB of internal storage, this is essentially flagship spec.

In practical terms, we were able to run Genshin Impact on High settings and 60fps with highly playable results. Again, that’s flagship territory.

For day-to-day running, the Realme GT Neo 3 doesn’t miss a beat. Everything flies by in full 120Hz, with no discernible stutters. Its performance really is indistinguishable from phones selling for twice the money.

Realme GT Neo 3 software

• Runs Android 12
• Realme UI 3.0 comes with a number of preinstalled apps

The Realme GT Neo 3 runs on Android 12 with Realme’s own custom Realme UI 3.0 on top. It’s the exact same interface we ran through in the Realme 9 Pro Plus, so it comes with the same warnings about bloatware.

You get the same preinstalled offering of Amazon Shopping, Booking.com, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It would have been nice to have these presented as a choice during the installation process, but it’s far from the most egregious examples of front-loading such apps that we’ve seen.

The Android 12 side of things provides a limited Wallpaper theming element, but it’s not exactly Material You as experienced on the Pixel 6. For all its customization options, Realme UI 3.0 can feel almost old-fashioned compared to stock Android and iOS.

In general, though, there’s little to complain about with Realme UI 3.0 on the Realme GT Neo 3. It’s relatively clean, it runs well at the full 120Hz refresh rate, and it leaves the Google Feed and app tray provisions exactly where they should be.

Realme GT Neo 3 battery life

• 4,500mAh battery offers reasonable stamina
• 150W charger juices it up in just 15 minutes

So far so consistently competent, but Realme has made a rare hardware error with the Realme GT Neo 3’s battery. In this variant of the phone, you only get a 4,500mAh cell.

To be clear, other territories get a version with a significantly larger 5000mAh cell. There’s a payoff for this, which we’ll get to in due order, suffice to say that we’re not sure it’s one that’s worth making.

While the Realme GT Neo 3’s stamina is far from bad, it also fails to impress. On an average 16-hour day with a little over 3 hours of screen-on time – what we’d call moderate usage - we found that the Neo 3 would drop to around 35 - 40%.

That’s far from a reason to call panic stations, but it’s not unusual for a well-optimized Android phone with a 5000mAh battery to hit 50% and beyond under similar circumstances.

That trade-off we mentioned comes from the provision of rapid 150W charging in the western model. Other territories get 80W charging.

You’ll have to activate rapid charging manually in the Settings menu, which tells you that it’s perhaps not the best solution for those concerned about battery longevity or heat build-up.

Once active, we were able to charge the phone up to 100% in just 15 minutes, which is undeniably impressive. But then, the 80W model gets you to full in just over 30 minutes, which is hardly slow. We would have preferred the extra stamina, to be frank.

Another thing you miss out on here is wireless charging. While this isn’t exactly a normal feature at such less-than-flagship pricing, Google’s Pixel 6 does give you wireless charging for the same money.

Should you buy the Realme GT Neo 3?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: June 2022

When I write a smartphone review for TechRadar, I always have to ask myself "would I buy this phone?". Usually, even if it gets a good review, the answer is 'no' - I have certain tastes, so wouldn't even buy a five-star handset if it didn't have what I personally want from a phone - but now and then it's 'yes'. However, for the first time, I've found myself answering 'I've no idea'.

This is in regards to two new cheap phones from Realme, the Realme 9 and Realme 9 5G, which just launched.

Now, my confusion is nothing to do with indecision on the handsets - usually, 'I don't know' means 'no' for penny-pinchers like me. No, it's because Realme has made its new phones so confusing, that it's impossible to know which is best to buy.

What are the phones?

Usually, when phones come in a series, they are spread out in terms of price - so there will be a budget, a middle and a more premium offering. That's not the case here.

Check out the specs for the phones below - as you can tell, for each type of spec there's a clear winner, but it's different for different features.

So it's impossible to say which is the 'best' phone - they're both roughly equal. And that extends to the price too.

In the UK, where I'm from, both handsets cost exactly the same - that's £249, which roughly converts to around $310 or AU$440. So you can't even rely on the price to tell you which is the best one.

Why?

Realme's reasoning behind this weird phone line-up situation is that people will decide whether or not they want 5G, and buy a phone accordingly.

But it's not as simple as that in the real world. Sure, the Realme 9 5G has... well, 5G, but the 4G alternative has an AMOLED screen, and more RAM. So if you want 5G for gaming, then you're missing out on some of those important specs.

With the current situation, you've got to pick and choose your favorite specs - and just hope there's one phone that has all your favorite specs, which is unlikely. So if you like both fast charging, and high-refresh-rate screens, you can't have both in the same phone.

So which is best?

Well... neither of them - or both of them?

That's the problem with line-ups like this - it's impossible to suggest one as being better than the other.

Our usual recommendation strategy is to ask you what you want from a phone, and what your budget is, and use that as a compass. But these two phones are too similar in price to use that to differentiate, and their specs are too similar, but disparate, to make one a clear superior option.

We can't even say 'pick your favorite specs and use them to judge', because the 4G model might be great for one thing you like, while the 5G one takes the lead for the other.

The fact that we're comparing the two phones shows another problem though: Realme is only competing with itself. The confusing comparison situation means you're probably just going to buy a handset from a different company.

But if you do want a Realme phone, we have got one suggestion, though it's a cop-out. Instead of buying one of these super-similar-but-not budget phones, splash out a tiny bit more and buy the Realme 9 Pro Plus instead.

• After more options? Check out all the best Realme phones

It’s a busy week for phone news, as we’ve already had the Sony Xperia I IV and Google IO 2022, and now Realme is here with a launch of its own, but this one is aimed at the low end of the market.

The company has unveiled the Realme 9, the Realme 9 5G, and the Realme Pad Mini, all of which have temptingly low prices.

Starting with the Realme 9, this is a 4G smartphone with a 6.4-inch FHD+ Super AMOLED screen packing a 90Hz refresh rate. It also has a Snapdragon 680 chipset, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 33W charging.

The camera is a triple-lens one, with a 108MP main sensor, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP macro snapper, and the phone also has a 3.5mm headphone port, and an under-display fingerprint scanner – which can also measure your heart rate.

The Realme 9 comes in a choice of gold, black or white, and it costs just £249 (around £305 / AU$440).

Then there’s the Realme 9 5G, which contrary to the name isn’t just the Realme 9 with added 5G. It does have 5G, but it’s quite different in other ways too, and not all of them are for the better.

It has a 6.6-inch FHD+ LCD screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 695 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB or 128GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery with 18W charging.

The cameras include a 50MP main sensor backed up by macro and black and white ones, while around the front there’s a 16MP camera, and the phone has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and a 3.5mm headphone port.

The price for a 128GB model is the same as that of the Realme 9 (£249) and for now that’s the starting price in the UK, as the 64GB model isn’t currently available there.

Finally, there’s the Realme Pad Mini, which is a tablet with an 8.7-inch 1340 x 800 screen, a Unisoc T616 chipset (which is also ably used by the Realme C35), up to 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a microSD card slot, and a 6,400mAh battery with 18W charging.

The rear camera is 8MP and supports 1080p video recording, and the slate is just 7.59mm thick.

There’s no confirmed UK availability for the Realme Pad Mini just yet, but there’s the suggestion that it might land there later this year. In Europe it starts at just 130 euros (roughly £110 / $135 / AU$200), so it’s incredibly cheap. Note however that none of these devices have been confirmed for the US or Australia.

Analysis: these could be among the best cheap phones

Realme has a reputation for delivering excellent smartphones at a low cost, from the Realme 8 5G, which currently sits on our best cheap phones list, to the Realme GT 2, which makes our best smartphones list despite undercutting most other entries.

So there’s every chance the Realme 9 and/or the Realme 9 5G could be future additions to our best cheap phones guide – though we won’t know for sure until we’ve put them through a full review.

Certainly, their specs look reasonable for the money, though since they have the same price as each other, buyers might struggle to choose between them.

The Realme Pad Mini meanwhile is a possible contender for our best cheap tablets guide, though its specs are so basic that we’re less sure of that. Still, it certainly has a low price.

• Everything you need to know about Realme phones

Two-minute review

The Realme 9 5G slots in neatly below the Realme 9 Pro 5G, with a similar clean design and 5G connectivity at a more affordable price point.

Compromises have been made in the process of squeezing in that 5G connectivity, as illustrated by the presence of a non–5G model available for the same money. You get an LCD display here rather than OLED, albeit a crisp, accurate, and fluid example. 

You also get an 18W charger in place of the 4G model’s 33W equivalent, which means you’ll realistically need to charge it every night. Thankfully, a 5,000mAh cell should provide a full day of juice even for frequent phone fiddlers.

Another trade-off comes with a 50MP camera rather than the 4G model’s 108MP equivalent.You don’t get any form of ultra-wide camera in the 5G model either. Even so, the Realme 9 5G is capable of taking balanced, detailed snaps in good lighting. We like Realme’s natural way with colors, in particular.

Performance isn’t outstanding, but the Realme 9 5G’s Snapdragon 695 chip ensures a relatively pain-free navigation experience. Gamers might wish to look elsewhere, however, as that modest processor comes backed by a limited 4GB of RAM.

Realme’s custom UI is one of the cleaner efforts on the budget market and is arguably more appealing than the MIUI software found on rival Poco and Redmi handsets.

Talking of Poco, the Poco M4 Pro 5G appears to be the most direct rival to the Realme 9 5G. While the two phones share a price, 5G connectivity, and a very similar display, the Poco takes the edge in a couple of meaningful ways.

The Poco gives you an ultra-wide camera, stereo sound, and faster 33W charging. All in all, it feels like a slightly more generous package for your £249.

If you prefer Realme’s understated approach, the Realme 9 5G won’t let you down. But like every new phone at this price, it raises the question of whether 5G is really worth the inevitable compromises that come as part of the budget phone territory.

Realme 9 5G price and availability

• Prices start at £249 (around $310 / AU$440)
• Launched May 12, 2022

Released on May 12, 2022, the Realme 9 5G is priced at £249 (around $310 / AU$440) for a solitary model with 128GB of storage.

It’s interesting that there’s also a non–5G version that costs the same amount of money, but with several superior components. Realme is offering a straight choice here between an inferior phone with 5G or a superior phone without it.

In terms of the phone’s positioning within the wider range, it slots neatly between the £299 Realme 9 Pro 5G and the £199 Realme 9i.

Aside from internal competition, the Realme 9 5G finds a close rival in the identically priced Poco M4 Pro 5G, while the 4G-only Redmi Note 11 Pro costs a similar £259 at the time of writing. 

Realme 9 5G design

• Tidy all-plastic design
• Eye-catching pearlescent finish

Unlike some of its budget contemporaries, Realme has maintained a consistent design language across the Realme 9 series.

The Realme 9 5G looks and feels a lot like the Realme 9 Pro 5G and, indeed, the Realme 9 Pro Plus 5G. Holding the latter range-topper side by side with the Realme 9 5G, there’s little to indicate why there’s a £100 difference between them.

This is a solid, well-put-together phone, albeit with a plastic frame and rear. Our model wears the Stargaze White color, which has an appealing pearlescent rainbow sheen to it, as well as a pleasing matte feel.

It wears fingerprints more lightly than many darker models, though they’re still there to see along with the razzle-dazzle effect whenever you tilt the phone.

This is a bigger phone than the Pro Plus, with dimensions (164.3 x 75.6 x 8.5mm) that match the Realme 9 Pro 5G. We weighed the phone at 192g, which is just the right side of heavy.

Realme has gone with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor stashed within a suitably large and flat power button. This particular system runs like clockwork, but it’s worth noting that the 4G model gives you an ostensibly more advanced in-display solution.

While there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack, as usual, the lack of stereo speakers is a bit of a bummer. We don’t expect such a provision at this end of the market, but the Poco M4 Pro 5G has shown that it’s possible, even with 5G as part of the package.

Aside from that glitzy finish, this is a fairly unremarkable, even generic, design. But quality and feel matter more than visual flourish at this end of the market, and the Realme 9 Pro 5G passes that test with flying rainbow colors.

Realme 9 5G display

• 6.6-inch IPS LCD
• 1080 x 2412 resolution
• 120Hz refresh rate

Here’s where the first and arguably biggest difference lies between the 5G and non–5G versions of the Realme 9. While the 4G model gives you a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED screen (the same as the Pro and Pro Plus), the Realme 9 5G goes with a 6.6-inch LCD.

Both screens have an FHD+ resolution, but while the 4G model has a 90Hz refresh rate, the 5G model goes with 120Hz.

This might be a larger and more responsive screen, but make no mistake: the Realme 9 5G display is a point of compromise. Its blacks aren’t as deep and its colors pop a lot less than on its sibling. Indeed, this screen has more in common with the £149 Realme C35 than with the Realme 9.

Like that budget phone, this is a decent-quality IPS LCD panel, and color accuracy is mostly on point. I measured a maximum brightness of 448 nits and it’ll go a little higher in bright conditions with auto-brightness activated.

Ultimately, though, this panel simply lacks the pop and sheer dynamic range of similarly priced devices with OLED panels.

This is one of the key trade-offs you make with 5G in 2022, and it’s a deal that the likes of the Poco M4 Pro 5G have already made. You really need to examine how much 5G means to you when deciding how best to spend your £250.

Realme 9 5G cameras

• 50MP main camera
• 2MP depth and 2MP macro cameras
• no ultra-wide

The Realme 9 5G comes equipped with a triple camera system in name only. It’s led by a respectable 50MP main (wide) camera, but the 2MP depth and macro sensors are largely there to occupy space and tick boxes.

Focusing on that main 50MP sensor, it appears to be the 1/2.76" Samsung ISOCELL S5KJN1 that can be found in many budget phones. This is the same sensor that you get in the Moto G22, the Realme 9i, and the Realme 8i before it.

As that suggests, it’s nowhere near the level of the Realme 9 Pro Plus 5G’s main sensor. More tellingly, it’s not of the same caliber as the non–5G Realme 9’s 108MP main sensor.

With these caveats out of the way, the Realme 9 5G takes perfectly decent shots in good lighting. There’s a nice natural tone to its shots, even in moderate indoor lighting, but those colors can certainly pop when they need to (such as on food shots).

To that end, there’s an optional AI assistant that can be activated with a virtual button press, which tends to pump those colors up a notch. Even then the effects tend to be within acceptable limits, and it served to pep up some of the shots we took on a murky day.

Shots can exhibit signs of overexposure, which is evident when examining the sky and other background elements. But that’s par for the course in cheaper phones.

The Realme 9 5G camera can’t maintain sharpness when taking shots in Night mode, with no OIS, a relatively small sensor, and limited processing power to call upon. But again, the tone is kept quite natural, with none of the fake-looking pumped-up brightness of some budget rivals. Realme’s algorithms are largely on point.

As there’s no telephoto lens, the phone crops in on the main sensor when you tap the 2x button. There are just about enough pixels here to make the results usable within a social media/phone screen viewing context, but you wouldn’t want to blow them up any larger.

More disappointing for some will be the total lack of an ultra-wide provision. The Poco M4 Pro 5G features an 8MP ultra-wide, so it is possible at this price and with the 5G tax factored in. It’s also worth pointing out that the non–5G Realme 9 features an 8MP ultra-wide.

There’s a 16MP camera around the front, which is generally fit for purpose, though it gave my pale skin tone an oddly luminous pink sheen and texture on the aforementioned overcast day.

Camera samples

Realme 9 5G performance and specs

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 processor
• 4GB RAM and 128GB storage
• 5G-ready

At the heart of the Realme 9 5G lies a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chip and 4GB of RAM. This is a different set-up from the non–5G model, which gives you a Snapdragon 680 and 8GB of RAM.

The Snapdragon 695 is the same chip that you’ll find in the more expensive Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G and Poco X4 Pro 5G, but it remains a budget 5G chip with a fairly meager feature set. Going back to the camera for a second, the Snapdragon 695 only permits a fairly pathetic 1080p video recording at 30fps.

Average Geekbench 5 scores of 693 single-core and 1,876 multi-core are far from impressive, too. That’s a little faster than last year’s Realme 8 5G in single-core terms, but a little slower when it comes to multi-core.

That said, it does beat the Poco M4 Pro 5G, which scored 572 and 1,567 with its MediaTek Dimensity 810 chip.

This isn’t a phone to buy if you’re a gamer, though. Genshin Impact runs haltingly on its default Low settings. This could well be an issue with the phone’s limited allotment of RAM (just 4GB), as bumping the graphics up to Medium didn’t seem to make the performance noticeably worse, suggesting the GPU isn’t the bottleneck here.

At any rate, it’s worth remembering that the 4G model gives you 8GB RAM, so might be a better bet for gamers on a budget. As we’ve already said a couple of times, you really need to think long and hard about the actual value you derive from 5G connectivity. Our instinct is that it’s not worth the trade-offs at this end of the market.

With 128GB internal storage, you do at least get the same capacity as the 4G model.

Realme 9 5G software

• Android 12 with Realme UI 3.0
• No Google feed

The Realme 9 5G runs on Android 12 with Realme UI 3.0 sitting on top. This is far from the most intrusive custom Android skin on the market and is far easier on the eye than Xiaomi’s MIUI, which you’ll find in Redmi and Poco phones.

Menus are crisp and relatively stock-like, and it’s not jam-packed with duplicate or third-party apps. There’s no divisive (in both senses of the word) split notification pane like in MIUI either.

Interestingly – and rather annoyingly – there’s no Google Feed to the left of the home screen. Even the super-cheap Realme C35 had that, and we found ourselves constantly butting up against the springy animation that pops up when you can scroll no further.

This being Android 12, there’s a neat facility to adjust the color of menu toggles according to your chosen wallpaper, which is a cool addition – especially compared to the many Poco and Redmi phones that are still running Android 11.

Realme 9 5G battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• 18W charger

The Realme 9 5G is powered by a 5000mAh battery. We’d say that’s large, but it’s pretty much a required inclusion for a modern affordable phone.

What we will say is that it’s as ample here as it is in any Poco, Redmi, or Motorola rival. You could conceivably get through a full two days of light to moderate usage on a single charge, while even heavy users should be able to clear a day with room to spare. Again, that’s nothing special in a sector of the market that goes big on capacity, but it’s a positive nonetheless.

Watching media content will sap the juice a little more here than on a more expensive phone with a more efficient/expensive processor. Running the classic 90-minute TechRadar looping video with the screen brightness set to max sapped 12% of a full charge.

The 5G tax is in evidence when it comes time to recharge. Like last year’s Realme 8 5G, Realme has bundled in an 18W charger, which will take over an hour to get from empty to full.

This is in contrast to the plain Realme 9, which gets a more rapid 33W alternative. As indeed does the Poco M4 Pro 5G, which doesn’t even require that you do without 5G.

Should I buy the Realme 9 5G?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

Also consider

First reviewed May 2022

Two-minute review

Realme has proven itself to be the brand to watch in 2022, with its GT 2 Pro and 9 Pro Plus bringing top features to the mid-range market. Now, the company has seemingly set its sights on budget phones, too.

When writing this Realme C35 review, we were surprised by just how much it felt like a mid-range device. It was quick in use, boasted a more attractive design, and captured far better-looking pictures than lots of other phones at this price.

And it comes in at a low price. The Realme C35 sits among the company’s super low-end line of devices, handsets that aren’t usually anything to write home about. Something that could be said about the C31, too, which launched alongside the C35; but this higher-end phone, while still being supremely affordable, is a staggeringly accomplished phone for the price you’re paying.

The Realme C35 will easily find its way onto our list of the best cheap phones, and the main reason for this is its 50-megapixel main camera. It uses Sony’s IMX766 sensor, which appears in a fair few handsets right now (in particular, Realme devices), and it’s wonderful for low-light photography. 

The Realme C35 captures lots of color and light, in well-lit or night-time scenes, pushing it ahead of most other budget phones - sure, it doesn't bat in the same leagues as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, but it's surprising enough to be able to make out what's in pictures given the performance of other budget mobiles.

It’s just a shame that the handset doesn’t offer more – there’s no ultra-wide camera, nor an array of modes that you might expect, such as a Portrait mode on the front-facing camera or a document-scanning tool. However, at this price, you can’t expect the moon.

We were surprised by how snappy the Realme C35 felt in use, especially on seeing a Unisoc processor mentioned on the specs list – these are typically rather weak – and the fact that budget devices are usually noted for their sluggish performance.

The Realme feels just fine for everyday use, whether you’re jumping between apps or scrolling through social media. Sure, you’re unlikely to have a great experience playing top-end games, but this device isn’t aimed at those for whom gaming is a priority.

As is the case with the majority of budget phones, the Realme C35 will last a long time between charges – closer to two days than one, in our experience. And sure, charging isn’t particularly fast, but how many affordable devices offer that?

From the pictures in this review, you’ll have noticed that the Realme C35 is definitely a distinctive-looking phone, sporting a shiny green hue that Realme calls Glowing Green (it’s available in a black version, too). While we found it attractive, whether or not you will depends on your tastes. However, since the C35 is fairly large, with angular flat edges, the handset isn’t very comfortable in the hand.

Every compliment we’ve given the Realme C35 has been followed by a qualifier, or minor criticism. However, these negatives are super-easy to overlook given the phone’s price. The Realme is a valid alternative to low-mid-range mobiles, one that punches well above its weight. In fact, it should be the first port of call for anyone looking for a new phone at this price.

Realme C35 price and availability

• Comes in 64GB and 128GB storage versions
• Starts at £149 (roughly $200, AU$260)
• Not on sale in the US

The Realme C35 went on sale in April 2022, and was unveiled alongside the more affordable C31.

The handset was released in the UK, but not the US or Australia. The former isn’t a surprise, since Realme doesn’t sell its phones in the US, but we’ll likely see it show up in Australia at some point in the near future.

The handset costs £149 (roughly $200, AU$260) for 64GB storage and £169 (around $220, AU$300) for 128GB storage. For those who take a lot of snaps, we recommend the latter; a small price increase for double the storage is a good deal.

The price makes the C35 the most expensive Realme C phone we’ve seen. Nevertheless, it remains more affordable than anything from the company’s main line of numbered devices, or most rivals from Xiaomi’s Redmi or Motorola’s Moto G lines.

Realme C35 design

• Eye-catching green color
• Angular design feels rough in the hand
• USB-C port, headphone jack, side-mounted fingerprint scanner

From afar, the Realme C35’s bright Glowing Green hue might catch your eye – that is, unless you’re looking at the black version of the handset instead.

Up close this is a more standard-looking phone, with a USB-C port and 3.5mm headphone jack along the bottom, volume rocker on the left edge, power button with embedded fingerprint scanner along the right edge, and a rectangular camera bump sticking out from its plastic back.

The fingerprint scanner was a little temperamental to use; but we registered the same finger twice, which was a hack that got it to work.

In the hand, the phone proves a little annoying. Its generous size and flat edges create quite an angular device, which isn’t particularly comfortable to hold in the hand. As such, we’d recommend picking up a case.

Realme C35 display

• 6.6-inch FHD LCD screen
• Good for price
• Looks a little dim

We were surprised by the C35’s FHD (1080 x 2400) screen resolution, since lots of budget phones opt for HD. It means you can use streaming services or play games at their usual resolution. Measuring 6.6 inches across the panel feels fairly big, with the surface area interrupted up by a small notch.

The resolution is impressive, but less so is the LCD tech and max brightness of just 600 nits. Admittedly, these are features of the price tier, but they do mean colors are less vibrant and the screen is a little dimmer than we’d like.

On occasion – not often, but sometimes – we experienced issues viewing the screen in brighter settings. 

Realme C35 cameras

• 50MP main camera is good for colorful and bright snaps
• Macro and depth sensor but no ultrawide or telephoto
• Selfie camera is fit for purpose

A highlight of the Realme C35 is its main camera. This 50-megapixel f/1.8 unit uses the Sony IMX766 sensor present in quite a few phones, and it’s surprisingly competent.

It’s great for taking in light, which has two benefits: it picks up color well, and also captures more detail in low-light and night settings. Sure, you might not be taking iPhone-level night shots with the Realme, but we found the results surprisingly impressive for a phone at this price.

Thanks to this sensor, the Realme C35 is one of the best budget camera phones around – but it’s “one of” instead of “the” of two little issues.

Firstly, the other cameras are lacking. There’s a 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro and 0.3-megapixel f/2.8 depth sensor, but neither adds much to the equation. We’d have liked to see an ultra-wide camera to deliver some versatility.

Secondly, the lack of HDR - or anything even resembling it in the AI department - makes similar colors look indistinguishable in certain shots.

If you head into the camera app’s list of modes, you’ll find a fairly well-rounded selection including Night, Pro and Panorama. However, there are one or two notable absences. There’s no document-scanning mode, and you can’t actually take Portrait shots with the front-facing camera.

The selfie snapper itself is an 8-megapixel f/2.0 camera, and it’s totally fit for purpose, taking photos that are bright and clear. But don’t expect generous levels of detail or nuanced color reproduction – or a Portrait mode, as we’ve already mentioned.

One odd quirk – or possibly feature – of the camera app is that pictures looked far better once captured than they did in the camera preview. While we’re used to a degree of discrepancy, with the Realme C35 the difference was pronounced. At least the results were better, rather than worse.

Video recording goes up to 1080p at 30fps, which is fit for purpose any footage captured for social media.

Camera samples

Realme C35 performance and specs

• Unisoc T616 chip with 4GB RAM
• Runs well for the price
• 4G-only connectivity

The ‘brains’ of the Realme C35’s operation is a Unisoc Tiger T616 chipset. If you know much about mobile tech, the name Unisoc will likely evoke thoughts of sluggish and stuttering phones; but we didn’t find the C35 to be too bad.

The handset was fairly quick to navigate, both for simple tasks such as scrolling between menus and when using social media apps and checking emails. Sure, that’s “budget phone quick”, as opposed to “premium phone quick” – but in our tests, the Realme neither crashed nor felt too slow to use.

This isn’t a phone for gamers, however. Top-end games will struggle to run on this phone, so don’t expect to boot up PUBG Mobile, ramp up the graphics to Ultra mode and expect to have a good time. If your gaming habits mainly involve Angry Birds, Candy Crush and Pokémon Go, though, you’ll be fine.

The phone comes with 4GB of RAM and either 64GB or 128GB of storage; if you want your phone to see you through some time with quite a few apps installed, we’d recommend opting for the latter. The C35 is only a 4G phone, but at this price that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Realme C35 software

• Android 11 base
• Realme UI laid over the top
• Update schedule is unknown

The Realme C35 runs Android 11, with Realme UI laid over the top. This is mainly a design change, since many Chinese brands like to use their own forks of the popular open-source software. In the case of Realme UI, however, the menus actually look very similar to stock Android.

The result is a clean-looking menu layout, whether you’re on the main menu, app drawer or swipe-down-from-top Quick Settings list. Plus, there’s actually less bloatware (or pre-installed apps) than we normally see.

Note that Android 11 isn’t the newest version as of the Realme C35’s release – most phone brands are a little sporadic at updating their budget mobiles – so we’ll have to wait and see if Realme continues to support the device.

Realme C35 battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• Lasts for a day easily, and sometimes for two
• 18W charging is fairly slow

The Realme C35 comes with a big 5000mAh battery. As such, the combination of LCD 60Hz screen and the lack of 5G connectivity resulted in the C35 being one of the longest-lasting smartphones we’ve tested recently.

The phone easily waltzed through a day of use, and generally made it well into the second day, too. That included lots of social media, photography and the occasional extra app download.

Charging speed is 18W, which certainly isn’t fast; it will take you over an hour to power the phone up to full. This is a handset for those who charge their devices overnight, not during their morning shower.

Should I buy the Realme C35?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

If this Realme C35 review has, for some reason, not convinced you that it's a good enough phone, here are a few other choices you might want to consider.

First reviewed April 2022

Two-minute review

The Realme GT 2 is one of the best Android phones so far for people who want the flavor of a high-end $1000/£1000 phone for around half the price.

Three features mainly contribute to our assessment, and each of these key parts is genuinely impressive. First of all, the Realme GT 2 has a bright and vibrant 120Hz OLED screen.

Also impressive is the 50MP primary camera. This main camera uses the great Sony IMX766 sensor, also seen in the OnePlus 9 Pro and the Oppo Find X5 Pro, and delivers excellent image quality, day and night. And while the highlight retention doesn’t quite match that of the very best phones, its performance is still great, considering the GT 2’s mid-tier cost. 

The Realme GT 2 also has a high-end processor. Sure, it’s Qualcomm’s flagship from 2021, but it still performs extremely well in 2022 - and will no doubt continue to do so for years to come. 

This phone is emblematic of the appeal of Realme phones. They often deliver hardware better than the competition, and this typically outweighs whatever finesse the backend software may, slightly, lack. 

Battery life is the main possible reason to give you pause. While the Realme GT 2’s 5,000mAh battery capacity is precisely what we’d hope for in a phone like this, its stamina in the 120Hz display mode is lower than some of the low-power phones we’ve recently tested, like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11. 

The Realme GT 2 is a phone you will likely need to charge every day. You may even, as we have on occasion, have to give it a top up before a night out. However, we are talking about stamina similar to that of some of last year’s phones with this chipset, like the OnePlus 9.

Realme GT 2 price and availability

• Starts at £499 (around $660, AU$885)
• Out now in the UK
• No US availability

The Realme GT 2 launched in China in January 2022, but only came to western markets in March. It’s part of a duo, made up of the Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro. 

This GT 2 phone starts at £499 (around $660, AU$885), making it £200 less than the Realme GT 2 Pro. It has a lower-resolution screen, a previous-generation processor and an inferior ultra-wide camera. 

The £499 Realme GT 2 also has half the storage: 128GB, and 8GB of RAM. There is a step-up version with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM for £549 (around $725, AU$975).

The Realme GT 2 is out now in the UK, and is likely to land in Australia too though we don't have those details at the time of writing. It won't be sold in the US.

Design

• 'Paper-like' biopolymer backplate
• Glass also an option in the lower-spec Realme GT 2
• In-screen fingerprint scanner

Many Realme phones have outlandish designs intended to instantly grab your attention. Giant slogans printed across the back of some of its phones read like portable adverts for the company. By contrast, the Realme GT 2 is reserved. But it’s still, in traditional Realme fashion, anything but ordinary.

A smooth rectangle towards the top of the phone bears the signature of the rear panel’s designer, Naoto Fukasawa. Even if you choose to use the unusually nice, soft-touch bundled case, you won’t escape the signature, which makes a second appearance, in gloss print. 

It’s another attention-grabber, but we’re pleased with how tasteful the Realme GT 2 seems as a whole.

The Realme GT 2’s back is made of plastic, as well as its sides – but it is no normal plastic. Realme describes it as “derived from renewable resources such as paper pulp,” and calls it a “biopolymer”.

The company is clearly avoiding the term plastic, but Realme’s description suggests it’s a bioplastic with a cellulose component. According to the company, utilizing this bioplastic reduces carbon emissions in the manufacture of the back plate by “35.5%”; it should be noted that Realme doesn’t explicitly state what baseline was used to come up with that figure.

The rear plate has an embossed texture that both looks and feels pleasant, and the green shade of our review phone is lovely. In this color option, the designer’s signature detail does not seem so out of place. This is one of the better-looking phones Realme has made.

Not a fan? There’s a Steel Black GT 2 that appears to have a glass back, and this is the only finish available with the lower-spec 128GB storage and 8GB RAM. It also appears to lack the signature plate, should that be a turn-off. At launch, this was available for £399 in the UK - a steal. Its standard pricing is £499, and this is probably the version we’d buy.

All versions of the Realme GT 2 have an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The obvious route would be for Realme to use a cheaper side-loaded one, but it splurged.

This scanner is fast, and it worked every time during testing, but there is a drawback here. The Realme GT 2 does not “look” for your finger in standby mode, or when you touch the screen. You have to press the power button – then the unlock area within the display. As reliable as this fingerprint scanner is, one built into the side power button would be faster. 

Dig into the settings menu and you can switch on “raise to wake” and “double tap to wake” modes, which improve matters, as they remove the need to press the power button. In our opinion, one of these should be switched on by default.

The phone has good stereo speakers, with one driver on the bottom and another above the display. The 6.6-inch screen is a good size for an enthusiast’s Android, which this phone is.

There’s not much to complain about when it comes to Realme GT 2’s outer hardware, but we do miss having a headphone jack.

Display

• Lacks the GT 2 Pro’s ultra-high-res panel
• Good color, but can misrepresent your photos
• Vibrant OLED display

The Realme GT 2’s screen shows the first key difference between this phone and the more expensive Realme GT 2 Pro. It is a 120Hz AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels. The Pro version has a higher-resolution 1440p panel. 

There’s a visible difference, of course, but the Realme GT 2 display is still sharp. It is also colorful, and you can choose exactly how colorful it gets. 

The default “vivid” mode adheres to the wide color gamut DCI P3 standard. “Natural” offers something closer to sRGB, and the Pro mode lets you switch between DCI P3 and the OLED panel’s native gamut for even wilder color saturation. It also provides color temperature controls. 

As ever, pick the one that looks best to your eyes. After a few days with Vivid, we switched to Natural. The only issue is the Photos app does not override this color calibration, so if you max out display color, all your Realme GT 2 photos will appear oversaturated until you actually look at them on a different display.

This is a 120Hz screen that can be downclocked to a power-saving 60Hz mode, and there’s an Auto setting that automatically shifts the refresh rate. It doesn’t seem to be particularly dynamic, though, as it can’t lower the refresh rate below 60Hz, according to Android’s own monitoring features. 

The Realme GT 2 supports HDR video, and looks great when playing it. There’s even a toggle in the Display settings menu that allows you to max-out brightness with HDR to really show off both the content and the screen. 

The display is rated at 1300 nits of peak brightness, similar to the most expensive phones in the world. Realme doesn’t use this kind of power in direct sunlight as it would heat up the phone too much and kill the battery in very little time. However, we were perfectly happy with outdoors visibility, and like the best OLEDs, an automatic “sunlight” mode adjusts color and contrast to maximize visibility in direct sunlight. 

Sure, you can spend more on the Realme GT 2 Pro and get an even higher-spec screen, but this one gets you 95% of the way there.

Specs and performance

• Android 12 with RealmeUI
• Good performance
• Some bugs left to fix at launch

The Realme GT 2 runs Android 12 and has a Realme UI 3.0 skin on top. Contrary to what you might expect from an upstart Chinese brand like Realme, the software is largely inoffensive. 

It’s clean; there are no pre-installed bloaty Realme apps – just a handful of basic tools like the photo viewer and media player. It does come with Amazon, LinkedIn and booking.com preinstalled, no doubt for a little kickback from these companies, but you can delete these in about 25 seconds. General performance is lovely and smooth, assisted by some nicely tuned, inertia-tinged navigation animations. 

This is still a third-party UI, though, and as usual that means there are loads of customizations to be found just under the surface. Unusual things that are easy to access include an ability to change the speed of transition animations and make the keyboard pop up when you enter the app drawer. That’s one for people with massive app libraries.

There are just a couple of minor issues. You can choose between Dark and Light interface modes, which make the default background color of the interface either white or off-black. In Dark mode, some text in the notification drop-down is not clear enough. A couple of times, the notification drop-dock was stuck in place, sitting over apps until you manhandled it out of the way.

And software’s always-on display mode does not appear to work — on our Realme GT 2 at least. It never appeared, regardless of the settings we used. There’s nothing a software update or two could not fix here, but the phone, in fact, needs more than a few. 

The Realme GT 2 is a seriously powerful phone. It has the Snapdragon 888 processor, Qualcomm’s flagship early-mid 2021 chipset. We love to see mid-range phones use last-generation top-tier CPUs, because they are almost always superior to the latest mid-tier models. 

The Realme GT 2 scores 3519 in Geekbench 5, 1133 per core, a result comparable with last-generation flagship phones like the OnePlus 9 Pro. There’s also a GT mode that claims to max-out the phone’s performance at the expense of battery life. In a Geekbench run using this mode, the phone actually scored less in GT mode, proving it is more about taking off any power-saving features you may have switched on, like 60Hz refresh, than a way to actually alter the power ceiling.

We tried a 3D Mark Wild Life stress test to see if GT mode altered throttling behavior over time. Maximum power dropped to 75% in GT mode, 71% in standard mode: this disparity may be down to the performance mode, but it is not a major one.

With a Snapdragon 888, no such ceiling raise is needed anyway. Games run beautifully on the Realme GT 2. They launch quickly, and tough ones play at noticeably higher frame rates than most cheaper phones that sell at around $350. Fortnite lets you set the max frame rate to 60fps, and while it doesn't always hit this with all graphics settings maxed, it still spends a lot of the time at 60fps. 

If you want similar performance but can’t stretch to the GT 2’s price, consider the Realme GT Neo 2. It has a Snapdragon 870 processor, which is also great.

Camera

• Great main camera
• Bad macro camera
• Middling ultra-wide

It’s not raw power that makes the Realme GT 2 stand out for tech fans. It is the high-end CPU matched with high-end camera hardware, even if only one of the three rear cameras actually has it. 

The Realme GT 2 has a 50-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide and a 2MP macro that, like all 2MP macros, is bad. Its ultra-wide is not that great either, but the 50-megapixel wide camera is excellent. 

It uses the Sony IMX766 sensor and has OIS, optical image stabilization. The same stuff is used in significantly more expensive phones like the Oppo Find X5 Pro, Xiaomi 12 and Honor Magic 4 Pro. It’s a large 1/1.56-inch sensor that is miles better than the 50MP Samsung camera we’ve seen in several cheaper phones recently, like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11. They may look similar on paper, but they are not. 

The Realme GT 2 creates excellent photos in just about any situation, with its primary camera, thanks to its combination of a great sensor, a great ISP and good software processing. 

Day-lit shots look clean right down at pixel level. This is a real achievement in a moderately affordable phone that uses pixel binning, where a slightly synthetic or painterly appearance is often a side-effect of the processing involved. 

This excellent image integrity means even the 2x zoom mode, purely a digital zoom, produces entirely credible images. These, unlike 1x images, do often have a processed appearance up close. But we have seen worse from actual 2x zoom cameras over the years.

Realme’s Auto HDR enhancement is mostly great, able to balance the priorities of bright skies and darker foregrounds like a pro. It will lose a touch of highlight detail in extreme conditions, like a sunset scene, but judging by how well exposed the foreground typically looks, we’d say this type of contrasting was probably intended. Still, if we had the power to make any changes we wanted, we’d like to see the Realme GT 2 try as hard to retain tough highlight detail as it does to bring out shadow detail.

Having reviewed a stack of Realme phones over the last couple of years, we expected to see the Realme GT 2 hype up color excessively. It will appear so if you use one of the bolder display modes. But after transferring the photos to a color calibrated monitor, there’s just a fractional massaging of grass at times — making the grass appear too green in some images.

The aforementioned images were results of shooting in the standard mode — enable “AI” mode and all bets are off. Color fidelity isn’t the goal with AI mode, and images taken in this mode are quite shareable since they really jump off a phone’s screen.

Night image quality is excellent for a phone at the Realme GT 2’s price. There’s a dedicated night mode that takes around two seconds to capture an image – but even the standard and 50MP modes can deliver great results. This is a demo of how much heavy lifting OIS and a good quality sensor can do.

At times, these non-night-mode images can actually look better, letting night skies appear black; in contrast, the computational night mode always tries to bring out tonal gradations and color in the sky where possible. 

Shots taken in dingy indoor lighting also look good. The Realme GT 2 retains a good amount of detail with an acceptable level of noise at ISO 2000, a fairly high sensitivity setting. 

This phone makes taking good photos a breeze. Our hit rate was unusually high with the Realme GT 2. And the problems?

Aside from Auto HDR’s tendency to favor shadow detail over highlight retention, the lens does routinely cause one or two tiny little green discs to appear in your photos when you shoot directly into the sun. For the first few days of testing we had some major focusing problems with the 2x zoom mode, but these issues seemed to have largely cleared up on their own, even without any software update. 

The ultra-wide camera is also not a patch on the main 50MP camera. While it benefits from the phone’s sound image processing, making your photos look good from a distance, you can see the flaws outside the center of the frame on closer inspection.

The ultra-wide uses an 8MP Omnivision camera, also seen in the cheaper Realme 9 Pro Plus. The 9 Pro Plus is a phone well worth considering if you are not wedded to the Realme GT 2's high-end performance, since the former appears to have the same rear camera array.

Video features are decent as well. The Realme GT 2 can shoot stabilized video at up to 4K resolution, 60 frames per second. Footage is clean, motion is smooth and the image is detailed. It will even have a crack at ultra-low-light video, at 1080p resolution.

While you’re not going to make a masterpiece with this footage, it does have significantly better dynamic range than 4K shooting, suggesting it may use the sensor’s DOL-HDR capability. It easily beats what you’d get out of a GoPro Hero 10 Black in very bad lighting. 

The Realme GT 2 also has a very solid selfie camera, powered by a Sony IMX471 sensor. Selfies have a lot of detail in good lighting, and the pixel binning hardware lets them hold a basic level of detail well in poor light. 

There’s extensive use of HDR in selfies when you’re backlit. And the Portrait mode blurs out the background for an easy creative/DSLR style look.

Camera samples

Battery life

• Unremarkable battery life in its 120hz display mode
• Better longevity at 60Hz
• Fast 65W charging

The Realme GT 2 has a 5,000mAh battery with snappy 65W fast charging. It takes you from flat to full in 43 minutes according to our testing, and reaches 89% in 30 minutes. 

You may need to lean on this fast charging because battery life is not that hot, particularly in the 120Hz or Auto display modes. While the Realme GT 2 can get through a moderate day of use, we just didn’t find we had all that much charge left by plug-in time. And if we were to take it on a night out, we’d definitely give it a top-up before leaving home. 

The good news, of course, is that a 10-minute charge should easily be enough for this. 

Stamina does seem to improve if you switch to the Realme GT 2’s 60Hz display mode, letting you see about 30% charge left by bed time. Scrolling does not look anywhere near as smooth at 60Hz, but strategic use of this mode is sensible if you’re not always going to have access to a charge point. 

There’s no wireless charging here, but that is no surprise in a phone where the budget has clearly been allocated very carefully.

Should you buy the Realme GT 2?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: March 2022

Two-minute review

Realme usually wades in the cheaper, more budget-friendly phone market, but with the GT 2 Pro, the company is dipping its toes in the premium space; and this genuine flagship device is a good first effort. 

While it doesn't offer every single feature you could want in a phone, the essentials shine enough that the price tag of $750 / £700 / around AU$1,100 seems reasonable.

Undercutting rivals like those within the Samsung Galaxy S22 and iPhone 13 range, the Realme GT 2 Pro can stand its ground among the big hitters. 

Physically, the GT 2 Pro looks good, with a unique textured back that feels like paper even though it’s made of plastic. The pastel green shade is also fun, even though the designer’s (Naoto Fukasawa) signature detracts from its physical appeal a little. 

Snappy performance, courtesy of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, means you get a fast and fairly clean Android experience. Gaming, streaming, and browsing all look good on the flat 1440p panel, which has refresh rates from 1 to 120Hz.

The 6.7-inch 2K WQHD+ display is pretty bright too, with the ability to achieve an impressive 1,400 nits when needed. 

The camera has a number of different modes, with a 50MP main camera sensor that does its job well. But we're not sold on the Realme GT 2 Pro's zoom capabilities, which produce pictures that are fairly grainy. The microscope mode, on the other hand, will amuse you to no end.

There's no wireless charging here, alas, but the Realme GT 2 Pro's 5,000mAh battery is pretty good. Fast charging support means you'll be back to 100% in just 30 minutes or so. 

Other useful features include facial recognition and a fingerprint sensor built into the display, which work quickly and effectively nine times out of ten.

Competently designed in a multitude of ways, the Realme GT 2 Pro is a fantastic first effort for flagship performance from Realme. The Realme GT 2 Pro packs a lot into a relatively affordable package.

Realme GT 2 Pro price and availability

• Available now in the US, UK and Australia
• Retails at $750 / £700 / around AU$1,100
• Three color choices

The Realme GT 2 Pro is available for $750 / £700 / around AU$1,100, depending on your location. It's available direct from Realme as well as from many third-party retailers. 

The phone can be purchased in one of three color schemes: Steel Black, Paper Green, or Paper White. With Steel Black, you don’t get the paper-style texture of the other two. 

You can choose between 128GB or 256GB of storage.

Design

• Plastic body
• Textured-paper feeling
• No IP rating

The Realme GT 2 Pro has a sizable display, but is still compact enough for smaller hands to grip. With measurements of 163.2 x 74.7 x 8.2 mm, the phone is basically of standard size. Weighing 189g, the GT2 Pro is not really hefty either.

We had the Paper Green model for our review, and we suspect this version is probably the best of the bunch. The pastel green is very light and delicate, and the textured surface on the back of the phone feels a little like paper, making the grip comfortable. As mentioned before, the Steel Black option doesn’t have the textured back and it seems to us that the Paper White model would stain a little too easily.

On the back of the phone is a three-lens camera system, a rectangular set-up, off to the side. Next to that region is Fukasawa's signature, which we feel the phone could do without but depending on the person, might give the phone a premium touch.

On the front, the selfie camera lens unobtrusively sits on the top left corner of the display. The standard combo of volume rocker and power button surround the edges, while at the bottom is the SIM card slot and a USB-C port. Don't count on a headphone jack here.

The nicest part about the Realme GT 2 Pro's design is its fingerprint reader. It's built into the display so you can easily access it. 

The downsides? No IP rating so you won't want this phone anywhere near water - and you can't use the Realme GT 2 Pro with a Qi-charging pad.

Display

• 6.7-inch AMOLED display
• 1440 x 3216 resolution
• 120Hz refresh rate

The Realme GT 2 Pro's display is, as expected, high-end. Offering a high resolution, the 2K screen looks fantastic. It offers 1,400 nits peak brightness along with LTPO 2.0 technology, which means it can move between refresh rates. 

Able to go up to 120Hz refresh rate means you get silky smooth performance, even if you're dipping into a fast-paced session of Call of Duty Mobile. 

The Realme GT 2 Pro display looks pretty good no matter if you’re streaming or browsing under an overcast or cloudless, bright sky. The display is sharp, with vibrant colors, which is expected from an OLED display.

Camera

• 50MP + 50MP + 3MP rear camera
• 32MP selfie camera
• Varied software functionality

On the surface, the Realme GT 2 Pro cameras seem fairly standard. The phone has three lenses on the back, including its main 50MP camera, a 50MP ultra-wide-angle camera and a 3MP 40x microscopic lens. On the front is a 32MP selfie camera.

How the GT 2 Pro uses those lenses is what makes the phone stand out. The ultra-wide-angle lens achieves 150 degrees of snapping, and the resulting images look great, capturing plenty of detail. You might be missing a telescopic lens, but you're going to end up taking a whole lot of wide-angle shots. 

Similarly, the 40x microscopic camera is the lens you never realized you needed. With a tiny bit of practice, you'll find yourself taking photos of all kinds of material and things, just to see how things look when you can really zoom into it.

In everyday use, you'll probably stick with the main 50MP camera, but it's nice to show off from time to time. 

An array of options are at your disposal, including a starry mode, street photography, 50MP mode, and a night mode that's reasonably competent. 

For the most part, colors are accurate, vibrant, and images are detailed. The only obvious failing here is that the digital zoom is pretty poor. Images with this mode come out looking pretty grainy.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• Powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 1
• 128GB or 256GB of storage
• Snappy performance

The Realme GT 2 Pro performed well in our tests. Using Geekbench 5, the Realme GT 2 Pro achieved a single-core score of 1,244. Comprehensively speaking, that score beats the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra's score of 924. 

Multi-core performance comes in at 3,724 - again beating the Galaxy S21 Ultra's 3,085. Compute scores are slightly lower, at 6,010, compared to the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus's 6,990. 

However, all you really need to know here is that the Realme GT 2 Pro is fast. Loading up Call of Duty Mobile was speedy and general use of the phone makes multitasking a breeze.

This is a fast phone, however you plan on using it. 

The Realme GT 2 Pro comes with Android 12 installed as standard along with the Realme UI overlay. A few apps are already installed like Tik Tok, LinkedIn and other social media apps, but as a whole, it's fairly clean and bloat-free. 

For a relatively pure Android experience, the Realme GT 2 Pro is it.

Battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• No wireless charging support
• Fast charging

The Realme GT 2 Pro has a 5,000mAh battery and a plethora of features that mean it lasts a long time. That mileage will vary depending on what you're doing throughout the day but, ultimately, this is a phone that will last, even during a heavy duty day. 

On those occasions when you do need to recharge, Realme's 65W SuperDart Charge means you can get back up to 100% in only 30 minutes. Shame about the lack of wireless charging support, though.

Should you buy the Realme GT 2 Pro?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: March 2022

I often see new Android phones launched in China that I wish I could test - these often have novel designs, flashy features, and incredible cameras, but rarely do they launch outside Asia.

That's okay, though, because they're usually so top-end that I'd never be able to afford them. However a new Realme phone has been announced that I'd absolutely consider if it went on sale everywhere else - and that's a very rare stance for me to take.

This is the Realme GT Neo 3, which was teased earlier in the year - it's the follow-up to the GT Neo 2, which I tested out, but since that didn't go on sale in many regions we never did a full review. That's why I expect the GT Neo 3 will be hard to buy.

But the GT Neo 3 ticks so many of my 'must-buy boxes' that I can't help but get excited.

Great budget features that have caught my eye

The flagship feature of the Realme GT Neo 3 is that it charges at 150W, which is the fastest we've seen in any smartphone so far. Realme states that the phone will power to 50% in just five minutes, which means it'll go all the way to full in the time it takes me to make my morning toast.

I love fast charging phones - I'm always forgetting to power my device until five minutes before I'm out the door, so the ability to get loads of juice at a moment's notice is fantastic.

Another feature I love here is the main camera, which is a snapper using Sony's 50MP IMX766 sensor. I tested this on the Realme 9 Pro Plus and found it fantastic - I'd go so far as to say it's one of the best sensors available to mobile manufacturers right now.

This Sony Exmor sensor is big, so it's great for low-light and night photography. With the Pro Plus, I was taking iPhone-quality night shots on an affordable Android. The size also makes pictures bright and colorful - now, when I see a phone has this camera, I'm always excited to test it out.

This is another Realme GT phone to continue the brand's tradition of quirky designs, this time bringing back the racing-strip style from the original Realme GT and the Neo 2. Those were yellow and green respectively but it's a blue mobile here - as you probably already know from the picture.

I'm a big fan of affordable phones - my three favorite mobiles that I've ever tested, the Xiaomi Mi Note 10, Motorola Edge, and Realme GT, were all mid-range or budget devices, and I think these market tiers are far more interesting and competitive than the premium one.

Well, the Realme GT Neo 3 costs just RMB 2,699 - that converts to roughly $420 / £320 / AU$570. There's also a version with 80W charging that's RMB 1,999, which is about $320, £240, AU$430 - it feels weird turning my nose up at 80W charging, but when 150W is on the table, it's okay.

That price would make the GT Neo 3 cost just half the price of the Samsung Galaxy S22, for a phone with a bigger screen, cooler design, and faster charging. Great, nice and affordable - I love it.

If I had one note for the Neo 3, it'd be the screen size - while at 6.7 inches it'd be great for gaming or watching movies, I like my cute little easily-holdable compact phones, or at least ones that hover around 6.2-6.4 inches.

There's other stuff about the phone which sounds cool too - it has the Dimensity 8100 chipset, which sounds like an impressive mid-range chip, and the screen is AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate.

According to Realme, the phone is coming to Europe "very soon" but I personally don't expect it to come to the UK, where I live - and even if it does, I don't imagine the 150W version of the phone will.

I'll happily be surprised if the thing shows up in my lap. I'm not holding my breath, but either way, this sounds like a cool device.

• What are Realme phones? A guide to the company and its smartphones

In a week of relatively lukewarm product announcements at this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) trade show, the global unveiling of the Realme GT 2 Pro ranked among the most exciting. 

The first real flagship device from the burgeoning Chinese manufacturer, the GT 2 Pro is intended to rival high-end competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S22, offering users impressive visuals and premium features for a price tag that's more accessible to Realme’s typically mid-market customer base. 

But while the phone does its best to match, rather than surpass, its more expensive counterparts for overall performance – check out our hands-on review for more details – the GT 2 Pro has an ace up its sleeve that's testament to the giant leaps forward in mobile photography technology in recent years. 

Similar to the macro camera lenses found on last year’s Xiaomi Mi 11 and Oppo Find X3 Pro, Realme’s latest handset boasts a 40x microscopic sensor that allows users to take super-close-up snaps of inanimate objects. Sure, it sounds like a superfluous addition on paper, but having tested the feature ourselves, we found the results to be pretty incredible.

Below, we’ve collated a list of side-by-side images (swipe to see) that not only illustrate the power of Realme’s new camera technology, but the remarkable ways in which photography can enhance the most mundane of everyday items.

We’ll start with an item that likely occupies the wardrobe of anyone living in a country with a temperate climate (that includes you, Australian readers). A humble pair of jeans appears decidedly unremarkable at face value, but tie-dyed cotton fibers – otherwise known as denim – look a whole lot more interesting at 40x magnification.

We can’t decide whether a super-zoomed slice of bread makes the world’s greatest invention look more or less appetizing. This is wholemeal bread, but we’re still shocked to see how much chemical-induced stickiness lurks beyond the focus of the naked eye (imagine the results on a shop-bought white loaf…). It tastes great, mind you.

If you hadn’t gathered already, all the items on this list come from the same British household. As for your standard-issue English breakfast teabag, the Realme GT 2 Pro now has us expecting to find a spider's web-encased Frodo Baggins inside every one (yes, that’s a Lord of The Rings joke).

Surely it's not possible to make a pavement (sorry, sidewalk if you're in the US) look interesting? Well, look a little closer… This isn’t the prettiest example of microscopic photography on our list, but it’s still fascinating to see an apparently smooth surface become unrecognizable when magnified several times.

Now this is a result we didn’t expect to see. To the naked eye, the surface of this glossy magazine (which we couldn’t possibly name in writing) appears, well, glossy – but as you can see from the pattern in cover star Mo Salah’s eye, it actually comprises thousands of minute ink spots.

To complement the aforementioned teabag, the humble chocolate digestive biscuit reminds us, at 40x magnification, why we probably shouldn’t eat too many biscuits of this ilk. At first glance, the visible clumps on its surface look like harmless, carpet-destined crumbs – but the GT 2 Pro's microscope reveals their true sugary nature.

Speaking of carpets (or rugs, more specifically), this genuine Mexican poncho passes the authenticity test when placed under the Realme microscope. It looks a lot more welcoming (read: more snuggly) from a distance, mind.

For more on all the latest tech to emerge from MWC 2022, stay tuned to TechRadar over the coming weeks. We've covered all the biggest announcements so far, and are continuing to publish our more detailed thoughts about the trends, surprises and disappointments of this year's mobile showcase. 

• Best camera phone 2022: our picks for the best smartphone cameras right now

Realme’s product showcase at MWC 2022 was headlined by the arrival of the Realme GT 2 series, but another announcement caught our attention for the potential implications it could have on the future of mobile technology as a whole. 

At the Barcelona-based trade show, Realme revealed that its upcoming GT Neo 3 handset – a direct successor to the GT Neo 2 – will be the first device to benefit from the brand’s new UltraDart Charging Architecture (UDCA). 

We’ve seen fast charging in smartphones for some time, but Realme claims that the GT Neo 3 will be capable of reaching 50% battery capacity in just five minutes using the company’s new 150W charging technology. If accurate, that speed would make the GT Neo 3 the world's fastest charging smartphone - that's particularly surprising given that this will likely be a pretty cheap phone. 

But Realme’s new charging architecture won’t just help boost charging speeds. According to the Chinese company, it’ll improve safety and battery life, too. 

By introducing the world’s first 100W-200W charging devices – an almighty jump in power over the charge technology used in all prior Realme handsets (which have typically utilized between 18W and 65W charging) – phones like the GT Neo 3 will benefit from better temperature management and battery protection.

That means – on paper, at least – users will be able to play games or watch videos on their mobile devices for longer periods of time, without fear of overheating the battery. Realme says its new UDCA architecture applies lithium batteries to “retain 80% battery capacity at 1000+ Complete Charge Cycles” – which basically means they’re wrapped in a nice layer of cotton wool to protect them from harm (don’t quote us on that, though). 

Realme will debut its new charging tech with the GT Neo 3, though we don’t have a release date for the device just yet. Moving forward, then, it's safe to expect the company’s future devices – both cheap and premium – to boast some of the fastest charging speeds around. 

Also at MWC, both OnePlus and Oppo announced their 150W charging solutions, though no smartphones were attached.

Making moves at MWC

As we alluded to at the top of this article, burgeoning mobile brand Realme also seized the opportunity of MWC 2022 to introduce fans to its first major foray into the flagship market. 

The GT 2 series, and in particular the Realme GT 2 Pro, is intended to rival high-end competitor offerings like the Oppo Find X5, OnePlus 10 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S22 while maintaining the relative affordability for which Realme has become known in recent years.

In our brief time spent with the device ahead of its MWC unveiling, the GT 2 Pro surprised us by boasting impressive visuals, seamless performance and quirky camera features – albeit alongside a few practical hiccups – that suggest this traditionally mid-range mobile brand has the chops to challenge the very top of the market with future handsets. 

Perhaps, too, Realme's next flagship will benefit from the super-fast charging speeds set to arrive with the GT Neo 3? If so, the likes of Samsung and Apple could have real competition on their hands.

• MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting on the show all week. Follow our MWC 2022 live blog for the very latest news as it happens and visit our dedicated MWC 2022 hub for a round-up of the biggest announcements.  

We got our hands on the Realme GT 2 Pro ahead of its MWC announcement, so check here for our early impressions of the device.

Burgeoning mobile-maker Realme has officially lifted the international lid on its GT 2 series of premium smartphones – and the Pro model, in particular, looks like it could give the Samsung Galaxy S22 a run for its money. 

The still-young Chinese company first announced the new handsets at a launch event back in January, but waited until this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) trade show to properly unveil both the Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro on the global stage.

Billed as Realme’s first major foray into the premium flagship market, its GT 2 smartphone series is intended to rival competitors like the Oppo Find X4 and OnePlus 10 Pro, while still maintaining the relative affordability that has established Realme as a major mid-market mobile player in recent years. 

The standard GT 2, which will be available in versions up to 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage, will begin shipping to the UK and Europe on March 15, with pre-sale prices starting at €449.99 (around £399 / $530 / AU$740) before rising to an RRP of €549.99. The Pro variant will arrive slightly earlier on March 8 for a pre-sale starting price of €649.99 (equating to around £599.99 / $800 / AU$1100) before rising to €749.99.

The latter will also be available with 12GB RAM and 256GB of internal storage for €749.99 (around £630 / $840 / AU$1160) before rising to €849.99 following the same pre-sale period, which runs between March 8 and March 16.

In any case, Realme’s GT 2 series undercuts the price of rival flagship ranges like the Samsung Galaxy S22 and iPhone 13 by some margin (the former starts at $799 / £769 / AU$1,249 and the latter at $699 / £679 / AU$1,199), living up to the brand’s reputation as an affordable alternative to mainstream mobile brands.

Those lower prices don’t come at the expense of premium features, mind. The standard GT 2 ships with a 6.62-inch 1080 x 2400 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 888 chipset, a triple-lens rear camera headlined by a 50MP sensor and a 5,000mAh battery with 65W charging. That’s a stellar crop of premium features akin to other high-end flagships on the market right now. 

The Realme GT 2 Pro, though, goes several steps further. In addition to a slightly larger 6.7-inch 1440 x 3216 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, users will get a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset – the fastest offered by Qualcomm today – and a triple-lens camera boasting a 50MP main sensor, 50MP ultra-wide sensor and an impressive microscope camera capable of magnifying objects by up to 40x. Check out our first impressions of the device to see just how good these camera features are in practice.

Incidentally, the GT 2 series also highlights Realme’s eco-friendly ambitions. Not only are these phones supposedly the first-ever to be manufactured using a paper-like bio-polymer material, but for every GT 2 series smartphone sold from the company’s official website, Realme will plant a tree. For every tree planted, Realme says, it will take less than 24 months to offset the amount of CO2 produced by manufacturing the device in the first place.

Those might seem like empty marketing promises, but at least Realme customers can rest a little easier in the knowledge that their purchase will be a sustainable one – on paper, at least. 

Stay tuned to TechRadar for our full reviews of both the Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro in the coming weeks, and check out our MWC 2022 live blog for the very latest mobile news emerging from the show right now. 

• MWC (Mobile World Congress) is the world's largest showcase for the mobile industry, stuffed full of the newest phones, tablets, wearables and more. TechRadar is reporting on the show all week. Follow our MWC 2022 live blog for the very latest news as it happens and visit our dedicated MWC 2022 hub for a round-up of the biggest announcements.  

The Realme 9 Pro launch event is over, so if you’re coming here to watch it, you missed out. Well, not entirely - you can still see it via YouTube.

With our live blog below, you can catch up on everything you missed during the launch event, including our hasty comments and opinions on the Realme 9 Pro and Pro Plus. 

Oh, and you can catch our full Realme 9 Pro Plus review here, which we published recently.

During the event Realme confirmed that it'd be attending annual tech event MWC 2022 at the end of February, so we know it's got another launch soon, this time for the Realme GT 2. So you'll have another chance to watch an event very soon.

Welcome to our live blog! The Realme event kicks off a little earlier than others - in the UK, we're used to our early afternoon launches, but this one takes place on the dot at midday.

That means less live blogging and more action!

So what are we expecting to debut at the Realme 9 Pro launch? Well, that phone and the Pro Plus, obviously. But anything else?

We’ve no idea for sure, but our gut instinct is ‘no’. The reason? MWC 2022, an annual smartphone conference, is coming up at the end of February, and Realme has confirmed that it’s attending.

So if Realme had more devices coming up soon, it’d make more sense for the brand to save them for MWC, and just debut the Realme 9 Pro devices now. In fact, we’re surprised the company didn’t save its new phones for MWC anyway.

There’s a lot we’d like the company to debut, if it was going to show off more tech today.

Firstly, we’re big fans of the Realme GT line of powerful mid-rangers, so we’d like to see the GT 2 soon, or the rumored GT Fold.

In 2021, the company unveiled MagDart which is a magnetic charging solution for its phones - think Apple’s MagSafe but with a slightly different name. We haven’t seen a phone released with this tech, and we’d be keen to.

Finally, we saw the company’s first tablet last year in the Realme Pad, but it’s a budget slate - we want to see the company try something more powerful and flashy in the tablet space soon.

So, something quite weird has happened... The Realme 9 Pro has already launched.

Turns out, in India, the phone launch event was a couple of hours ago - a live stream of the launch has already been published. Realme has told us that this was an India-only launch, with the global one happening soon.

Realme has previously had an India-first approach, and the brand is huge in the country, but we imagine the interest in the launch later today will be hugely diminished as a result. People aren't going to tune into a launch if they can get all the details hours before.

We'll still be covering the Realme 9 Pro global launch as normal, because hopefully we'll get international pricing and availability.

But if you want everything there is to know about the phones right away, like their specs and cameras, you can check out coverage from TechRadar's Indian Bureau here.

One of the features Realme has already teased for the 9 Pro Plus is its color-changing back, which apparently changes look in sunlight.

Looking out the window right now, we can tell that this feature wasn’t designed with UK buyers in mind, because we haven’t had a single drop of sunshine in about five days.

The other feature Realme had already announced is that the Pro Plus will get a heart rate sensor.

What’s the point in this? Well, we’re not entirely sure, since phone-based sensors won’t exactly be accurate, not compared to proper tech or even just fitness trackers. 

But we have seen phones with this feature before, namely older Samsung flagships, so perhaps there is an audience for them. Or perhaps not - Samsung dropped heart rate monitors a few years back.

Since this is the ‘Realme 9 Pro’ launch, does that mean we won’t see a non-Pro version? 

It seems that way, but presumably this doesn’t mean a standard Realme 9 doesn’t exist, because that simply wouldn’t make sense. Surely you can’t have a Pro version if you don’t have a normal version.

Perhaps we’ll see that in the coming weeks - we imagine Realme will drop it under the radar a little bit, maybe with a quick press release, but we’ll still report on it when it appears.

One hour to launch - if you want to slow-cook a snack, now's the time to start.

Less than half an hour left now -  the sun has actually come out in the UK too. We can only assume this is because of our last post.

There's a pre-amble video trailer that plays if you open the live stream (here) that talks about the color-changing rear panel.

Sure, some of this trailer is cringy in its marketing talk ("the light sparks from every young heart, it leads us to capture inspiration in ordinary days". Alright, Stephanie Meyer) but there's some interesting description on how it works.

On stage at the moment is Madhav Sheth, the CEO of Realme Europe and India, and someone who's spoken to TechRadar now and then. Sheth is taking us through the history of Realme.

We imagine he's pretty tired, since he gave the Realme 9 Pro India launch a few hours ago. As far as we can tell, this isn't the exactly same speech he gave before though.

Madhav Sheth just mentioned that the Realme 9 Pro will be the first member of the Realme 9 series.

As far as we're aware, this is the first time the company made reference to a non-Pro version of the device.

Wait - we've got to amend something we said earlier.

It now seems that this literally is the same launch video that Realme India hosted several hours ago. You can see that here.

We'll keep reporting on the new event as though it's actually 'new', but this is really silly on Realme's part.

We're currently hearing about how low-light photography is the focus for the Realme 9 Pro series.

The Pro Plus model is getting the Sony IMX766 sensor, which is a 50MP sensor we've seen in a few premium smartphones. This is a fairly big sensor, so it should be good for low-light photography.

We haven't really seen any budget mobiles that are good for night pictures, so that'd be a first.

We're hearing about a few photography modes.

There's a new version of Street photography mode, Smart Long Exposure and Film Simulation Filters - whatever any of that means.

What actually is 'Street photography' that Realme keeps talking about? Is it just any picture on a road? Or something more technical and official?

The selfie camera is 16MP with something called Clear Fusion Algorithm Technology - this apparently makes selfies sharper. This works for multiple faces too apparently.

They're wrapped up talking about the Realme 9 Pro Plus' cameras, and have moved onto its design.

Something we missed - the extra cameras are an ultra-wide and macro, though they weren't detailed much.

Apparently the colors of the Realme 9 Pro Plus' color-changing effect were inspired by the transition from dusk till dawn. Are they talking about that Robert Rodriguez film?

Oh, no, they're talking about the sun. I live in the UK, where it's either 'night' or 'overcast' so we don't see the sun.

At the moment, they're using science words to describe how the color changing works. It's going a bit over my head. They're also showing how glittery the rear is.

The 9 Pro Plus has a 6.4-inch AMOLED screen with a 1000nits max brightness, 90Hz refresh rate, an in-display fingerprint scanner, and a built-in heart rate monitor. There's also a USB-C slot and 3.5mm headphone jack. The details are coming thick and fast.

Design has wrapped up, and we've moved onto performance.

We're hearing that the Dimensity 920 chipset will be used, and the phone will also have a Vapor Chamber Cooling System. Most phone brands have fancy words for their own built-in cooling systems though, so who knows if this does much.

The battery is 4,500mAh, and the cooling system keeps this lasting longer apparently. It has 60W charging which is nice and quick.

Realme is pledging the 9 Pro Plus to two years of Android updates, and since it comes with Android 12, that means it'll go up to Android 14. That's not exactly a huge pledge given that about a week ago Samsung pledged the S22 mobiles would get up to four years of updates.

Um... instead of finding out about the Realme 9 Pro (we've just been hearing about the Realme 9 Pro Plus), the company is talking about... Paris Fashion Week? Huh?

It seems the company is doing something at the week, but we're not exactly sure what. Or why we should care.

Turns out the Realme 9 Pro is getting the same color-changing rear as the Pro Plus, which is pretty cool.

Plus, it's getting a 120Hz refresh rate, which is actually better than the Pro Plus' which is only 120Hz.

There's a big question mark in the processor - the Realme 9 Pro gets the Snapdragon 695. This is pretty new, so we haven't tested it just yet.

However Snapdragon's 600-series of processors are often a little weak, so this phone might be a little slow.

We're already onto cameras - the main one will be 64MP.

That was a whistle-stop tour of the Realme 9 Pro - and that's because it's basically the same phone. 

It's got a higher-res main camera and faster refresh rate, as well as a bigger battery at 5,000mAh. But its charging is slower at 33W, its chipset is worse, and the main camera sensor is smaller.

Oh cool - Realme has just confirmed it's attending annual smartphone conference MWC 2022. It's also confirmed what it's debuting - the Realme GT 2. Nice.

We've got prices too, at least in the UK.

The Realme 9 Pro will cost £299, while the Pro Plus will be £50 more. Expect regional prices when it launches elsewhere.

And that's it, the event is over!

That MWC news is interesting, as it confirms that Realme is going to be attending the massive mobile meetup.

MWC used to be huge for phone launches, but Covid ruined the last few years events. We're expecting more to happen this year as Huawei and Xiaomi have already confirmed they'll be going, and more could too.

And we've been waiting a while for the Realme GT 2 to launch, after the Pro was shown off several months ago.

Our Realme 9 Pro Plus review is now live - click here to read it.

We have it four and a half stars out of five, and awarded it a Recommendation tag, making it one of the best budget phones we've tested.

We loved the look of the phone, as well as it slow-light photography power and its great value-for-money proposition.

We haven't tested out the non-Plus version just yet, but will do when we can.

And with that, we'll be taking a short break for lunch. Once we're fed, we'll bring you some analysis on the launch to contextualize what we saw at the launch and bring you new information.

OK, we're back - lunch included a peanut butter Kit-Kat which was weird.

So that Realme 9 Pro launch, huh? The phones look cool, but we're a little confused as to why the company hosted the launch live stream in India at one time, then streamed the same video a few hours later for everyone else. It's really weird. Does the company know that non-Indian viewers can still view its videos?

The Realme 9 Pro's color-changing back isn't the first time we've seen this kind of tech. Earlier this year, Realme's sibling-company Vivo unveiled the Vivo V23 which has something similar, going from gold to blue in sunlight.

We had the exact same experience as both of these phones - we thought their color-changing was limited to reflecting light different when you rotated them, giving them a glistening effect.

In both cases, we were proven wrong when we went for runs using the phones, as the constant exposure to sunlight (by being in our hand, not our pocket, when out) made them glow brightly on the run. 

However, it's hard to use the phones like this in day-to-day use - do many people leave their phone out in direct sunlight much? It's a novelty, but we live in the UK - we get about three sunny days a year.

Maybe if you live in other regions, where you get more days of sun, you'll have great fun with this.

The color-changing version of the Realme 9 Pro Plus isn't the only one you can buy - there's also a green one (which some of our team tested - you can see it above) and a gray one too.

While color changing is a fun feature, it'll likely get a bit old, so we can see why someone would opt for a different shade.

The heart rate sensor is another weird thing about this phone, but we didn't find it very useful.

That's because the function is very hidden in the Settings app, and it takes quite a while to find it and start it working.

Plus - what's the point? It makes sense for something like a fitness tracker, because you're tracking your heart rate over a workout. But that won't work for a phone, because you can't dig through menus to find the feature that easily.

If it hadn't been for review purposes, we probably wouldn't have touched, or even noticed, the heart rate scanner.

Realme spoke lots in the launch about the new phones' low-light photography power, and in our tests, we were actually very surprised by how true this was.

Usually, budget phones aren't great for Night shots, but we took a few good-looking snaps while testing the phone. The one you can see above looks decent, and if it was taken on another phones, the buildings would be messy blurs and the lights would blow out everything else.

We're running out of time in our day, so before we round up this live blog, time for one further thought:

Realme had been teasing the 9 Pro series for quite a while, but one offhand comment near the beginning of the show confirmed what we had hoped, but not necessarily assumed: a Realme 9 (non-Pro) will come along. 

That wasn't something we'd take for granted, even though the suffix Pro does suggest there's a non-Pro version for it to be the Pro variant of.

That's because we've often seen Chinese brands launch Pro versions without a standard edition ever showing up. So it's good that Realme confirmed it.

If you’ve been waiting for the Realme GT 2 or its sibling the Realme GT 2 Pro then your wait is almost over, as the company has confirmed that these phones will get their global announcement at MWC 2022 on February 28.

This news was delivered during the announcement of the Realme 9 Pro range, so February is a busy month for Realme, with its latest mid-range smartphone series having just been announced and the high-end Realme GT 2 range just weeks away.

That said, you don’t have to wait until MWC 2022 to learn all about the Realme GT 2 range, as the company actually announced the phones in China back in January.

So the fact that a global launch is happening confirms that these phones will soon be more widely available, but the main new details we’re expecting to learn include exactly when and where you’ll be able to buy the Realme GT 2 and its sibling, and how much they’ll cost.

For reference, the original Realme GT cost €449 (around $550 / £390 / AU$710), so despite these being high-end phones they’re likely to significantly undercut the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S22 range and the iPhone 13 range. They also probably won’t be as widely available though.

Analysis: what we know about the Realme GT 2

So while we’re waiting on price and availability details, we already know almost all the specs of the Realme GT 2 range.

The standard model has a 6.62-inch 1080 x 2400 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 888 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM, up to 256GB of storage, a triple-lens rear camera headlined by a 50MP sensor, and a 5,000mAh battery with 65W charging.

The Realme GT 2 Pro has a 6.7-inch 1440 x 3216 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a top-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, up to 12GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage, a 5,000mAh battery with 65W charging, and a triple-lens camera with a 50MP main sensor, a 50MP ultra-wide one, and a 3MP microscope camera that can magnify objects by up to 40x.

• These are the best Realme phones

Two-minute review

The Realme 9 Pro Plus represents a new chapter for the company’s budget line of Android phones. This is the first ‘Pro Plus’ handset in the range, and it boasts a few features that we don’t see in the average smartphone.

Launched alongside the Realme 9 Pro (a non-Pro version hasn’t been unveiled at the time of writing), this is a seriously impressive device that shows us that ‘Pro Plus’ isn’t just an oxymoron, it’s a promise.

If you know Realme phones, you’ll know that the brand excels in the budget to mid-range market. The Realme 9 Pro Plus is just more evidence of that. As with the Realme GT from 2021, we’ve found ourselves very hard-pressed to find genuine criticisms about this phone, leaving us cursing that TechRadar’s review format requires three ‘cons’.

There are two unique features that, it seems, are meant to be the Realme 9 Pro Plus’ selling points. The first is a heart rate monitor built into the fingerprint scanner. This is a nice extra, but if we weren't testing the mobile to review it, we probably wouldn’t have noticed this existed.

The second selling point truly is something bold and bizarre: the rear of the phone changes color in sunlight, going from a sparkly blue to bright red. We love how weird this is - even if it brings no tangible benefits.

But while you might check out the phone for this eye-catching novelty, you’ll stay for its solid range of features and specs.

The phone’s cameras, charging speed and processing power are all above-average for a phone in this price range. Even the weaker elements, like the display or battery, are still on par with rival phones at this price. As we said, it’s hard to critique this phone.

Particularly impressive is the camera’s capabilities in low-light conditions, which is a type of photography we’ve previously only seen premium phones perform well at. With its 50MP Sony sensor, the Realme captures night shots you’d think were taken on an iPhone.

The Realme 9 Pro Plus does all this without betraying its roots as a low-cost device. Its price is enough to make it a seriously impressive phone for nearly all buyers. In fact, it’s a good enough phone to tempt people who’d otherwise want a much more expensive Samsung Galaxy or Apple iPhone

As you can tell from this breathless two-minute review, the Realme 9 Pro Plus really impressed us. It’s a great start to 2022 from the brand and a benchmark we’ll be comparing all future similarly priced phones to.

Realme 9 Pro Plus price and availability 

The Realme 9 Pro Plus costs £349 (roughly $470, AU$660), so it straddles the line between ‘budget’ and ‘mid-range’ phones.

The Realme’s release date is March 4 in the UK. We don’t have availability information for the US and Australia, but that’s not a total surprise. Realme doesn’t sell phones in the States and, while it does sell in Australia, the Realme 8 series didn’t launch there.

That price is, frankly, impressive for a smartphone that looks, feels and runs like this one. Contemporary competitors include the Moto G200 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro which are a tiny bit more expensive. 

When we started testing the Realme, we weren’t told the price, and we came to the conclusion that it’d be quite a bit more expensive than it actually is. When we found out the real price, we were shocked - that is to say, this seems like a bargain.

Design

The Realme 9 Pro Plus uses a rear design pattern that’s as novel as it is bizarre. While it doesn’t look that way from the images accompanying this review, trust us, it’s odd.

That’s because of what Realme calls its ‘Light Shift Design’. This isn’t just one of those color-changing backs like quite a few phones have, which flicker between shades as you turn them - no, it’s more like the Vivo V23.

It’s best to compare it to one of those color-changing mugs - when you leave the phone in sunlight, it gradually turns from blue to bright red, something we discovered with shock the first time we brought the device into the sun. After a few minutes out of the sun, it goes back to blue.

This is a cool trick and was great fun to watch the first few times we tried it. But we should point out that the color change requires direct sunlight, not indirect or artificial light, so it only works in particular circumstances. If, like us, you live in the UK, you’ll only get to use this feature about three times per year.

Beyond that eye-catching gimmick, this is your standard Android phone. There’s a USB-C port and 3.5mm headphone jack, with a power button on the right edge and a volume rocker on the left one.

As well as the Light Shift Design version of the phone we tested, there are also black and green versions available.

Display

With a 6.43-inch size, the Realme 9 Pro Plus is fairly medium-sized in the grand scheme of Androids, and its resolution of 1080 x 2400 and 90Hz refresh rate are also both par for the course for a phone of this price.

So it’s a perfectly serviceable screen, fine for playing games or streaming videos (most apps only offer at that resolution anyway). It’s fairly colorful too, though we did find the max brightness was a little lower than it could be.

Breaking up this display is a punch hole for the camera cut-out at the top left.

This phone uses an in-display fingerprint sensor, and one of the intriguing features of the phone is the fact that this doubles as a heart rate monitor. It’s a fun addition, which might be useful for people who don’t have a fitness tracker or bespoke tech for the function, though obviously, it’s not as accurate as either of those.

Unfortunately, the function is a little hidden in the phone - we had to search for it in the Settings app - so we’d like to see a home screen widget or better placement for it.

Cameras

There are three rear cameras on the Reamle 9 Pro Plus. Leading the charge is a 50MP main snapper, which is joined by an 8MP ultra-wide and 2MP macro cohort.

We were pleasantly surprised by the photo quality from the cameras Snaps looked bright and bold, with sharp detail and contrast was pronounced, especially on ultra-wide pictures.

The color profile was incredibly similar between standard and wide pictures, avoiding an issue that many multi-camera smartphones have. On the topic of ‘avoided problems’, ultra-wide pictures were barely distorted at all.

Likely thanks to the Sony IMX766 sensor in the main camera, which is fairly large and therefore takes in more light, low-light and night pictures looked great. Shots taken in Night photography mode were full of detail, sharp, and well exposed too, with sources of light in the shot not blowing out the rest of the image.

However, the standard Photo mode was no slouch for this kind of shot either, which meant that even when we didn’t have time to hold the camera still for several seconds (which Night mode requires), we could still capture an adequate shot.

It’s rare for a budget phone to be any good for low-light photography, so we were very pleasantly surprised by the Realme 9 Pro Plus’ performance.

The front-facing camera hits 16MP, and while selfies looked okay, we found they were a little washed-out. Maybe the vibrant pictures taken on the main camera spoiled us, but we would like to have seen more colorful selfies.

Video recording goes up to 4K, which is pretty standard for any modern smartphone, though that’s at 30fps - you can only go up to 60fps if you drop the resolution down to 1080p. Video quality was as good as photography, but we did find that autofocus while recording could be jittery, jumping to re-focus on different objects instead of smoothly gliding between subjects.

A new camera mode we haven’t seen before is Street, which is apparently for Street Photography, with a few different filters available. In practice, it didn’t offer any extra benefits over the standard camera modes and filters. There’s also a tilt-shift mode, something we have seen a few smartphone cameras try before, but we’ve always found that AI software can’t convincingly recreate the complicated camera hardware trick and it was the same here.

The usual crowd of modes is also present including macro, panorama, pro, slo-mo video, document scanning, time-lapse and dual-view video tools.

Camera samples

Performance and specs

The Realme 9 Pro Plus is the second phone we’ve seen with the MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset - the other was the aforementioned color-changing Vivo V23. This is a mid-range chip that slightly beats Snapdragon alternatives.

When we put the phone through the Geekbench 5 benchmark test, it returned a multi-core score of 2258. That’s better than the Vivo V23, which hit 2079, and puts it on par with the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Nubia Z20 and iPhone XR, flagship phones from past years.

For some additional context, contemporary mid-range processors usually hit around 1800, while top-end ones hit the low 3000s or sometimes high 2900s, so the Realme 9 Pro Plus is pretty powerful for its price.

We tested the phone over long gaming bouts and found it performed admirably - titles loaded quickly and were generally able to comfortably run high graphics options. In addition, the phone took a long time to heat up while gaming, likely thanks to new cooling tech Realme has introduced here.

We tested a version of the phone with 8GB RAM, but RAM expansion is on by default - this lets you use storage space to bump up the RAM a little bit and the Realme lets you get up to 5GB extra this way. There was 128GB storage in our review unit.

Since the Dimensity 920 has a 5G modem, you can connect this phone to the top-tier connectivity networks, if you live in an area that offers it.

There are dual stereo speakers on the Realme 9 Pro Plus, which is good for gaming or streaming media as it means it’s harder to accidentally cover the speaker grilles with your hands.

Software

The Realme 9 Pro Plus runs Android 12 with the company’s own Realme UI laid over the top. This is largely a design and theme change, but Realme does bring a fair amount of bloatware with its user interface.

The key selling point of Android 12 is its Material You feature, which lets you change app icons to match your home screen wallpaper, but like most Android 12 forks, this wasn’t available on Realme UI at the time of the 9 Pro Plus’ launch. (However, if you’re reading this review months after it was first published, it’s possible Material You has been brought to the phone.)

As mentioned, bloatware is a bit of a problem here. The Realme 9 Pro Plus comes with Amazon Shopping, Booking.com and LinkedIn already installed. We’ve seen other phone UIs with much more bloatware, so Realme isn’t the worst for this by any means, but it’s still rather irritating.

We found that navigating the phone’s user interface was pretty snappy: there was rarely lagging when we swiped between menus or opened and closed apps.

Battery life

Like the display, the battery life is another aspect of the Realme 9 Pro Plus that’s pretty average for this kind of phone. 

There’s a 4,500mAh battery that reliably lasted for a day of use, whether the day consisted of the odd social media here and there or long bouts of mobile gaming and movie streaming. You can really push this phone and rely on it to keep ticking.

We wouldn’t go as far as saying the phone has a two-day battery though, as you’d need to really modulate your behavior to keep it going that long. 

Charging speed is fairly impressive for a mid-range phone like this at 60W. Even some flagship phones, like the Samsung Galaxy S22, linger behind that. 

At that speed, powering the phone from empty to full should take about half an hour - but given the phone’s battery life, you shouldn’t find yourself at 0% too often.

Should I buy the Realme 9 Pro Plus?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

• First reviewed February 2022

Realme's numbered series of cheap phones were always interesting budget blowers, but the company rarely made a song and dance around them like it did its GT series of mid-rangers - that seems to be changing though.

The brand has been gradually building hype about the Realme 9 Pro series of phones, with a series of teases and feature announcements, and it's now confirmed that the line will debut on February 16.

As part of the announcement, the company also confirmed that the mobile will use a 50MP main camera using the Sony IMX766 sensor, which we've also seen in the GT 2 from Realme as well as the Xiaomi 12, OnePlus Nord 2 and Oppo Find X3 Pro.

The company is calling this the 'Realme 9 Pro series global launch event', and that wording suggests this is just an unveiling for the Realme 9 Pro devices - we've heard there's a Pro Plus too, and there could be more besides.

The implication, then, is that there's a standard Realme 9 series (note: non-Pro) coming at some point too, and if that's true, it seems Realme is shaking up its family of budget phones, and offering many more of them.

Typically, we've seen a standard, Pro and 5G version of Realme's numbered devices, so the existence of a Pro Plus is already new, and if the vanilla version has its own family too, there could be even more devices on the way.

We don't know quite what to expect from the wider Realme 9 series, but we'll cover the Pro launch in mid-February and bring you everything that's important, so check back then for all the news.

• What are Realme phones? Our guide to the brand

We're expecting the Realme 9 series to launch very soon, as the company has been teasing the upcoming phone's Pro and Pro Plus models recently, and the latest piece of information shows us the rear of the phone.

As you can see from the picture above, this isn't just your average smartphone design, as the Realme 9 Pro models will use a color-changing glass back. This will change from blue to red depending on how the light is hitting it, and it sounds a lot like the Vivo V23 in this regard, which has a gold-blue shifting pattern.

Realme calls this its 'Grace Color', using a 'Light Shift Design', although those are really just its marketing terms for what you or I would call a 'groovy'.

We've seen a few phones over the years with similar designs, but it's hard to capture these effects in a single image. So while the imagery Realme has provided is a guide, we'd recommend looking for a video or checking out the phone in person.

In addition, Realme has provided some other design details, including the 9 Pro's weight of 182g and thickness of 7.99g – both suggest this will be quite a dainty phone, and that's also suggested by the image above. Realme's previous numbered phones have been handy compact handsets, and it sounds like the new ones will follow that trend.

Analysis: the Realme 9 Pro is making a splash

Just one day prior to the Realme 9 Pro design unveiling, the company's Vice President announced that the phone will also feature a heart rate monitor.

In our analysis section for that news report, we said the feature sounded interesting, although for Realme to make its 9 Pro series stand out it needed even more novel or cutting-edge tools and extras.

Well, this color-changing design is exactly the kind of thing we had in mind; Realme now has our attention, and the 9 Pro phones could really make a splash.

We don't know when the phones will launch just yet, but hopefully we'll hear about even more cool features like this before the official debut.

Saying that, we hope Realme doesn't betray its numbered phone series' legacy of being great affordable mobiles by hiking the price too much.

• What are Realme phones? A guide to the company and its smartphones

You might not need to buy a fitness tracker or smartwatch to get a portable heart rate monitor soon, because Realme has confirmed that one of its next phones will feature beat-counting tech built in.

This comes from the company's Vice President Madhav Sheth, who Tweeted to say that the Realme 9 Pro Plus will get a heart rate monitor, along with a video of how this would work on the phone.

The interface shown in the short clip confirms that the feature uses the phone's in-screen fingerprint scanner, which in turn tells us that the upcoming mobile will get this unlocking tool.

Features like this generally aren't accurate compared to proper heart rate tracking equipment, but fitness fans or health-conscious users might find it a fun extra for the phone.

This isn't the first phone to ever feature a heart rate monitor built into the device, as Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Note phones between the S5 and Note 9 touted the feature - since then, no-one has used the feature.

At the moment, we don't actually know if the Realme 9 Pro Plus is the only member of its family to get the health tech, or if the 9 and 9 Pro could too.

We haven't heard too much about the Realme 9 Pro Plus just yet, though the company has previously confirmed its existence alongside standard and Pro models.

These three mobiles are expected to be the next entries in Realme's numbered series of budget phones, though we don't know when they're coming or if they'll arrive together.

We're also expecting the global rollout of the Realme GT 2 series, and we don't expect the company would launch multiple families at once, so we'll almost certainly have to wait on one or the other.

Analysis: a good start

We rarely see genuinely brand-new features brought to smartphones, other than the occasional occurrences of magnetic gadgets (something Apple and Realme have dabbled with) or styli (some Samsung and Motorola mobiles use them).

The Realme 9 Pro Plus having a built-in heart rate monitor is a good start towards the phone having a suite of interesting and novel features.

Alone, though, it's not enough - a heart rate sensor isn't a cool enough feature in itself to draw someone to the Realme over another phone.

So unless the phone has surprisingly competitive specs or pricing, we'd like Realme to include a few other interesting additions to really make the Realme 9 series shine.

• What are Realme phones? Here's our guide to the brand

The upcoming Realme 9 series of smartphones have leaked multiple times over the past month, but now we've had the phone's existence confirmed by the brand itself, and it's set to release at least two devices.

Realme has confirmed the existence of both the Realme 9 Pro and Realme 9 Pro Plus smartphones, but there's currently no word on a standard Realme 9. The Pro Plus series will be new for 2022, as in previous iterations the Pro model has been the top-end handset.

The brand will be including 5G connectivity on both of these handsets, and each will run on the MediaTek Dimensity 950 5G processor. This is the first smartphone revealed to feature that new chipset.

We've been told these new smartphones will be launching "in the coming days", but we've yet to hear exactly when that'll be and what information we'll get for each of the handsets.

We would still expect a standard Realme 9 model, but this heavily suggests it won't be launching at the same time as its Pro siblings. It's also unclear if that phone will come with 5G connectivity or the same MediaTek chipset.

Earlier in January, a report from @OnLeaks and Smartprix provided images of the upcoming phone as well as some specs. Those included a 6.59-inch 120Hz display with an in-display fingerprint scanner, 128GB of storage, and a rear camera with 64MP, 8MP and 2MP elements.

Weirdly, this leak also said the smartphone would launch with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 5G processor inside. We now know that isn't the case, so take this leak with a big pinch of salt as it may mean the rest of the information is inaccurate too.

Analysis: Goodbye, Dare to Leap

If the leaked images of the Realme 9 Pro are correct, we won't get the bold branding that we saw on the Realme 8 series. Those smartphones came with a "Dare to Leap" slogan emblazoned along the rear of the device.

It was a bold design decision, and it's likely to have put some potential buyers off investing in that series of Realme devices. 

The leaked images of the Realme 9 Pro don't show this, but that doesn't mean it won't make a return. It may be exclusive to the upcoming Realme 9 Pro Plus (we've only seen imagery of the Realme 9 Pro), or it may be that these images are inaccurate.

We'll have to wait for more official details from Realme before we'll know any of these details for sure.

• The very best Realme phones

If you've started hearing the Realme name relatively recently, you're not alone, because the once-small tech company has been enjoying a meteoric rise over the last few years.

Realme originated in China but it’s an up-and-comer in the rest of the world, especially in India and Europe, where its low-cost smartphones are making waves in the budget and mid-range price brackets. The company isn’t averse to premium models though, and the GT line which debuted in 2021 includes some top-end handsets.

In fact, Realme has been one of the quickest-growing phone companies for the last few years, so they're definitely worth paying attention to.

Below we’ll run you through a brief history of the company as well as the types of products it puts out, and everything else you need to know about the brand.

• These are the best smartphones right now

A brief history of Realme

Realme was founded in 2010 as a sub-brand to another smartphone company - Oppo, but gained independence in 2018, when it started producing its own smartphones.

Since then the company has put out phones at an impressive rate, and it’s also expanded from selling phones in India and China to many other parts of the globe too.

Realme joins other smartphone brands Oppo, OnePlus and Vivo as belonging to a tech conglomerate called BBK Electronics. The exact relationship between BBK’s smartphone companies has never been specified, but we sometimes see tech and innovations shared between the companies, especially Oppo and OnePlus.

What phones does Realme make?

Realme has two main smartphone lines, though that could change soon, as we’ll get into. In some regions the company has many more lines of smartphones like the Narzo, Q, C and V-prefix devices, but they’re not globally available, so we won’t go into detail on them.

The first of the two main lines is Realme's numbered line, with handsets like the Realme 7 and Realme 7 Pro. These are affordable and low-mid-range devices that rival Motorola’s Moto G or Xiaomi’s Redmi line, with cheap and cheery phones designed for people who need dependable devices without top specs. 

Then there's the Realme GT line, which was launched in 2021 as a replacement to the 'X' line. While X devices were mid-rangers, the GT line straddles middle-tier and high-end phones, with the GT 2 Pro the company's first premium flagship phone.

Realme GT phones generally offer top-end processors, fast charging and colorful designs, with less of an emphasis on camera capabilities.

Realme phone availability information

As Realme is fairly new, and has put out loads of smartphones since its debut, it’s hard to discern any particular patterns in its release schedule. Unlike many other phone brands, the company doesn’t seem to adhere to a yearly launch plan.

Regarding availability, Realme currently sells smartphones in most parts of the world, though the US is one exception. However, in an interview with TechRadar, Madhav Sheth, Realme’s CEO, suggested the brand could bring its devices to the US before too long as well. This could be a few years off though.

Other tech Realme sells

Like most tech companies, Realme has a product ecosystem of non-smartphone devices, though it’s rolling out its devices slowly. The company calls this its 1+4+N strategy where the ‘1’ is your smartphone which controls gadgets in 4 key areas including audio and wearables, which are helped by ‘N’ which denotes smart home and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

The non-smartphone gadgets include wireless headphones like the Realme Buds Air, smartwatches like the Realme Watch and fitness trackers like the Realme Band. In some regions the brand also has smart home appliances and TVs.

The company has pledged to rapidly expand its portfolio through 2021 though so we could see routers, tablets and more coming, though we don’t have clarity on exactly what.

• Read our full interview with Realme CEO Madhav Sheth

The Realme GT 2 series launch has been confusing over the last few weeks. We had expected the new handsets to debut earlier this week, but now the company has confirmed it will be hosting a global launch on January 4, 2022.

That should mean we get to hear all about the upcoming handsets - there's expected to be a Realme GT 2 and Realme GT 2 Pro - as well as details for markets outside of China.

The brand has also given us a glimpse at the Realme GT 2's design, which you can see in the image above and another image below. In fact, it's more than a glimpse as it shows the rear of the handset clearly.

Realme has confirmed the handset is made with a "bio-based polymer design" that makes it more environmentally friendly than other smartphone designs. That signature on the handset is from Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa, who helped design the product.

What's happening for the launch?

The launch date confirmation was made via an official poster that accompanied an invite from the company. The official statement also mentioned that the devices will launch in China on the same day as the global launch.

What makes the launch unique is the number of false starts that Realme appeared to have had towards the big day. The first of these happened on December 9 and then we heard that Realme would hold a launch on December 20. The company did conduct an event, but only to highlight some industry-leading features on the device.

At that event, the brand introduced details about the above back cover made of bio-polymer material, and a 150-degree ultra-wide camera.

While a lot of information around the flagship Realme GT 2 Pro flagship model has already been made available, there isn't enough of it on the vanilla variant in this line-up. The device was spotted on the company's Indian website, but there wasn't much information around the specifications or features. 

The original Realme GT was unveiled in March 2021 but was released globally about five months later. The GT Master Edition and GT Neo 2 were unveiled in the last few months of the year but went on sale pretty quickly. 

Coming this early, the Pro model can better compete against the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S21, Xiaomi 12 and OnePlus 10. 

What specs to expect on the Realme GT 2 Pro

Realme has now officially confirmed that the GT 2 Pro is one of the first phones to feature the newly launched Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. 

According to some past rumors, it may also feature a 6.51-inch Full HD Plus AMOLED screen, and a 108MP primary sensor on the back. 

Later, an AnTuTu listing revealed that the device could feature a 120Hz refresh rate and a 50MP snapper on the back. On the front, it could feature a 32MP camera. The Realme GT 2 Pro might also run Android 12, likely with Realme UI 3.0 on the top. 

The listing also mentions the device (which is a prototype) bears 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The smartphone could support 125W UltraDart charging, but the battery capacity is currently unknown.

• The world's very best smartphones

December is usually a quiet month for smartphone news, but December 2021 definitely isn't - case in point, the Realme GT 2 Pro is launching on the 9th day of the month, which is tomorrow at the time of writing, and also the same day the Moto Edge X30 is coming.

A post by the company on Chinese social media platform Weibo schedules an event for December 9, and says "The world's first GT 2 Pro user will be born at the event site!". Machine translation has wrought havoc with the meaning of that sentence, but it's safe to say the company's upcoming top-end phone will show its face at the live stream.

While that post makes it sound like the mobile will be teased and not unveiled, Realme recently confirmed that the GT 2 Pro would be launched in December, which makes it sound more likely that we'll get an official showing.

• These are the best Realme phones
• Check out our Realme GT Master Edition review
• The Samsung Galaxy S22 is coming soon too

There's no word on the Realme GT 2 - as in, the non-Pro sibling to the aforementioned mobile - and while Realme has been busy teasing its upcoming flagship phone, it's been silent on its 'standard' equivalent. So while we could see it tomorrow, we wouldn't be surprised if it didn't show up.

Nor is there word of the Realme GT 2 Fold, the brand's first foldable phone which has been rumored a little bit. The actual existence of this is a little hazy though, so we'd be surprised if it did show up.

This launch is a China-only one, so we'll only hear local pricing and availability of the phone, and we'll likely have to wait until the new year to hear about a global launch. This is the pattern we saw for the Realme GT earlier in 2021, as well as many other mobiles from the brand.

Analysis: why so early?

The original Realme GT is far less than a year old, with an unveiling at the beginning of 2021 and a global launch in August, and its siblings are even more recent than that. Since most phone lines come out in yearly schedules, it's a little surprising that the GT 2 is breaking cover so early.

But there's a very good reason, and it's all thanks to the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 - that's a new top-end chipset we'll likely see in loads of Android phones.

Each year companies compete to be the first to put out a phone running Qualcomm's newest top-end chipset. For the previous model, the Snapdragon 888, Xiaomi won by launching the Mi 11 earlier than originally expected.

For the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it seems a few companies are desperate not to let Xiaomi win again, because although the Xiaomi 12 is expected in the next few weeks, we've heard both Realme and Motorola are fighting for the crown too.

And that battle will take place on December 9, because we recently heard the Moto Edge X30 will be unveiled in China on that date - and now Realme has scheduled a launch for just a few hours earlier.

Depending on what it shows, then, Realme could win the Qualcomm crown with its GT 2 Pro - that's if this is a real unveiling, and not a tease - and steal Motorola's thunder.

The competition is a little daft, as not only are all these phones only being unveiled in China and not worldwide, but winning the Qualcomm crown doesn't actually come with that much merit. 

General phone audiences don't know enough about tech or smartphones to even know what a chipset is, let alone care about which company used a certain processor first - but that doesn't stop these brands from competing anyway.

• Realme GT 2 looks weirdly like the Google Pixel 6, according to leaked renders

There are far more rumored foldable phones than actually-launched ones, and another mobile is joining that list of prospective devices: apparently Realme is working on a flexing handset that could actually function as a follow-up to the Realme GT.

This news comes from 91Mobiles, which supposedly received leaked sketches of the upcoming device with detailed specs - it's not clear where the website got these images from, but they look like early design images, so take this information with a pinch of salt.

• These are the best Realme phones
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We can look to the pictures and specs to get an early view of the Realme GT 2 Fold, as the picture calls it. Judging by the sketches, the Fold will have a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 style form factor, meaning it'll open out like a book to give you a wide screen when you want it.

The specs say the phone will have an 8-inch main screen and a 6.5-inch cover screen for when the device is folded, which makes it bigger than the 7.6- and 6.2-inch Z Fold 3.

The only other specs listed are two 50MP rear cameras, though the sketch shows room for a third one.

Other details we can see in the images include a cut-out in the main display for a front camera, what looks like a fingerprint scanner (but could also be a catch to open the phone) and a USB-C port. We'll wait for more information on this phone.

Analysis: what's in a name?

The sketches are clearly marked 'Realme GT 2 Fold', so this could be the successor to the Realme GT. There's been no second-gen model of that device yet, despite the launch of the similarly-named Realme GT Neo 2.

So will the Realme GT's successor be a foldable phone? Well it would make sense, especially given that Realme recently confirmed it would be pushing into the premium market segment.

What seems more likely, though is that this new foldable will launch alongside the Realme GT's successor, as a top-end alternative to the mid-range phone. Otherwise, Realme would be moving its phone line from mid-price to top-tier after just one generation, and that doesn't make sense to us.

We'll have to wait and see for sure, though, and we're expecting to see the new phones in mid-2022, so we have some time to wait before the Realme GT 2 series shows up. Perhaps rumors will crop up in the meantime to fill in some blanks.

• Realme is ending one of its phone lines, and for an exciting reason

We’re a little surprised Realme is launching the GT Neo 2 globally, to be honest - the original GT Neo didn’t come west, and there's no GT 2, making this the third member of the series after the original Realme GT and the Realme GT Master Edition.

So the Realme GT Neo 2 sits differently in the company’s range in Europe to how it does worldwide; this could lead to confusion for loads of people in the west who are still struggling to work out which members of the GT line are, and aren’t, available to them.

Either way, this is a solid low-cost Android phone, which has some key changes from the original Realme GT but a clear common design theme. This is a bigger phone than the others in the GT family, both in its body size and weight - this affects the hand-feel, as does the fact that it has a glass back unlike the optionally faux-leather original.

We’ve tested the phone for a few days, and pending a full review, here are our initial thoughts and feelings on the device.

Realme GT Neo 2 release date and price

At the time of writing, we don’t have the Realme GT Neo 2’s price in the UK or Australia, and given Realme’s track record it won’t come to the US at all, but we have the cost in euros.

In Europe, the Realme GT Neo 2 starts at €450 (roughly £380, $520, AU$700) for 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and €550 (around £470, $630, AU$850) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. 

Notably, that makes it the same price as the original Realme GT, at least for the 8GB / 128GB version, though the GT didn’t come in a 12GB / 256GB model in most regions. The main trade-offs between the phones are that the GT has a smaller display and battery but a more powerful processor and cleaner software. The cameras are the same.

Design and display

The Realme GT Neo 2 is a rather bulky phone - while it’s clearly a GT phone in terms of looks alone, in the hand it definitely seems to have a hint of Redmi DNA.

The handset is bigger than most other GT devices, as while their display sizes hover around the 6.4-inch mark, the Neo 2 stretches up to 6.62 inches diagonally - and ‘stretch’ certainly is the right word, because it’s harder to get your hand around this device as a result of its bigger body.

The handset weighs 200g, which is a fair amount for a smartphone, and the back is glass instead of faux leather like you could optionally get the GT in (though that phone had a glass model too) - these factors combine with the bigger display to make the handset feel substantially heftier than its predecessors.

One of our favorite aspects of the Realme GT was its great hand-feel, as the device wasn’t too big and the faux leather rear felt great to grip. By losing both these perks, the GT Neo 2 isn’t as comfortable to hold.

If there is one clear common point the GT Neo 2 has with the GT, it's the appearance, with a vibrant green rear broken up by a jet-black racing stripe (the GT we tested was yellow, but was similar otherwise).

Well, that’s the GT Neo 2 that Realme is plastering on its promotional materials, and that we tested, but pure blue and black versions are also available.

The phone has a USB-C port but no 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s a power button on the right edge and a volume rocker on the left one, and on the back three rear cameras and two LED flash modules are housed on a slightly protruding bump.

A design feature we should point out is the in-box case - while most phones come packaged with cheap-feeling see-through silicon shells, the GT Neo 2 comes with a tougher protector that means you probably won’t need to buy a separate case.

The screen, as we said, is 6.62 inches diagonally - it has a 1080 x 2400 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate, with support for HDR10+ and a high max brightness of 1300 nits.

We did a small stint of gaming in our initial testing, and found the display looked good for this, especially with the max brightness and refresh rate complementing the device. It also made the already-vibrant user interface design really pop.

The screen is broken up by a punch-hole cut-out for the front-facing camera - it’s pretty small, and didn’t disrupt the viewing experience much.

Cameras and battery life 

The Realme GT Neo 2 has the exact same cameras as the GT, right down to the same sensors and lenses.

That means there’s a 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro and 16MP selfie camera. In our Realme GT review we were impressed by the main and ultra-wide cameras, but found the macro a bit redundant and missed the presence of a telephoto snapper for zoom shots.

Our short time testing the GT Neo 2 resulted in fairly similar results to those from the original GT, as you’d expect given the hardware similarities. It’s possible that some software tweaks have been introduced, but we’ll need to test out the phone for longer to find out.

The battery here is 5,000mAh, which is a bit bigger than the ones in the other GT phones, and we’d hope the device easily lasts a full day of use with this, though that’s something we’ll need to test out further.

We’re not super hopeful though, given the battery drain during our hours of testing. Saying that, phones often take a while to even out their power distribution after being set up, as they download all the apps and updates, so when the power consumption evens out we’ll update this review.

Charging is done at 65W, and according to Realme it’ll take 36 minutes to power up the phone to full, and as 65W is pretty fast, it seems likely that this is correct. We’ll get our stopwatch ready for our full review.

Specs, performance and software

The choice of chipset in the Realme GT Neo 2 is a curious one - it uses the Snapdragon 870, which is the most powerful processor found in low-cost devices, though it’s not as fast as the Snapdragon 888 which the Realme GT had.

As a result, the phone is pretty powerful, making it great for gaming, and titles loaded quickly and could render top graphical options. For most games, it’s all you’ll need - and unlike the 888, it doesn’t overheat after even a short stint of gaming.

We had the hard task of testing the phone’s gaming power out, and so tested a few different titles, and can confirm it plays games great. 

This processor is paired with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage space - the smaller options will be enough for most people, though prolific gamers might notice the boost that 12GB of RAM gives.

The device runs the Android 11 operating system, with Realme UI 2 laid over the top. We were startled with how many pre-installed apps were on the device when we booted it up: Netflix, Facebook, Amazon Shopping, Prime Video, Amazon Music, Booking.com, Twitter, LinkedIn and PUBG Mobile were all already on the device, along with the expected pre-installed apps like a calculator, game mode, recorder and compass.

We had to go through a deleting spree when setting up the phone to remove quite a few of these apps that we never use; not only that, but part-way through our testing the phone received an update, and TikTok and AliExpress got added too. Previously, Xiaomi’s MIUI has been the worst Android fork for bloatware, but Realme UI is seemingly making a claim for that title.

Otherwise, Realme UI has a fair few customization options, and it felt fluid to navigate because of the processor, the RAM and the 120Hz display.

Early verdict

We can’t help but feel the Realme GT Neo 2 doesn’t quite compare to the original GT - that device felt better in the hand, was more powerful, and cost roughly the same amount, and given the choice between them, we’d buy the GT. Oh, and the Neo 2 seems to somehow have even more bloatware than its predecessor.

Some people might find the Neo 2 preferable though - its Snapdragon 870 isn’t as prone to overheating, and the bigger display will be more useful for gaming and streaming media.

Stay tuned for our full review at some point soon, when we’ll be able to give a full verdict on the phone and how it compares to other similar mobiles.

• These are the best Realme phones

Realme is pulling a Xiaomi: after brewing up a storm in the mid-range Android phone market with its fantastic Realme GT, the company is apparently making the jump to the top-end market in 2022.

In an interview with GSMArena, Realme CEO Madhav Sheth apparently said that the company is planning an "ultra-premium flagship" phone which will join the GT series. 

It's not clear how Sheth would define 'ultra-premium', as while we'd typically consider that a super-pricey phone like the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, iPhone 13 Pro Max or Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, the company might define it differently - instead, this mystery upcoming Realme phone could be a Samsung Galaxy S22 or Xiaomi 12 rival.

• These are the best Realme phones
• Get ready for Black Friday phone deals
• Check out our Realme GT Master Edition review

All Realme's current phones are budget or mid-rangers, so it would be quite a jump for the company to release a super-premium phone - that's why we think this is more likely a rival to Samsung or Xiaomi's anticipated mainstream flagships.

Those two phones are expected to launch in the first few months of 2022 - that's a window when we normally see lots of big new phones announced, so a Realme GT 2 or GT Pro would fit right in, though GSMArena doesn't quote Sheth on giving a particular release plan.

In addition, Sheth mentioned that Realme is looking to use 125W chargers in more phones in 2022, something he previously told TechRadar, though there's no indication that this will be used in the upcoming Realme GT phone.

Details are light on this upcoming Realme phone, but take this information with a pinch of salt for now; while this is official confirmation from the company, we've previously been given this kind of access from Realme on an upcoming phone only for the device to never materialize. We'll have to see what launches before we can say anything for sure.

Analysis: don't forget where you came from

No smartphone company holds the crown of 'mid-range champion' for long, as it seems that each brand holds the title for a short time before forgetting these roots and trying to win big.

We saw this happen with OnePlus and Xiaomi in the past few years, as for a time each brand ruled the mid-range market - until their devices escalated in price to become premium handsets. Now, the OnePlus 9 and Xiaomi Mi 11 are decidedly top-end phones.

Even though OnePlus and Xiaomi still have mid-range phones coming out, they're not as competitively spec'd or priced as their forebears. That's what let Realme get a foothold in the mid-range market in the last year.

The difference between OnePlus and Xiaomi, and Realme, is that the former two held the mid-range market for some time before jumping up. Realme's still a relative newcomer to the west, and wasn't a huge presence in the phone market before its eye-catching Realme GT.

OnePlus and Xiaomi successfully stuck the landing when they started making premium devices, but Realme might not have the legacy or stopping power to do so.

So for now, we'd like to see Realme continue to focus on the mid-range market and become a bigger player there, because at the moment while the Realme GT is arguably the best mid-range smartphone, casual buyers still aren't familiar with the brand's name as much.

Then, when Realme becomes a household name as much as Huawei or Xiaomi, then perhaps it should consider top-end phones more. 

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The iPhone 12 brought with it Apple's MagSafe, a tech that let you magnetically clip on peripherals like chargers and wallets. In early August Realme unveiled MagDart, an equivalent for its own phones, and a few weeks later Oppo showed off MagVOOC, yet another magnetic phone charger.

But, as it turns out, MagDart and MagVOOC are the same thing. In a statement to TechRadar, Oppo confirmed "we have shared our MagVOOC technology with Realme". 

This makes it sound like Oppo developed the tech and Realme developed its own version, but we've reached out to the latter company for clarity and will update this article when we hear back.

• These are the best Oppo phones
• We've ranked the best MagSafe accessories
• What are Realme phones? Our guide

MagDart and MagVOOC similarities aren't as surprising as they may seem. Both Oppo and Realme are owned by BBK Electronics, a Chinese tech conglomerate, and though the exact relationship between BBK subsidies is notoriously vague, some of the brands (a list which includes Vivo and OnePlus as well as Oppo and Realme) have been known to share tech.

Plus, when MagDart was announced, Realme confirmed to TechRadar, "The tech we launched is a standard, so if other companies' devices fit it, it can also be used", making it clear that other brands were free to use MagDart. 

Oppo suggesting it developed the magnets first doesn't quite fit this narrative, though.

In Oppo's statement to TechRadar, it continued "Oppo is open to collaborations across industries to jointly build a VOOC flash charge ecosystem, providing a superior flash charging experience for consumers around the world”, which suggests some of the other accessories Realme unveiled for its magnetic charging MagDart could work on Oppo phones. These include stands, wallets and cases.

Neither MagDart nor MagVOOC is currently available on phones you can buy - both were unveiled as concepts, that'll likely make their way to future Realme and Oppo phones in the near future. Until then, we can't tell if the Dart and the VOOC will literally work together - but by Oppo's statement, it sounds very likely they will.

• MagSafe can interfere with pacemakers, Apple confirms

Two-minute review

Realme has tried to use a bit of a semantic sleight of hand here, because the Realme GT Master Edition is actually a less powerful, cheaper version of the Realme GT that we've already reviewed – which perhaps isn't what you'd expect from the name. We very much liked the original though, and this variation impresses in most departments too.

While the chipset is a step down from the very best processors of the moment, it's still more than capable, and will handle all your day-to-day smartphone tasks very well indeed. You won't notice any lag or slowdown with this device – well, not for the first couple of weeks anyway – and it has the specs to run the most demanding apps and games without any trouble.

As for the highlights of the Realme GT Master Edition, the 6.43-inch screen supplied by Samsung certainly stands out, and so does the 65W super-fast charging that Realme has installed here. It can get your battery from empty all the way up to full in the space of just 33 minutes, which is fantastic. Battery life proved really good in our testing too, and you might even be able to squeeze two days of use out of it in some situations.

There's no wireless charging though, and no waterproofing – two of the features that are very often cut as phone manufacturers try to reach cheaper price points. The design of the phone is fine, though rather ordinary, and it's mostly the same story with the triple-lens rear camera: perfectly adequate for the price but you're not necessarily going to get shots that wow you (especially at night).

Based on the pricing of the Realme GT Master Edition in the US, it's up against some strong competition in this very crowded segment of the market: the likes of the iPhone SE, the OnePlus Nord 2 and the Google Pixel 5a, for example.

Those are all really good buys, and they make it tougher to wholeheartedly recommend this handset from Realme – as always, check out the alternatives closely before making a purchase.

If you're shopping around at this price point then the Realme GT Master Edition is absolutely a handset worth considering and weighing up – it just might not have enough to outshine some of the other phones that cost similar amounts of money.

Realme GT Master Edition price and availability

• Rolling out slowly
• From $399 in the US
• No UK pricing yet

Chinese phone makers, Realme included, like to keep us guessing a lot of the time when it comes to international pricing and availability. At the time of writing, what we know for sure is the Realme GT Master Edition will cost $399 in the US (about £290 / AU$550) for a configuration with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and $449 (about £325 / AU$620) for an 8GB+256GB model.

What we don't know is exactly when the phone will go on sale in the US, or what the pricing and launch date might be in the UK and Australia – though it is expected to come to these markets in due course.

Design

• Choice of colors and designs
• Thin and lightweight
• Includes a headphone jack

Realme usually delivers the goods when it comes to smartphone design and build quality, and that's again the case with the Realme GT Master Edition: it's a well made, slim, nice-looking phone that feels more compact in the hand than you might expect from its 6.43-inch screen size: perhaps that's due to the thin bezels, the tall 20:9 aspect ratio, and the lightweight construction.

There is a Voyager Grey version of this phone that has a ridged vegan leather back, apparently inspired by the look of hard shell suitcases – it looks rather cool, but our Luna White review model has a more ordinary flat back. The other color option you've got is Cosmos Black, which again just has the standard flat back to it.

The phone measures 159.2 x 73.5 x 8mm (that's 6.27 x 2.89 x 0.31 inches), and weighs 174 grams (0.38 pounds). As you look at it, the power button is on the right, the volume controls are on the left, and you've got a single speaker, a USB-C port, and even a headphone jack on the bottom – you don't have to go hunting for a dongle if you want to plug in your wired headphones.

Pick up the Realme GT Master Edition and it feels like a phone that's towards the more premium end of the spectrum: we liked the matte plastic back on our white review unit, and the camera bump up in the top left corner of the rear isn't offensively large (and nor is the small silver Realme logo on the back).

Around the edges there's a familiar metal banding, which looks perfectly fine, and the slight curves around the corners and the edges add to the overall appeal.

As befits the mid-range-to-budget price of the Realme GT Master Edition, there's no water resistance or IP rating here – you might not get your phone back in a functional state if it falls in the sink or the bath, so that's one design corner that's been cut.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course, but we think we prefer the suitcase-style grey version of this phone. The white and black finishes aren't quite as appealing in terms of their aesthetics, though overall we've got no complaints with the Realme GT Master Edition's design.

Display

• Bright, sharp 6.43-inch screen
• No support for HDR
• Manual screen color adjustments

The Realme GT Master Edition comes fitted with a rather impressive 6.43-inch Super AMOLED display made by Samsung: you get a high 120Hz refresh rate and a resolution of 1080 x 2400 (that's 409 pixels per inch). There's 1,000 nits of peak brightness, a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 wide color gamut.

What all of those specs mean is that this phone has a very impressive display indeed – it's undoubtedly one of the handset's best features. At the highest brightness settings, colors pop, photos and videos really shine, and you'll have no problems seeing the screen in broad daylight.

Dig into the settings, and you've got three screen color modes to pick from, as well as a screen color temperature slider going from cooler to warmer.

There's no support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) on this phone though – pretty standard for handsets at this price point – which means darker and lighter areas of screen won't be as well balanced as they are on more expensive phones.

We didn't really have a problem with it however, and it doesn't really detract too much from the experience of using the screen. Animations are fluid, text is sharp, and no matter what you're doing with your phone, the display will serve you well.

Realme has managed to get the display bezels nice and small (the phone apparently has a 91.7% screen-to-body ratio), and the only interruption is a little punch-hole in the top left corner.

Viewing angles are great too, so you can keep reading or watching whatever your phone is showing from relatively tight angles. It's definitely a better display than you might expect given the price of the Realme GT Master Edition.

Camera

• Triple-lens 64MP+8MP+2MP rear camera
• Respectable low light performance
• Plenty of software modes and features

We've largely been impressed by what the camera on the Realme GT Master Edition has to offer – it's certainly respectable for this price point.

The rear camera setup is exactly the same as it is on the standard Realme GT, so you've got a triple-lens 64MP wide + 8MP ultra-wide + 2MP macro setup – there's no optical zoom here, and to be honest we didn't make much use of the macro mode either, because the standard mode is fine for any close-up shots you need.

Photos are captured quickly, with accurate autofocus, plenty of vibrancy and sharpness, and decent HDR processing that stops the darkest and lightest parts of a picture from losing detail. Colors are perhaps a little too bright in places and images can get over-sharpened, but these aren't major problems, and can be quite easily corrected in your photo editing software of choice.

You can also take some reasonable-looking low light shots with the Realme GT Master Edition, which isn't always a given with a mid-range phone.

With a steady hand as you take the photo and some extra processing on the software side, the phone is able to return decent results in very dim conditions, though you definitely shouldn't expect miracles – we're not talking Pixel-level night time photography here (see the images we've posted below for a few examples).

An ultra-wide mode is always handy to have, and the one on offer here works well: it's able to fit a whole lot more into a particular scene without any of the distortion or blurring that can creep in when ultra-wide mode is utilized. On the video front, the rear camera is capable of recording up to a 4K resolution at 30 frames per second.

The single-lens, front-facing selfie camera gets a significant resolution boost compared to the standard Realme GT – 32MP instead of 16MP – and it's also worth mentioning the plethora of different filters and editing options that the Realme camera software gives you. Everything from white balance to ISO can be adjusted, and there are dedicated modes for night sky photography and shooting photos on the street.

While we didn't play around with these extra features and modes too much – and we doubt other people will want to bother either – they are there if you need them. Bokeh shots, time lapses, and ultra-long exposures can all be configured as well, so this is a good choice for the serious mobile photographers out there.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• Runs the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G
• Snappy and responsive performance
• Comes with 5G on board

The Realme GT Master Edition runs the mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G processor, which is a step down from the Snapdragon 888 inside the standard Realme GT.

It's still a very capable chipset, but you're not going to get the sort of top-end performance that you do in the expensive flagship phones currently on the market – this will be most noticeable in demanding games and intense tasks like video editing.

The chipset is paired with 6GB or 8GB of RAM, and either 128GB or 256GB of internal storage – which you can't expand, as there isn't a memory slot. Our review model came with the top spec, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, of which you'll get around 231GB free after a clean install. It's a very decent configuration, and we didn't notice any problems in terms of slowdown or lag while we were using it.

Benchmarks don't tell the whole story when it comes to smartphone performance, but if you want an easy way of comparing the Realme GT Master Edition with other handsets, it scored 2,798 (multi-core), 769 (single-core) and 2,214 (OpenCL) in our Geekbench 5 tests. In terms of the multi-core score, Snapdragon 888-equipped phones like the Realme GT and the Xiaomi Mi 11 are up in the 3500s.

Testing out the Realme GT Master Edition with Asphalt 9: Legends and Alto's Odyssey, the phone kept up a smooth and fluid frame rate throughout – we didn't see any performance blips or issues. The same goes for running multiple apps and browser tabs at once and switching between them, which was all handled very capably by the device.

After just a few days with the phone we can't comment on how drastically it's going to slow down over time, but our initial impressions were good.

Software duties are handled by the latest Android 11 with the usual Realme UI on top – it's not the worst Android skin we've ever come across, but like a lot of Chinese companies, Realme tends to make its software a bit too fiddly and bloated for our liking. Facebook and LinkedIn come pre-installed for some reason, alongside apps like Realme Link and Phone Manager that we don't really get the purpose of.

There's 5G on board here, which is now par for the course on all but the cheapest smartphones – you won't have any problems connecting to the next-generation networks when they finally roll out in your area. Whereas smartphone manufacturers once saved money by leaving 5G off the specs sheet, it's now become more or less ubiquitous.

Perhaps the only other feature worth mentioning is the single speaker down at the bottom of the smartphone – it's decent enough, but it can become muffled if you're holding the phone in landscape mode, with one of your hands placed directly over it. That's by no means a problem exclusive to the Realme GT Master Edition though, and in general you'll get respectable sound for your games, movies and music.

Battery life

• 4,300mAh capacity
• Decent battery life
• 65W fast charging

The 4,300mAh capacity battery on the Realme GT Master Edition holds up rather well – after a day of standard smartphone use that started with a full charge, we usually found that at least a third of that was remaining by the evening (though it obviously depends on what you're doing on your phone, the screen brightness you've set, and so on). New batteries in new phones always perform pretty well, but the battery life here definitely seems to be above average.

Some lightweight gaming pushed the battery level down by about 12% an hour, while video streaming over Wi-Fi caused the battery level to drop by about 7% per hour based on our experience with the handset.

In both cases the screen was set to the maximum possible brightness, so if you're prepared to put up with something a little dimmer then you'll be able to improve on that.

The phone sports what Realme calls SuperDart Charge fast charging technology, which is rated up to 65W – that should be enough to get the battery from zero to 100% in a little over half an hour with the supplied charger (and our testing backed this up). With charging that fast, battery life becomes less important as long as you can fit in some quick top ups from the mains power supply.

What you don't get with the Realme GT Master Edition is the convenience of wireless charging – it's wired all the way when it comes to charging up this phone.

Wireless charging is a feature that often gets cut at this price point in the smartphone market, and while you can manage perfectly well without it, if you do like to have the option then you might want to consider going for a more expensive handset.

Should you buy the Realme GT Master Edition?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: August 2021

Two-minute review

You may know Realme for its cheap phones and low-cost earbuds and smartwatches, but the company has just made its most eye-catching phone yet in the shape of the mid-range Realme GT.

Named after the grand tourer type of sports car, with its connotations of sleek looks and high performance, the Realme GT is the first in a new series from the Chinese tech brand.

While Realme has put out mid-ranged handsets before, with its X series sometimes putting feet tentatively over the line, this is the company’s first concerted effort to hit the low-cost/high-spec market with one distinctive line – and for the most part, the Realme GT is a roaring success as a phone that offers impressive specs at a low price.

In terms of processing power the Realme GT laps its competitors, as it’s one of the most affordable phones to pack the Snapdragon 888 chipset. This top-end processor ensures the phone is super-fast to use, perfect for gaming and editing, but you’ll notice the speeds in day-to-day use too.

Talking of speed, the Realme GT has incredibly fast charging, going from full to empty in just over 30 minutes. That’s some real speed, especially for a low-cost phone. 

The screen looks great – it’s an AMOLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate – and the phone’s body isn’t too big, so it’s easy to use one-handed.

We can’t go without commending the Realme GT’s design either, as it’s certainly distinctive. The main version of the phone comes in a vibrant yellow, which is contrasted with a jet-black stripe. It gives the phone a real ‘Ford Mustang GT’ vibe, and is way more eye-catching than your standard black / white / muted finish (though silver or blue versions are also available, without this stripe).

We’re going to have to take a pit-stop from this list of positives, though, to highlight a few small issues with the phone. We’ve found that it heats up quite easily if you’re gaming or doing an intensive process, and it misses a trick in not having a telephoto lens for optical-zoom shots, especially as the macro snapper isn’t anything to write home about.

We also had a recurring problem when streaming media on apps like Spotify and Netflix, where the media would repeatedly stutter and freeze. This seemed to be a connection issue, though it’s possible that this isn’t a common bug.

These are relatively small concerns, though, and overall it’s easy to recommend the Realme GT as a fantastic mid-range phone. With Realme launching the phone just a few months after the great Realme 8 Pro, it seems as if the Chinese tech company is really taking a victory lap at the moment.

Oh, and don’t worry – we’re all out of racing puns now.

Realme GT price and availability

The Realme GT availability is a tricky one – it’s technically on sale in the UK, but it’s via AliExpress, an import retailer. It’s not available in Australia or the US yet, and Realme’s precedent suggests that a release in the former is likely but the latter is not.

If you order the phone via AliExpress, since you’re importing it it’ll probably take quite a while to get to you, and you’ll have to look out for non-official and fake listings. You can’t buy the Realme GT from more trusted retailers like Amazon or any official carriers.

Pricing also isn’t straightforward, because AliExpress only uses euro pricing, and you’ll be shown a UK equivalent depending on the current exchange rate when you look to buy the phone. The official euro price starts at €449, which converts to about $550, £390 or AU$710 at time of launch, and we’ve treated these conversions like official figures for the purposes of this review.

For those in India, the phone is now on sale with the 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage model costing Rs 37,999. The 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage variant costs Rs 41,999, and you'll find both of those available on Flipkart.

Design

The Realme GT has a distinctive design, with (on the phone we reviewed) a yellow faux-leather rear broken up by a black glass strip that trails down from the camera bump. This feels like the biggest ‘grand tourer’ influence on the phone, evoking the idea of racing stripes, and it’s certainly an eye-catching look.

There’s also a non-leather version of the phone which comes in silver or blue, which won't turn heads as much. And if you're not a fan of leather phones for ethical reasons, don't worry – the 'faux' leather of the Realme GT is vegan.

Beyond its appearance, the Realme GT is a little more by-the-books in terms of smartphone design, but there are still some things to like. It’s a little on the small side compared to the myriad super-size Android phones that line store shelves nowadays, with dimensions of 158.5 x 73.3 x 8.4mm and a weight of 186g. It’s not tiny, but it’s below average.

We found the Realme GT fairly comfortable to use due to this size, with all the side buttons, and much of the screen, easy to reach. On the back, the camera bump barely rises above the rest of the rear, adding to the phone’s sleek appeal.

The right edge of the phone houses the power button, with the volume rocker on the opposite edge. The phone also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which wired-headphone fans will be glad to see, and a USB-C port.

Display

The Realme GT has a 6.43-inch screen that’s broken up by a ‘punch-hole’ cutout for the front camera at the top-left. There’s very little bezel, so the screen takes up most of the front of the device.

This screen uses Super AMOLED tech, so colors are bright and bold, with good contrast, although this type of screen can be harder to see in direct sunlight (an issue we encountered). The screen resolution is 1080 x 2400, which is pretty average for a smartphone, and it’ll suit you just fine for streaming, gaming, or scrolling through social media.

Something you don’t always see at this price point is the Realme GT’s 120Hz display, which means the screen image updates 120 times per second. The standard used to be 60Hz, and plenty of phones still stick to it, but the upgrade here means you’ll see motion looking smooth and slick (though you can downgrade to 60Hz or use a variable refresh rate, both of which will save on battery life, if you prefer).

The Realme GT’s screen is good for the phone’s price, and is more than fit for purpose for anything you’ll be using the device for.

Cameras

The Realme GT has three rear cameras and one front one: on the back you’ve got 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide and 2MP macro snappers, and round the front is a 16MP camera for selfies and video calls.

We found pictures taken with the front camera appeared very bright, thanks to the post-processing beauty tools – perhaps a little too much so, in fact, as snaps looked a bit artificial at times. You can tweak the beauty settings to remedy this to a certain degree, but if you’re just snapping selfies to share on social media it’s fine.

Photos taken with the main camera look good, but fall short of being great. They’re full of detail, and shots taken in good lighting looked nice and bright, but some photos showed distinct signs of oversharpening, while highlights were overexposed in others, and we sometimes found the camera struggled to focus on close subjects.

Ultra-wide pictures were fairly impressive, with very little distortion compared to snaps we’ve taken on other phones at this price. These shots were fairly bright, and thanks to the 119-degree angle of the lens, the field of view was much wider than in snaps taken on the main camera.

We were less impressed by the macro camera. The best close-up shots we took with this were never any better than similar snaps we took with the main camera. As with most 2MP macro snappers on phones, its inclusion here seems designed more to expand the specs list than to enhance the photography experience.

There’s no telephoto lens here for zoom photography, which is a shame, as we’d likely be much more positive about the camera performance with one of those instead of the macro lens. You can zoom digitally, up to 10x, but past 2x pictures become too blurry to be worth it.

The Realme GT lets you record video up to 4K at 30fps or 60fps. There’s also a mode that uses AI to recognize colors, so you can film in monochrome but with one color still present – think the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List – which was fun to play around with, and which could make for some interesting videos for the ‘Gram.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

You won’t find many phones at the Realme GT’s price that are as powerful – the phone boasts the top-end Snapdragon 888 chipset, which is the most powerful processor available to Android phones as of its release. 

This is paired with 8GB or 12GB of RAM – our review handset had 8GB – and 128GB of storage.

Thanks to this top-end chipset, the Realme GT blasts through games with ease – we barely saw any stuttering or lag when playing top titles – and apps loaded swiftly. This is one of the best low-cost phones out there for gaming.

Using the Geekbench 5 testing platform, we found the phone returned a multi-core score of 3508 – that’s exactly the same as the Asus Zenfone 8, and just a hair shy of the Xiaomi Mi 11 at 3569, the OnePlus 9 at 3654, and the Nubia Red Magic 6 at 3606, all of which use the same chipset but cost more. 

We did find that the device could sometimes heat up when playing games, or indeed when being put through the benchmark test – it was never enough to have a detrimental effect on performance, but enough to be wary of.

The Realme GT’s speakers are… well, they’re fit for purpose. They’ll do for listening to a podcast in the shower, or if you need to put a call on loudspeaker, but using them for music or streaming isn’t recommended – they’re a little tinny.

Software

Like all Realme phones, the GT runs Realme UI, a fork of standard Android, which is basically a re-skinned version of Android 11 that’s very similar to Oppo’s ColorOS.

Like ColorOS, Realme UI comes with loads of personalizations. As well as changing the wallpaper and app layout, as you can on all phones, you can design your own always-on display, pick from a selection of animations that appear when you press the fingerprint scanner, change the color of icons across the phone, design your own app icons by picking from different sizes and shapes, and change the system font.

Oppo and Realme are owned by the same parent company, which also has Vivo and OnePlus under its belt, so similarities between the phones and their software is common. Still, Realme UI is near-identical to ColorOS.

We did find that when we fired up the Realme GT for the first time there was quite a bit of bloatware installed. This included Realme’s own apps like Phone Manager, Realme Link, and a theme store, and an odd mix of third-party apps like Booking.com, Agoda and LinkedIn (a selection which is probably dependent on region). Below you can see a screenshot of the home screens, before we embarked on a tidy-up – it’s quite an intimidating spread to see on your ‘clean’ new phone.

Navigation-wise, the Realme GT is a treat to use. Its processor and 120Hz screen make swiping around the user interface quick and effortless.

This is probably the best place to mention a small issue we encountered when streaming music from Spotify and TV from Netflix – the playback would often stutter, as though we were repeatedly pressing ‘play’ and ‘pause‘. This wasn’t tied to problems with headphones or poor data connection, and we experienced the problem regularly, enough to highlight in this review.

It’s possible that this bug isn’t widespread, so if you buy this phone it might not affect you, but we wouldn’t be doing our job if we failed to mention it.

Battery life

The Realme GT packs a 4,500mAh battery, which is about average for a phone at this price, and that’s the exact word we’d use to describe the device’s battery life: ‘average’.

We found the Realme GT handily lasted a full day between charges, whether we were only checking social media now and then, or streaming Netflix, playing a quick game of Call of Duty: Mobile and listening to music throughout the day.

With heavier use we sometimes saw the battery life drop to single-digit percentages by night-time, but we never needed to power up the phone during the day; a second full day of use was generally out of the question though.

A full day of battery life is about average for a smartphone, but what’s not-so-average is the handset’s charging speed: at 65W, the Realme GT laps its competitors in this department.

At this speed the phone goes from empty to full in just over half an hour, so you don’t need to worry about remembering to plug the device in overnight, as you can easily keep it topped with just a few minutes every morning.

Should I buy the Realme GT?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

• First reviewed June 2021

Chinese tech company Realme has just launched two brand-new phones, the GT Master Edition and GT Explorer Master Edition. These two handsets straddle the existing Realme GT, one of our favorite Android phones you can buy right now.

Fans of Realme phones might have noticed something interesting about one of the new phones, the mid-range Explorer Master Edition. It has one particular design feature that barely any devices from the brand have used up until this point.

No, we're not talking about the curious suitcase-style ribbed rear that certain types of the new phones use, though that's certainly a novel design feature. We're in fact talking about how the phone has a screen that curves at the edge.

Curved-edge screens are commonplace for premium phones, but with Realme generally making budget and mid-range devices, it rarely uses the design feature. In fact, the company hasn't launched a single angled-screen phone in Europe, and the Explorer Master Edition will be the first if it launches there.

During an interview with Realme CEO Madhav Sheth - we've already reported on another comment made, about how the Realme GT line is replacing the X series, and we've got more stories to come from the discussion - the topic of these new phones, and the thinking behind them, came up.

• What are Realme phones? Our guide to the brand and its tech

What makes a Master or an Explorer?

While the Realme GT series seemed like a bolt from the blue from a consumer perspective, it turns out Realme was planning the series for a while - we asked if the Master and Explorer devices were in the pipeline before the original came out, or if the GT's success prompted some spin-offs. Sheth told us: 

"It was planned - definitely it was planned. We wanted to expand the GT series; we didn't want to stick to the triple-8 version [referring the the Snapdragon 888 chipset used in the original Realme GT], we wanted to bring some more chipsets into this series as well".

If it wasn't clear from that quote, Sheth emphasized "GT is about the performance". One of our favorite aspects of the premier phone was its top-end chipset, which was surprising given it was an affordable handset. In the same way that top cameras are a staple of Huawei P phones, or big, high-res screens are a Sony Xperia flagship feature, it sounds like top performance will be GT phones' main trait.

So why, then, do the Master and Explorer phones not use the 888, but the 778G and 870 respectively? "We wanted to make sure we embraced [all] the chipsets at this particular price," Sheth explained, "so people can experience the best of 5G, even if the services are not rolled out, without compromising on the price as well as the performance."

Sheth's point about embracing various chipsets rings true because, while the 888 is top in terms of processing power, it's not necessarily the 'best' overall. That's because the 888 has well-reported overheating issues while the 870 doesn't, and that lower-number chipset isn't too far off the top-end model in terms of performance power.

So presumably Realme opted for these lower-end chipsets because that resulted in cheaper phones, without providing a noticeably different user experience.

The curving of the screen

Now onto the curved screen, a surprisingly premium feature for this Realme phone. Turns out, this has been a long time coming: "we have been trying, on the curved screens, for a really long time." Sheth told us.

"I believe that display is going to be the most important aspect in the near future." Sheth explained, echoing comments he made at a similar interview with TechRadar a year prior, except that was about charging speed. "I think post-pandemic, that one of the most important aspects we are learning about people is that they're looking for a bigger, better, brighter and more responsive screen, and the expectation for the screen has been much higher than it was before".

The word 'bigger' is interesting, as Realme phones tend to be pretty small, with the GT devices all sitting at 6.4 inches diagonally, while lots of the industry tends towards 6.7 or 6.8 inches. It's something we've liked about the phones, making them easy to use one-handed, but evidently, some prefer wider displays.

It's also intriguing to see Realme edge towards curved-edge screens, given lots of the industry is taking steps away - the Samsung Galaxy S21 phones had smaller curves than their predecessors, and the Motorola Edge 20 series doesn't have the feature at all despite the name.

When we spoke to Xiaomi about its Mi 10T in 2020, the decision to use a flat display instead of a curved-edge one was justified with a stat - apparently 60% of people polled by the brand said they preferred flat to curved edges.

The reasoning is that curved-edge displays are prone to accidental touches along the edge, which can sometimes trigger unintended functions - some brands have found software solutions to this problem, while others have just stuck to flat edges. In the defense of the curvy screen, it feels nicer to hold in the hand, and looks more premium too.

We asked Sheth if future Realme phones will continue with the feature, to the response "I would love to," - that's certainly not a confirmation either way, but it should give fans of the feature hope.

As such a new series, the future of the Realme GT line remains unclear. We could see new entries all the time, or perhaps just at one or two points in the year - we'll have to wait to see.

• Realme Flash is a new Android phone with a better version of iPhone's MagSafe

With the Realme GT sitting comfortably on our list of the best Android phones, we've obviously got our eye on the brand-new phone line, and now the GT has been joined by two new siblings.

The Realme GT Master Edition and Explorer Master Edition are new entries in the line, that seem to straddle the original device and act as a 'Lite' and 'Pro' version respectively. The latter is getting a limited rollout, but Realme has confirmed the former is coming to the UK, so people there at least will be able to pick it up soon.

This new Realme GT Master Edition is set to start at $399 (about £290, AU$550) but it's worth pointing out Realme doesn't sell its tech in the US - this is probably just a reference price. Either way, it sounds more affordable than the €449 (about $550, £390 or AU$710) original GT.

• What are Realme phones? Our guide
• These are the best 5G phones
• Check out our Realme 8 Pro review

The phone comes with a Snapdragon 778G processor, 8GB of RAM, a 64MP main camera, a 6.4-inch 120Hz screen and a 32MP selfie camera. It's largely the same as the GT, but without that phone's distinctive faux-leather design and with a weaker chipset too.

With Realme recently confirming it's replacing its X series with this new GT line, it's good to see the line expanded with two new phones (even if you'll only be able to buy one of them). 

Analysis: is the Master Edition worth buying?

As we mentioned, the Realme GT is on our list of the best Android phones, wowing us with its top processor, premium design, great hand-feel and yet low price. It's become our go-to recommendation when someone wants a low-cost smartphone.

We've got the Realme GT Master Edition in for review, so we'll have a full analysis of it soon, but it's going to have to prove itself. It lacks the fast processing of the GT, as well as its premium faux-leather design and distinctive color, and those were some of the things we liked about the phone most.

Sure, the price is also lower, but perhaps not enough to justify losing the GT's best bits. That's not to say it looks like a bad phone at all, but if you can afford it, we'd still recommend stretching to the GT.

This advice may have been different if the Explorer Master Edition had launched in more regions: it has a curved-edge display, a Snapdragon 870 processor, 12GB of RAM, a 50MP main camera and a slightly higher price. Oh well, it's not worth dwelling on what could have been.

We might be blown away by the phone when we get to use it; likewise, the converted price in various regions might be surprisingly low, meaning the Master Edition could prove great value for money. We'll have to find out.

We're not totally sure when the Realme GT Master Edition goes on sale, but it'll probably follow the original GT in being exclusive to AliExpress (an import retailer) in most countries.

• Realme Flash is a new Android phone with a better version of iPhone's MagSafe

One of the best Android phones of 2021 is the Realme GT, the first of a new family of Realme phones that doesn't cost much money at all, but has some surprisingly high-end specs. In China, Realme has launched two new entries in the line, which are confirmed to go global soon, but TechRadar has just learnt the knock-on effect of these new devices.

Speaking in an interview with TechRadar, Madhav Sheth, the CEO of Realme Europe and Realme India, confirmed that the GT series is officially replacing the company's previous X series.

• These are the best 5G phones
• Check out our Realme 8 Pro review
• What are Realme phones? Our guide

"The X will be replaced by the GT; so the GT is the new X," Sheth confirmed, with the addendum that it's only the X line that will be affected - that means the C and numbered series of phones will likely remain unaffected.

The Realme X series was the company's upper-budget and mid-range collection of devices, with recent entries like the X3 SuperZoom and X50 Pro from 2020 sitting above the company's 'main' - or numbered - handsets like the Realme 7 or Realme 8 families. 

Compared to its other series, Realme's X line didn't have as consistent an output or as concrete an identity between devices, two points which the Realme GT certainly fixes. That's not to say the phones were bad - in fact, the Realme X2 Pro was the first handset from the company this writer tested, and it put forward Realme's modus operandi, of top specs at low prices, with clarity and simplicity.

Analysis: good for Realme, great for Realme fans

There's no better way to kick off a new product line than with something like the Realme GT; from its distinctive design, to its impressive specs and surprisingly low price, it's bound to be one of 2021's highlights - at least in the mobile world.

By confirming that the Realme X line was being replaced by the GT, it implicitly suggests we'll be seeing far more of the phones, beyond the two new phones (the GT Master Edition is confirmed to launch globally on August 18; it launched in China alongside the Explorer Edition, so it follows that will be coming to global markets too, but the company has been shtum on that).

Therefore we'll hopefully see a Realme GT 2 or similar in 2022, perhaps with specs that, until that point, have only been seen on premium devices. It's good, at least, to hear that the Realme GT wasn't a one-off, as that means the democratization of premium tech will continue.

Realme has been very busy of late. On August 3 it showed off the Realme Flash along with MagDart, a magnetic wireless charging solution to rival Apple's MagSafe. On the same day Realme officially became the fifth-biggest phone company in Europe, with a massive 1800% year-on-year growth (compared to 67% for Xiaomi, 15.7% for Apple and a 7% decline for Samsung). 

The company has proven to be highly 'disruptive' - forgive us for using such a marketing term, though it seems appropriate - since it launched in the European market in mid-2019. 

It's hard to get excited at much in the smartphone market, with most brands pumping out identical and boring devices, and a few others eking out an existence on wildly overpriced handsets, and that's really why Realme is such a breath of fresh air.

Its devices have offered premium features at low price points, and now we know its most interesting line is likely to continue into the future, Realme is definitely one of the top smartphone brands to watch.

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With the iPhone 12, Apple introduced us to MagSafe, a tech that lets you clip magnetic accessories onto the iPhone like wireless chargers, cases and wallets. Well, Realme has brought the same feature to Android phones, but has one-upped Apple in a few key ways.

During a launch event for its new Realme Flash on YouTube, Realme unveiled MagDart - and the fact its MagSafe-alike is only three letters apart from its Apple rival, reflects how similar the tech seems to be in general. However, it seems Realme has seen what Apple is doing with MagSafe, and has turned MagDart up to 11 in a few key areas.

MagDart is a magnetic system for future phones from the company, with the flagship feature being clip-on wireless charging. Realme presents this as being much more convenient than wired or standard wireless powering, as it doesn't have a cable sticking out the side of the phone like when you use a wire, and doesn't have the misalignment problems of trying to use a wireless charging pad. Gaming was touted as a key area where this is useful.

• These are the best 5G phones
• Is the iPhone 13 coming?
• These are some of the MagSafe accessories

In a major blow to Apple's iPhone powering system, which tops at a pithy 15W with MagSafe, Realme's MagDart goes up to 50W, which will be much more useful for gaming (as 15W might not even offset the power consumption of an intensive game). Realme also offers a 15W clip-on charger, and it went to great pains to emphasize how this was slimmer than Apple's equivalent.

In fact, lots of the MagDart launch event consisted of repeated shots fired at Apple, criticizing the design and speed of MagSafe charging in particular. It's a bold attitude, for sure, but Realme isn't exactly wrong.

Quite a few MagDart products were shown off. Some are similar to MagSafe versions like a clip-on wallet or power bank, but there were some more interesting ones. There's the Beauty Light, a soft ring light that can improve your portrait shots, or can be spun around to light up selfies. There's also a base for the aforementioned power bank, which can be combined to create a stand for a phone.

Talking of phones - when can we see MagDart? Well, the Realme Flash was shown off alongside the tech, which is a new Android phone with a Snapdragon 888 chipset, curved screen and three rear cameras, as well as a 4,500mAh battery which apparently charges from empty to full in just 54 minutes with the 50W MagDart accessory.

However not much information was provided on the phone, and Realme seemed to gloss over it quite a bit, which tells us one of two things: either the handset will come quite a bit later, or it's just a concept device that might not go on sale.

Realme is actually doing something impressive though, with backward compatibility for MagDart. A case is going on sale for the recent Realme GT, which lets it reap the benefits of MagDart by giving it a magnetic back like the Realme Flash. That's an impressive move on Realme's part, and is one of many reasons the headline of this article refers to MagDart as a 'better version' of MagSafe.

Exclusive: MagDart might come to non-Realme phones

While MagDart was designed by Realme, the feature might come to phones from other Android brands in the future. While no manufacturers have confirmed this as much, Realme confirmed to TechRadar that it is open to other brands using the tech in the future.

According to the company, "The tech we launched is a standard, so if other companies' devices fit it, it can also be used." So while this isn't outright confirmation that other companies will use MagDart, it's an olive branch Realme is offering out to other brands.

The smartphone world has a history of sharing worthy tech. Sony's Exmor camera sensors are used by loads of companies, and Samsung's displays are used by a lot too. Perhaps soon, we'll see Realme's MagDart used on other brand's smartphones. But who would be first?

Realme is owned by BBK Electronics which also owns Oppo, OnePlus and Vivo, and while all operate independently, we often see tech innovations shared between the companies, particularly Oppo and OnePlus. If another brand was going to use MagDart, one of those three would be most likely.

We'll have to wait and see, though. Cross-brand MagDart is still just a possibility right now, not a certainty, so maybe we won't see it happen at all.

• What are Realme phones? Our guide

Two-minute review

Realme isn't exactly a household name in the West still, despite being around since 2018. Its name is better known in India where it holds a number of records and is also the country's fourth largest smartphone brand. In the UK and US though? It's a less known quantity. Perhaps then that's why the Realme 8 manages to be very well priced while still offering some great features.

On paper, it has everything you could need from a budget phone. There's a 6.4-inch AMOLED screen that's bright and vibrant each step of the way, along with a MediaTek Helio G95 chipset that's designed with gaming in mind. A decent set of cameras further solidifies its ability to be a bit of a jack of all trades.

That's not bad going at all for a phone that costs from £199 (around $280 / AU$360). It's only currently available in the UK and Europe with no news as to what comes next for the Realme 8, but residents of those shores would be wise to take note of it. It's a relatively cheap phone that still packs a lot in, providing you don't mind that there's no 5G support here, that is. For that, you'll want the Realme 8 5G.

The phone has a somewhat divisive look to it. We were sent the Cyber Black edition but it's not entirely black. Instead, it has silver edges and these - visually as well as physically - stick out just a little bit, making it feel less stylish than we suspect its makers wanted it to look.

Of course, looks are highly subjective, but it's those ridged edges that make us a little less keen. A sleeker design that you can wrap your hand around without noticing any edges would feel that touch classier. Similarly, a plastic back isn't exactly great, but it's these concessions that are presumably necessary to provide the performance that the Realme 8 offers.

Screen-wise, it has a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display offering a peak brightness of 1,000 nits. It looks as good as you'd expect, with its 1080 x 2400 resolution ensuring that everything looks sharp and vibrant throughout. That ties in well to its fairly strong gaming performance or simply if you want to watch some streaming content while on the move.

Such viewing is somewhat enhanced by the fact that the front-facing camera is nicely out of the way. It's in the top left corner of the screen and barely makes a dent in what you're doing. You won't have to worry about fingerprint sensors either, with this placed under the display for seamless transitions.

Four camera lenses reside on the back, in the top left corner, only moderately raised, and the somewhat cheesy Realme tag line - 'Dare to Leap' runs down the length of the rear. Fortunately, in our black shade at least it's fairly subtle so it's not too noticeable unless you're looking closely.

The Realme 8's camera offers quite strong performance at this price point too. The lenses include a main 64MP camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, a 2MP macro, and a 2MP depth sensor. While some shots lack a certain amount of brightness, the images are pretty sharp and the results are suitably pleasing to our eyes. A 16MP selfie camera is useful too if you like to take shots of yourself, and the ability to record video in 4K at 30fps is there as well.

Other camera features such as a night mode and AI scene enhancements further go some way to making this phone's cameras feel up to scratch.

There's no wireless charging functionality here but the 5,000mAh battery recharges quite quickly, with Realme promising just over an hour for a full recharge. We certainly had no complaints during our testing of it.

As mentioned, the Realme 8's performance is particularly well tuned for gaming thanks to the Helio G95 chipset. Of course it won't rival far more expensive fare but nor should you expect it to. But its benchmarks are pretty admirable for the price tag, and you'll likely be pleased at how nippy it feels in general use.

We're still not sure about those looks but there's no denying that the Realme 8 is good elsewhere, especially for the price. It doesn't have any standout failings other than possibly its lack of 5G connectivity, depending on your needs, meaning it's a solidly attractive option for those on a budget and not in need of the biggest name in phones.

Realme 8 release date and price

• Available in the UK
• Retails from £199 (around $280 / AU$360)
• No sign of a US or Australian release just yet

The Realme 8 is available in the UK now, as well as Europe. There's no news of a release date further afield just yet. The phone is available in three different color schemes - Cyber Silver, Punk Black, and Cyber Black, and it starts at £199 (around $280 / AU$360).

It's also possible to choose between two different configurations - 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with the latter costing an extra £20 at £219 (roughly $310 / AU$400). Needless to say, it's worth the extra £20 to get the extra RAM and storage space.

The price makes it a contender for our list of the best cheap phones, but it faces stiff competition from similarly priced rivals like the Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC and the Moto G30, while the Realme 8 Pro only costs a little more and gets you upgrades to the chipset and camera.

Design

• Divisive design
• Plastic back
• Feels a bit cheap

The Realme 8 only weighs 177g and it feels comfortable in your hands, even if you have quite small hands. It has a somewhat curved rear but that's slightly offset by the fact that the edges stick out a bit from the screen and rear, creating an extra ridge. 

We're not totally sold on this design, but perhaps the choice of color scheme doesn't help, with the Cyber Black variety turning those edges silver, thereby further highlighting them. It's no deal-breaker, of course, but it's something to bear in mind if style is important to you.

More noticeably, the back and frame are both plastic, leaving the Realme 8 feeling a little cheap, but it's fair enough that shortcuts need to be taken to keep this device so well priced.

Elsewhere, the design is fairly run of the mill. The USB-C port is on the bottom along with the speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Volume controls and the power button are all on the right hand side for easy access.

The fingerprint sensor is built into the display, so you don't have to worry about that getting in the way anywhere. Similarly, the selfie lens is suitably unobtrusive in the top left hand corner, leaving the front of the device looking pretty clean.

On the back you'll find the camera lenses and the Realme tag line, the latter being subtle (at least in the shade we had for review) yet a tiny bit tacky too. Who needs their phone to come with a pseudo-inspirational line anyway?

Display

• 6.4-inch display
• 1080 x 2400 resolution
• Super AMOLED

The Realme 8's screen is pretty nice. It's a 6.4-inch 1080 x 2400 Super AMOLED display promising peak brightness of 1,000 nits. For the less techy amongst us, that means it looks nice. It's a good size for watching streaming content and we didn't notice any issues when playing fast-paced games on it either.

Underneath that display there's a fingerprint scanner which is just how we like things. It's a little bit smarter than placing a fingerprint sensor on the back and it's been speedy every time we've used it.

With vibrant colors whatever we were doing, and a consistently responsive nature every time we picked our phone up, you can't really go wrong with the Realme 8's display at this price.

Camera

• 64MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP rear camera
• 16MP selfie camera
• AI enhancement software

The Realme 8 has four rear cameras located on the top left corner and only sticking out ever so slightly. These include a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, a 2MP macro, and a 2MP depth camera. Combined, it's a decent bunch of options and the results were pretty good as you can see below.

Being able to choose the 64MP mode separately from everything else is always welcome but that's the neat thing about this camera. There are plenty of options for every scenario.

Occasionally, there was a certain lack of color with our photos from the main camera but for the most part, this wasn't much of an issue. Instead, we appreciated how sharp and detailed many of the images looked, even as we increased the zoom to get more of a close up.

Night mode does wonders for brightening up a darkened scene. Similarly, when taking photos of anything reasonably vibrant such as flowers, the results are pretty good. Even weeds can look quite delightful in the end.

Macro mode was also a bit of a highlight, ensuring that a potentially dull photo of a dandelion flower was rich in detail.

Video footage is available in 4K at 30fps from the rear camera or 1080p at 30 or 120fps on the selfie camera. Both provide reasonable quality here.

The Realme 8 also has an AI Scene Enhancement mode like many other devices, but we didn't find the need to rely on it quite so much as we have with other phones at this price. Instead, images look pretty sharp regardless. Always a good sign.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• Powered by the MediaTek Helio G95 chipset
• 64GB or 128GB of storage
• Nippy performance throughout

The Realme 8 feels suitably responsive at all times. Whether you're unlocking it via a password, fingerprint or your face, the phone is swift to respond to your touch so you won't have that split second pause that soon irritates. That trend continues with opening apps, and even some demanding games like Call of Duty Mobile.

This game expects a lot of phones which is why we use it for testing, but the Realme 8 certainly wasn't too bothered by what it had to deal with. It made a change to be able to dive into a game reasonably quickly with minimal hassle on such a cheap phone.

In our benchmark tests using Geekbench 5, we were fairly pleased. The phone (which has a MediaTek Helio G95 chipset) returned a multi-core score of 1,676 with a single-core score of 530. No complaints there then. Similarly, in use, games performed well, with a decent response rate for a phone that costs just £200 (around $280 / AU$360).

Elsewhere, there's the option of the 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage configuration or 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. We're not sure why anyone would save the £20 (roughly $30 / AU$35) and go for the cheaper option. Don't do it. Buy the superior variety and you'll be happy. If you somehow need more storage, a dedicated microSD card slot will help you out.

As mentioned, the Realme 8 lacks 5G support, which is definitely a noticeable omission if you plan on future proofing with your next smartphone purchase. There's always the Realme 8 5G but weirdly, the standard Realme 8 has a superior camera and charges faster.

Battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• Speedy charging
• Battery lasts a suitable length of time

The Realme 8 has a 5,000mAh battery capacity and it shows. Its battery life proved fairly long in our time with it, so you won't have to worry about recharging it all the time. As always, your mileage will vary, so if you're playing a lot of games it'll sink faster but you shouldn't generally feel the desperate need to recharge at the end of the day.

When the time comes, it won't take long anyway. The Realme 8 juices ups fast with 30W of power at its disposal and it promises to get back up to 50% in just over 25 minutes. A full charge takes just over an hour.

In our experience, those advertised figures work out about right. We liked being able to get back to being away from a power source reasonably quickly.

Just bear in mind there's no wireless charging support so you'll be stuck to using cables. A small price to pay for speedy charging, at least.

Should I buy the Realme 8?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: June 2021

Two-minute review

The low-end, low-price smartphone market has never been busier, with the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus joining seasoned budget phone makers Motorola and Nokia in pushing out super-cheap handsets that cover all the necessary basics without putting a huge dent in your bank balance.

Then we have Realme, which already has a long line of solid, inexpensive phones behind it. New for 2021 is the Realme 8 5G, which offers more of the same: a respectable level of performance and an appealing design for not much money at all. In fact, you won't be able to find a cheaper 5G phone than this right now in some markets.

Of course there are necessary compromises to get to this price point – you shouldn't expect top performance or the best camera capabilities from the Realme 8 5G. However, it's got enough to keep a lot of users happy, and for many people the actual cost of the phone is more important than extras such as wireless charging.

The need for 5G is an interesting one in 2021: most phones now come with the technology, even at the budget end of the market, but availability in terms of network coverage remains patchy around the world. Buying a 5G phone now protects you for the future, but it's hardly a necessity at the moment.

It's worth noting that there is a 4G version of the Realme 8 that actually costs more – it ditches the 5G but has a better screen and a better camera. You need to decide which smartphone features you want to spend your money on, and when you have, you'll find there's a phone out there for everyone.

There's no doubt that the highlights of this phone are the 5G and the affordable price, but we've also been impressed by the longevity of the 5,000mAh battery packed in here, and the screen quality and general performance are good for the price too. In other areas – like the camera – the Realme 8 5G does okay without really standing out from the crowd.

Whether you're looking at budget phones or the iPhone 12 Pro Max, picking the right handset is about weighing up the features and performance against the price, and the Realme 8 5G definitely gives you a lot for your money, ranking among the best cheap phones – which is exactly as you would expect from the phone maker's track record.

Realme 8 5G release date and price

• Prices start at £199 (around $280 /AU$365)
• One of the cheapest 5G handsets
• Configurations vary by region

You can pick up the Realme 8 5G from May 20 in the UK, but until May 23, 2021 there are early bird prices available: £179 for the 4GB of RAM/64GB of storage option (normal price £199) and £229 for the 6GB of RAM/128GB of storage option (normal price £249).

At the time of writing the best way to get the Realme 8 5G is to go directly to the Realme website.

At the standard starting price it amounts to around $280 /AU$365, but there are currently no plans for the phone to be launched in the US or Australia. As always, check the widgets on this page for the latest online deals for the phone.

Design

• Solid if unspectacular looks
• The power button is the fingerprint sensor
• No IP rating protection

Realme has been making smartphones for a good number of years now, and considering what we've seen in the past it's no surprise that the Realme 8 5G is a well-built, smart-looking device. Despite the low price, this doesn't feel like a cheap or flimsy handset, although you don't get any sort of IP rating protection against water and dust (no surprise at the budget end of the market).

The thickness of 8.5mm (about a third of an inch) makes it very slightly thinner than handsets costing similar amounts, such as the Nokia 5.4 and the Moto G50. At this price point we'd say it's one of the better phones out there in terms of its overall design and aesthetics, though you don't get anything in the way of innovation here. 

The 6.5-inch display means an overall width of 74.8mm (2.9 inches) and an overall height of 162.5mm (6.4 inches). The phone tips the scales at 185 grams (6.5 ounces).

You've got volume controls on the left-hand side as you look at the phone, while on the right there's a recessed power button that doubles up as a fingerprint sensor – something phone makers keep doing despite our complaints about it.

As this makes the power button more difficult to find and press, as well as making unlocking the phone harder, we'd much rather see the fingerprint sensor under the screen or even just on the back of the handset.

Speaking of the back, the glossy plastic back has a slight shimmering effect that lends a little bit of a premium feel to the Realme 8 5G. The rear camera module is up in the top left-hand corner of the casing – it adds quite a substantial camera bump, but we can live with it. Your color choices here are Supersonic Blue (translation: blue) and Supersonic Black (translation: black).

Put the Realme 8 5G in a line-up of smartphones and it's not going to look out of place alongside phones of a similar price, or indeed phones that cost a bit more up in the mid-range section of the market.

While you're never going to mistake it for a high-end flagship when you hold it or glance at it, the design and feel is very solid. We've only had the phone a few days, but we can imagine it lasting for several years.

Display

• Large 6.5-inch screen
• Limited 1080p resolution
• Good outdoor visibility

The 6.5-inch, 2400 x 1080 LCD screen fitted to the front of the Realme 8 5G gives you plenty of space to work with and plenty of pixels to look at: it's actually better than you might expect for a phone at this price point. The 90Hz refresh rate is fairly standard for a 2021 phone, but it's definitely going to be good enough for most users.

We ran through all the usual smartphone tasks in our testing – scrolling through social media, scrolling through websites, scrolling through the recommended carousel on Netflix – and had absolutely no complaints about the display. Realme says it has a maximum brightness of 600 nits, and when you ramp the brightness right up it's more than enough for games and movies.

That brightness helps outdoors too – you won't have any problems making out details on this screen in daylight. Viewing angles are solid, animations and videos are fluid and smooth, and it's worth mentioning that you can adjust the color temperature of the screen through the onboard Realme UI software if needed.

While a 1080p screen does feel a little cramped at times in terms of how much you can fit on screen at once, it's actually par for the course at this price: you're not going to be too disappointed unless you're taking a step down from something at the upper mid-range or flagship level.

And while the difference between this screen and the displays on high-end flagships is noticeable in terms of brightness and fluidity, the Realme 8 5G still very much holds its own.

It's also worth mentioning that the phone comes with a thin, transparent screen protector already attached to the display – it's up to you if you want to take it off. The only interruption to the screen is the punch-hole selfie camera.

Camera

• Triple-lens rear camera
• No ultra-wide or optical zoom
• Struggles in low light

The Realme 8 5G comes with a 16MP selfie camera on the front – definitely more megapixels than you might expect from a selfie camera on a budget phone – and a triple-lens 48MP main + 2MP macro + 2MP depth rear camera on the back.

There's no ultra-wide lens here, and no optical zoom, so it's really that 48MP main camera that's doing pretty much all the work. While we tried out a few macro shots, we didn't find the dedicated mode particularly smart at picking up close-ups.

Despite that lack of flexibility, this rear camera is perfectly capable, thanks to that main 48MP sensor: pictures come out sharp and well-balanced, if a little over-saturated at times, and focusing speeds are good.

Unless you're shooting photos professionally, you'll be mostly happy with the results that you get here – the vast majority of the time they're good enough for social media as long as the lighting is good.

It's a similar story across most budget phones that we test, because phone camera optics have now progressed to the point where even the cheapest components can capture something worthwhile. The lack of ultra-wide and optical zoom is a shame though, and as the light goes down, the weaknesses in the camera setup start to show up.

You can still get photos at night, with a reasonable amount of detail – especially if you activate the night mode, which boosts the brightness a bit if you're able to keep the phone steady for longer. However, you usually end up with a lot of noise and blur as well, particularly when you're not taking a picture of something close up.

Overall, this is one of those areas where the Realme 8 5G performs pretty much as you would expect considering the price you're paying – you're going to buy this phone because you want 5G and something affordable, and everything after that is a bonus. For everyday quick snaps, it's perfectly fine.

Video recording is nothing to get excited about, with rather humdrum results in our testing. The video capture capabilities top out at a 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second, and in general that's going to satisfy everyone below the level of serious movie maker.

There are also slow motion video recording capabilities, as well as a pro photography mode that gives you more control over settings such as white balance.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• Reasonable budget performance
• 5G connectivity
• Comes with Android 11

The Realme 8 5G is powered by the budget Dimensity 700 5G chipset from MediaTek, and on the Realme UK website, the phone is listed with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage – which is what our review unit came with.

However, this model isn't actually going on sale in the UK: your choices are actually 4GB of RAM/64GB of storage and 6GB of RAM/128GB of storage (you can extend that storage with a microSD card if you need to).

As for the phone we had to test (8GB of RAM/128GB of storage), we found it pleasingly smooth in operation, with no noticeable lag when jumping between menus and apps, and websites and media files loading up smoothly.

It's worth again emphasizing though that this 8GB version isn't available in the UK, so we're not sure why Realme sent us this particular configuration – less RAM will have an impact on performance.

Smartphone performance is usually one of the key areas where you get what you pay for, from the cheapest to the most expensive handsets, and that's the case here – it's certainly no flyer, but it'll do everything you need it to do. That's backed up by Geekbench 5 scores of 569 (single-core), 1,765 (multi-core) and 1,515 (OpenCL), which are in the region of what you would expect given the internals.

You can get away with some light gaming on the Realme 8 5G, and even some quite heavy gaming if you don't mind a reduction in frame rates. We tried several reasonably demanding and fast-paced games, and didn't notice the phone skipping a beat.

Of course the question with budget phones is just how long they'll hold their performance for, which we can't tell you about. We also can't judge the phone with 6GB of RAM or 4GB of RAM, which are the versions on sale in the UK.

5G is a big draw at this price, and you'll have to work very hard to find a cheaper 5G phone to take advantage of those glorious next-gen upload and download speeds. The question is though whether it's worth saving money on the 5G aspect and getting a similarly priced 4G phone that adds extras in other areas – like performance and camera quality. After all, 5G is by no means ubiquitous at the moment, and 4G speeds are generally fine for most people's day-to-day use.

Rounding out the specs, the phone comes with a single speaker and there is a 3.5mm headphone jack here, so you can easily use wired headphones if you want to, no dongle required. As with previous Realme phones, there's a clear plastic case included in the box, giving you some basic protection for free if you want it.

Android 11 is on board here, which is good to see, although we've never quite fallen in love with the Realme UI that's on top. Like a lot of Android skins from Chinese phone makers, it's just a bit busy, a bit quirky, a bit garish for our tastes – you've got a bunch of extra apps like an Instagram clone called 92 installed for some reason – but your mileage may differ.

Battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• Around 10 hours of video
• Smart optimization tech

The 5,000mAh capacity battery packed inside the Realme 8 5G really does a great job: we were finishing days with 50% of juice still left in the tank, which is impressive.

It's not unusual for a budget phone though: typically less powerful components and lower resolution screens tend to be kinder in terms of strain on the battery. Note that there's no wireless charging here, only wired charging up to a maximum of 18W.

If you need a phone that's able to go a couple of days between charges then the Realme 8 5G might well be it. That said, if you're going to really hammer the 5G modem, push up the screen brightness and spend a lot of time using GPS for navigating, that time between charges will rapidly come down. As always, it depends how you're going to use your device, but the Realme 8 5G is definitely above average in the battery life department.

Watching streaming video (at maximum brightness and a low volume) knocked the battery down by about 10% per hour, while gaming drained a little bit more: between 12-15% an hour on average. Those are decent figures, even if we are talking about a brand new phone with a brand new battery inside it – you're covered for long journeys whether you want to game or stream the time away.

When you're not doing anything with the phone – unlikely but possible – you're only going to see drops of about 10% or so per day. Realme says it's worked hard on battery optimizations so that the phone is never drawing more power than it needs to (adapting the use of the 5G modem when you're not connected to a 5G network, for example, which can otherwise be a major battery drain).

Should I buy the Realme 8 5G?

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First reviewed: May 2021

There are loads of great phones available at low price tags, and another contender has just joined the ring. The Realme 8 Pro is a new low-cost phone to rival the Redmi Note series and some of the higher-end Moto G devices.

Unveiled at a launch event on March 24 alongside a non-Pro version, the Realme 8 Pro has a few top specs that make it a tempting buy compared to its rivals - we'll run you through the key selling points below.

The handset costs £279 in the UK, which converts to roughly $390, AU$500 – that's a low cost for a phone with these top specs. It's no wonder, then, that we gave it four and a half stars out of five in our review.

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• It's not a 5G phone though

Realme 8 Pro: three big selling points

The Realme 8 Pro has a 108MP main camera, and it's one of the cheapest phones to have such a high-res main sensor. We found it took good-looking photos, but since they were so high-res, we could take them into an editing app and tweak them to make them look even better.

The handset also has 50W wired charging, which is incredibly fast for a low-cost phone. With this, it takes barely any time to get the phone powered up to full.

Our favorite aspect of the Realme 8 Pro, though, was something it does a lot better than its rivals: its design. While many low-cost phones are massive, clad in cheap plastic, and pretty heavy, the Realme phone is lightweight, thin, and has a suave-feeling textured rear. 

If you want to find out more about the phone, including how it stacks up against its rivals, you can check out our full Realme 8 Pro review here.

• What are Realme phones? A guide to the company and its smartphones

Two-minute review

While Realme isn’t currently a huge name in the West, if it keeps putting out phones like the Realme 8 Pro, we can’t see that remaining the case for much longer – it’s a fantastic affordable phone, and one which Motorola, Nokia and Redmi should take note of.

Launching alongside the Realme 8 in early 2021, and following on from 2020’s Realme 7 series, the 8 Pro is likely to be the top affordable phone from the Chinese brand in 2021.

It would be most accurate to class the Realme 8 Pro as a ‘premium budget phone’ like the Moto G9 Plus or Redmi Note 10 Pro – while it sits just above the cut-off point for our ‘best cheap phones’ list in terms of price, it’s still definitely a low-cost handset.

The Realme 8 Pro doesn’t feel like it belongs at its price tag, however, and if it had launched with a higher price we wouldn’t have batted an eye – it has a super-high resolution main camera and incredibly fast charging, and it looks great too.

Our favorite aspect of the phone is its design – where most low-cost phones are relatively thick, hard to hold in one hand, and clad in cheap-feeling plastic, the Realme 8 Pro is slender, easily-holdable, and has a lovely rear textured effect.

This is also possibly one of the best budget camera phones on the market, thanks in no small part to the main snapper with its whopping 108MP resolution. This takes super-high-res photos that give you plenty of scope for subsequent editing and cropping.

There’s 50W fast charging here too, which powers up the battery in what feels like no time at all, and much quicker than most other budget phones. The battery will also reliably last a day between charges.

These positive points all highlight ways the Realme 8 Pro beats its competition, while it matches some similarly-priced phones in other ways: its processing power and display are all on par with Redmi and Motorola competitors. There are no departments in which this phone is significantly weaker than its competitors.

What gripes we do have with the phone are incredibly minor: there’s no wireless charging or 5G connectivity, and the silicone case which comes with the phone is so tight it’s hard to get on the phone – and in the grand scheme of things, they’re barely problems at all.

So the Realme 8 Pro is the affordable phone we’ll be comparing all other premium budget phones to in 2021. More than that, though, it’s a good reason to pay attention to Realme as a phone brand, and it gets us excited for future devices from the brand.

Realme 8 Pro price and availability

The Realme 8 Pro launched in many regions around the world, including the UK, but not the US or Australia. Realme doesn’t sell its phones in the States, so don’t expect to see it there, but an Australia launch is possible.

The phone costs £279, which converts to around $390, AU$500, which puts it in what we’d broadly term the ‘premium-budget’ category. 

For some context, the Moto G9 Plus, and the 128GB model of the Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC, both cost £250 (around $325 or AU$460), and they’re arguably the Realme 8 Pro’s closest competitors.

Design

Though it’s certainly not a compact phone, the Realme 8 Pro feels pretty small compared to its competitors, and that’s a great thing for people who don’t want a giant smartphone. It’s relatively thin and light, and has a smaller body than we’re used to.

This body is clad in plastic, but with a textured layer that both looks and feels better than a ‘standard’ plastic rear. The rear has the words ‘Dare to Leap’ – Realme’s motto – emblazoned across it in rather large capital letters, which some may find garish, while others may not mind.

The phone has a USB-C port and 3.5mm headphone jack, and its volume rocker and power button are both situated on the right edge of the phone. Thanks to its size, and the button locations, the Realme 8 Pro felt easy to use one-handed.

Display

The Realme 8 Pro’s screen is 6.4 inches across, which makes it a touch smaller than many other similar-price phones, and it’s interrupted by a punch-hole cut-out for the front camera at the top left.

The display has a 1080 x 2400 resolution, which is pretty standard for… well, for any smartphone. It’s the same resolution as most games, apps or streaming services you’ll be using, though lower than the resolution of most top flagships.

The refresh rate is 60Hz, which is generally standard for handsets at this price, though some push it up to 120Hz. If you're bothered about having a high refresh rate, you should shop around.

We found the screen looked quite good, with nice vibrant colors, which is to be expected since it’s an AMOLED display. Now and then auto-brightness was a little off though, causing us to have to manually change how bright the display was.

Surprisingly for a phone of this price, there’s an in-screen fingerprint scanner here, which we found to work well. It was fairly fast to use and barely ever failed to pick up our thumb on our first attempt to unlock.

Cameras

The Realme 8 Pro has a 108MP main camera, and it’s not the first low-cost phone to have such a high-res main camera, with the Redmi Note 10 Pro beating it to the punch. That’s joined by an 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP depth-sensing and 2MP macro camera, with a 20MP front-facer.

‘High-res’ doesn’t always equal ‘good-looking’ when it comes to smartphone cameras, but we were impressed by the photo chops of the Realme 8 Pro. In well-lit environments, pictures looked good, with rich detail and fair contrast. This was the case for vistas and closer subjects too.

Thanks to being so high-res, we could easily download photos from the Realme 8 Pro onto a computer and edit and crop them, without ending up with a low-res or messy-looking snap.

Not everyone will care to take 108MP pictures though - they take up a lot of storage space, and some low-res cameras have bigger sensors, which ‘see’ more light. But in well-lit settings this is great.

The ultra-wide camera also performed quite well, though colors looked noticeably different than on the standard camera. We actually preferred the color profile of ultra-wide snaps, as they were richer and a bit darker, but that’s just preference.

We sound like a broken record on this point, but 2MP auxiliary cameras rarely add anything to smartphones, and that’s the case here too. Macro snaps were so noisy as to be practically unusable.

Thanks to having a high-res main sensor, the Realme 8 Pro is afforded up to 20x digital zoom - as that’s just cropping in on pictures - though we wouldn’t recommend going this far, as pictures get hideously noisy. Pictures up to 5x zoom are fine, though.

We’ve got to commend the front-facing camera, as selfies looked great - they were full of light and color. Portrait mode was surprisingly accurate when it came to adding background blur and tweaking a picture’s settings.

Video recording here goes up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps. There’s a novelty camera mode called AI Mixed Portrait, which lets you video a landscape and then yourself, and stitch them together - it’s not exactly a professional-grade mode but it’s fun to play around with.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

The Realme 8 Pro has the mid-range Snapdragon 720G chipset paired with 8GB of RAM, so it’s not exactly a processing powerhouse, but we never found it slow.

With the Geekbench 5 benchmark test, the Realme 8 Pro returned a multi-core score of 1679, which is a fair mid-range result. That’s only a sliver below the Moto G9 Plus’ 1690, and above the Google Pixel 5’s 1600.

We had no issues with the phone for gaming, as while it didn’t always default to the highest graphical settings in games, it was always snappy when in game and rarely lagged or stuttered.

It’s the same story when navigating the phone, whether that’s opening and closing apps or scrolling through social media - while we were never blown away by the phone’s navigation speeds, we were never disappointed either. Unless you’re moving to the Realme 8 Pro from a super-premium flagship, you’ll find it great.

Software

The Realme 8 Pro comes with Android 11, running the Realme UI overlay - this seems startlingly similar to Oppo’s ColorOS, a ‘coincidence’ which is perhaps explained by the fact that Realme and Oppo are sibling companies. 

The main difference from ‘stock’ Android is the color scheme, as the default app icons and wallpapers are very bright in Realme UI - we liked this, but some may not, and luckily you can change it. There is a big suite of customization options, whether that’s app icon shapes or the fingerprint scanner icon.

When we booted up the phone for the first time, we did find the home screen a bit cluttered, with apps like ‘Phone Manager’, ‘Game Space’ and ‘File Manager’ taking up room. There are no third-party apps pre-installed, though, and it doesn’t take long to throw these extra apps in their own little folder (which we then promptly ignored).

Battery life

The Realme 8 Pro has a 4,500mAh battery, and we found the phone easily lasted us a day, even if we were going on a little photoshoot or playing lots of games. A second day of use seems unlikely, though, unless your use is very limited.

Charging is snappy at 50W, and it took us less than an hour to power the phone back up to full. There’s no wireless charging here, but that’s to be expected for a phone at this price point.

Realme is a champion at offering fast charging for budget phones, so 50W is not a huge surprise, though it is still welcome. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the Realme 7 Pro hit 65W.

Should I buy the Realme 8 Pro?

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• First reviewed March 2021

Realm has confirmed that two anticipated affordable phones, the Realme 8 and Realme 8 Pro, will launch on March 24. The company had already teased the devices, and we're expecting them to be accomplished camera phones, but we'll soon find out everything about them.

In press materials promoting the upcoming phone launch, Realme highlights the 108MP camera coming to the Realme 8 Pro (which had already been confirmed), and also the names of the phones, clearing up any lingering ambiguity.

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While there's still no confirmation, the Pro variant is the only one that’s likely to feature the 108MP primary camera, which was showcased by Realme recently. The camera will use a 1/1.52-inch Samsung ISOCELL HM2 image sensor.

There's a lot about the upcoming phones that we still don't know, but if you're a fan of affordable smartphones, as Realme's handsets mostly are, or impressive camera phones, you'll want to pay attention to this launch.

Realme 8 and 8 Pro specs

The Realme 8 Pro is the first phone from the brand to have a 108MP camera, and this will be teamed with three other cameras which, based on previous Realme handsets, we think will be ultra-wide, macro, and depth, although this hasn't been confirmed.

According to rumors, the Realme 8 Pro will have a Super AMOLED display, and will be the first budget phone in the Realme numbered series to sport an in-display fingerprint scanner. The device is likely to be powered by the Snapdragon 730G chipset, while there are also rumors of a 5G variant. A 120Hz high refresh rate and 65W fast charging are also expected.

The Realme 8 is set to feature a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display, based on leaked images, and is said to be powered by a Helio G95 chipset, the same processor that was in the Realme 7. This phone will have a 64MP main sensor, plus three other rear cameras. 

It will sport a 5,000mAh battery and 30W fast charging, the same as in the Realme 7. The phone is expected to run on Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11 out of the box, and is likely to come with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

We'll know these various specs for sure when the Realme 8 and 8 Pro launch – and when they do, we'll bring you all you need to know about the handsets.

• Realme is making a play for the best camera phone trophy with the Realme 8

Only Samsung, Motorola and Xiaomi use 108MP camera sensors in their smartphones, but up-and-comer Realme has just announced it is the next brand to use such a high-res main snapper. It'll be in the upcoming the Realme 8 series.

This announcement happened at a 'Camera Innovation Event' hosted by Realme on March 2 - it mirrors a similar event hosted in 2019 where the brand showed off its use of a 64MP camera, which has seen use in many of its phones since.

The 108MP sensor at use here is Samsung's HM2, which is a different sensor than Samsung used in the Galaxy S20 Ultra, and it's not the same one used in the Xiaomi Mi 10 or Mi 11 either.

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This sensor is slightly newer, and its main advantage over the HMX and HM1 used varyingly in those phones is that it records video at a higher resolution. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra's HM2 sensor beats it though, recording in that same higher resolution but at an improved frame rate, and capturing 12-bit color instead of 10-bit like the other 108MP sensors.

Still, the use of a 108MP sensor shows Realme is getting serious about its smartphone photography.

Will this be the best camera phone?

The title of 'best camera phone' isn't handed out to every phone, and it'll take more than a good main sensor for the Realme 8 series to win the crown - it'll need a cohort of great snappers including a telephoto, ultra-wide-angle and a selfie camera that match.

While high spec cameras can be great, they're not necessarily a shoe-in for the title either, as they typically have smaller pixel sizes which results in them 'seeing' less light, resulting in a dimmer or less vibrant photo. No phones released globally have used this new sensor yet, so we don't know how well it works.

Realme did share some photo samples from the Realme 8 Pro, but it's not clear if these are from the 108MP main camera or not.

The company also detailed some modes that made the most of the phone's camera prowess. There's a tilt-shift time-lapse mode, starry-sky mode and arious portrait options.

Realme did go into detail on the 108MP camera's digital zoom, showing how 3x zoom results in 12MP photos. This does imply there won't be a telephoto or periscope camera for optical zoom, but it's not quite confirmed.

Either way, Realme's photography event has us intrigued to get our hands on the Realme 8 series, to see how good they are for photography and if they compare to the iPhone 12 Pro, Huawei P40 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and other top camera phones.

• A guide to Realme and the phone brand's smartphones

We know the Realme GT is getting its grand unveiling on March 4, and now we have some photos of the handset from Realme ahead of time. It's our first official look at the phone, and the pictures we have certainly give the impression of a premium, flagship-level device.

Previously known as the Realme Race, the phone was shown off on Chinese social network Weibo (via MyFixGuide) by Xu Qi Chase, Vice President of Realme Group. It was also revealed that the color you can see in these pictures is "Galaxy Battleship".

The design visible in the images reveals a USB-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a triple-lens rear camera – and the lettering on the camera module around the back shows the primary camera sensor will be a 64MP one, as we'd previously heard.

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The Realme GT has already been confirmed as running the very latest Snapdragon 888 processor from Qualcomm, and it'll have 5G on board too. From what we've seen so far, Realme is ready to take on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S21 directly this year.

While the March 4 launch in the calendar is for a China-only release of the phone, previous Realme handsets have made their way to the UK, so we're hopeful that this one will too. To date, Realme hasn't launched any of its phones in the US or Australia, so we'll have to wait and see on availability in other markets.

Realme previously confirmed to TechRadar that the phone (then known as the Realme Race) would have a 6.8-inch display, a 3200 x 1440 pixel resolution, and a staggering 160Hz refresh rate – though those specs could refer to a Pro version of the handset rather than the standard edition.

Another high bar might be set by the charging speed: the Realme GT was reported to be the first phone on the market with a 125W charging speed for its 5,000mAh battery, but that technology might have been delayed, according to more recent rumors.

Even without super-speedy battery charging, the Realme GT is likely to be one of the very best phones of 2021 when it makes its appearance in full next month, and we will of course bring you all the announcements and news from Realme as they come in.

• What are Realme phones? A guide to the company and its smartphones

The Realme Race has been teased for a while by the Chinese smartphone maker, and the company has now confirmed that this handset will instead be called the Realme GT 5G and that it's being announced on March 4.

Realme has confirmed the phone will launch in China next month, and we're then expecting to hear details of a worldwide release after that. Previously, Realme phones have been available in the UK so we may see it there.

We've yet to see Realme release its smartphones in the US or Australia, so it's uncertain if those living in those countries will be able to get their hands on this new Realme flagship.

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What is real?

Realme hasn't been shy about sharing details of its new flagship phone. The company previously said that its next flagship - which at the time we believed to be called the Realme Race - will feature the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chipset.

The company previously confirmed to TechRadar that the phone it set to sport a 6.8-inch 160Hz display with a 3200 x 1440 resolution. It is also said to have a 5,000mAh battery and 125W fast charging.

It'll also come with 12GB of RAM, plus it'll have storage variants of 128GB, 256GB and 512GB. For the camera, you can expect a 64MP main shooter and two 13MP cameras (although we've yet to learn what they'll do).

There will still be lots to learn on March 4, as long as the company doesn't keep revealing this teaser information ahead of its launch.

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Via Android Authority

Two-minute review

Realme has bombarded the budget phone market in recent months with the Realme 7, the Realme 7 Pro, and now the Realme 7 5G.

Despite its shared name and superficial similarities, this latest model isn’t merely a tweaked take on one of its brothers. For all intents and purposes, this is the China-only Realme V5, but with a faster chipset and a higher refresh rate display.

This subtly different path means that the Realme 7 5G clashes a little with the Realme 7 Pro. It’s better in some ways, and worse in others.

Realme’s refined design work continues here with an appealing split-mirror finish that’s just flashy enough, without straying into gaudy territory. This is a weighty, solid-feeling phone too, with barely a hint of the plasticky cheapness that often affects the sub-$300/£300 smartphone category.

The headline feature, however, is a double take-worthy 120Hz display. We’re used to seeing such rapid refresh rates on flagship phones, and it’s certainly impressive seeing such a spec trickle down to a more accessible price point.

This choice to emphasize refresh rate means that you lose out on the benefits of AMOLED, which is a compromise we’re not sure we’d make given the choice. But choice is precisely what Realme is giving you, and those in the ‘hertz til it hurts’ brigade will lap it up.

You’re dealing with a reasonably strong performer here too. MediaTek’s Dimensity 800U does more than provide 5G connectivity - it also outperforms many of its silicon rivals, and even matches the Realme 7 Pro. It’s aided by a clean UI that doesn’t lay on the bloat, which we appreciate.

There are no surprises when it comes to the Realme 7 5G’s camera performance, for better and for worse. It takes reasonably balanced shots in good lighting, but the quality falls off in more demanding conditions, and the macro lens is a waste of space.

It’s good to see Realme backing up that fast display refresh rate with a sufficiently meaty battery. At 5,000mAh, you’ll get through a full day with plenty to spare - and possibly a second if you don’t hit the media too hard.

All in all, this is another strong budget effort from Realme. If you like the sound of the Realme 7 or Realme 7 Pro, but demand fast network performance and an even faster display for similar money, give it a closer look.

Realme 7 5G release date and price

• Out now in the UK
• Costs £279 (around $370 / AU$505)
• No word on US or Australian availability

The Realme 7 5G hit UK retailers on November 27, 2020, at a price of £279 (around $370 / AU$505). Just the one configuration is available, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, though some territories will have the option of 8GB of RAM.

We don’t know if the Realme 7 5G is headed for the US or Australia at the time of writing. An earlier conversation we had with Realme CEO Madhav Sheth suggested that the company wanted to crack Europe before turning its attention the US, so we wouldn’t expect an imminent rollout.

UK customers can buy the Realme 7 5G direct from the Realme website. It's also available from Amazon, where at the time of writing it's just £229 (roughly $305 / AU$415).

Design

• Quite hefty at 195g and 9.1mm thick
• Appealing two-tone finish
• Fast side-mounted fingerprint sensor

Realme has gently refined its budget phone design language for the 7-series, with a more chic look than previous entries.

Like the Realme 7 and the Realme 7 Pro before it, the Realme 7 5G has a stylish metallic-mirror finish to the rear panel. The split effect gives two subtly different sheens, reflecting vertically on the left and horizontally on the right, and offset in favor of the latter.

The rear panel feels encouragingly premium, with little give and an almost satiny texture. At 195g and 9.1mm thick, meanwhile, the phone sits dead in the middle of the Realme 7 Pro and the Realme 7.

Like the Realme 7, you get a side-mounted fingerprint sensor stashed behind the power button on the right edge. Though this isn’t generally considered to be as advanced a component as an in-display sensor, it benefits from being fast, reliable, and easy to locate. We’d take that over a second tier in-display alternative any day.

Around the front, the Realme 7 5G looks much like its brothers, with a dominant 90.5% screen-to-body ratio, a punch-hole selfie camera, and a noticeable chin.

There doesn’t appear to be any form of IP certification here, but Realme claims that all of the the phone’s ports are tightly sealed by protective silicone, which should protect the innards from the odd splash of water.

Display

• 6.5-inch, 1080 x 2400
• 120Hz refresh rate
• LCD not AMOLED

The Realme 7 5G would appear to contain the same 6.5-inch LCD display as the Realme 7 and the Realme 6 before it. That includes the exact same 1080 x 2400 ‘FHD+’ resolution, with 405 pixels per inch.

We’re a little disappointed that we don’t get the AMOLED display of the Realme 7 Pro here, if we’re honest. The LCD here is perfectly fine, but everything is noticeably more muted compared to even a basic AMOLED, and it looks a little washed out in bright outdoor conditions.

Choice of panel aside, there’s one standout feature of this display: a 120Hz refresh rate. That’s double the Realme 7 Pro, and a little faster than the Realme 7. It puts the Realme 7 5G display in amongst a much more expensive and prestigious band of handsets.

It does feel a smidgen more responsive than the 90Hz display of the OnePlus Nord N10 5G, aided by a 180Hz sampling rate. But we only came to that conclusion after holding these budget phones side by side, alternating rapidly between the two.

Indeed, with the limited hardware running this phone, there’s an argument to be made that a 120Hz refresh rate is somewhat superfluous here. It’s a feature that makes a lot more sense when supported and surrounded by other powerful components.

The Realme 7 5G isn’t slow, as we’ll go on to discuss, but it certainly lacks the necessary grunt to run 3D games at blistering frame rates. Web content doesn’t always load in and respond quite as sharply as with more powerful handsets, either, which lessens the impact of a high refresh rate display.

Still, we’re impressed that Realme has worked such a premium component into its latest budget offering. We’d probably rather have the Realme 7 Pro’s 60Hz AMOLED than the Realme 7 5G’s 120Hz LCD, all things considered, but it’s nice to have the choice.

Camera

• 48MP Samsung S5KGM1ST sensor gets decent results
• 8MP ultra-wide + 2MP macro + 2MP depth sensor
• 16MP selfie camera

The Realme 7 5G would seem to pack an identical camera setup to the Realme 7. And that’s no bad thing, by and large.

Ostensibly a quad camera setup, it pairs a 48MP f/1.8 Samsung S5KGM1ST sensor with an 8MP f/2.3 119-degree ultra-wide one. These main sensors are then complemented by a macro sensor and a black and white portrait sensor that provides depth and contrast data. Both are 2MP.

In general, well-lit conditions, we were reasonably happy with the Realme 7 5G camera’s output. It tended to capture well-balanced scenes, albeit with slightly punched up colors and the odd overexposed background element. Close-ups and portraits are pleasingly sharp and full of bokeh, with the depth sensor seeming to earn its place.

The ultra-wide camera does an adequate job too, though the general tone of its shots looks quite a bit less natural and crisp than with the main sensor, and it gets extremely soft at the edges. Again, this is not unusual in a cheaper phone.

We’re no fan of dedicated macro lenses on smartphones - especially ones that are unhelpfully low-megapixel, and included seemingly just to boost the official lens count. While this one does admittedly enable much closer up shots than the main sensor can manage (around 4cm), the results are so grainy as to be rendered pointless.

There’s a night mode here, but we found it to be a little inconsistent. On several occasions, in very dark scenes, it would flat out refuse to initiate the 3–4 second exposure time necessary to brighten things up. When it did activate, it didn’t always compensate very well for our hand movement, even with dead-static scenes.

When it did work, night mode managed to brighten up a series of late night street scenes quite effectively. But generally speaking, decent night modes continue to be the preserve of flagship phones and the Google Pixel 4a.

There’s a 16MP f/2.1 selfie camera here too, which should do the trick nicely. And video recording will stretch to a decent spread of 4K/30fps, 1080P/120fps, and 720p/240fps modes.

All in all, the Realme 7 5G holds its own as a budget camera offering. But if photography is particularly important to you, then the Realme 7 Pro is a better bet.

Camera samples

Specs and performance

• MediaTek Dimensity 800U
• 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage
• Realme UI over Android 10

The Realme 7 5G runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 800U, a new mid-range 7nm chip from the Taiwanese semiconductor maker.

Aside from being 5G-ready, the Dimensity 800U represents a healthy power boost over the previous Dimensity 700 series. According to Realme, that includes 1.4x faster app launch times, 11% faster performance in CPU benchmarks, and 28% faster performance in GPU benchmarks.

Our own benchmark tests reflected this uptick in performance. An average multi-core score of 1,780 in Geekbench 5 certainly beats the Helio G95-powered Realme 7 on 1,625. It also pips current budget darling the Poco X3 NFC with its Snapdragon 732G on 1,699, and matches the performance of the Realme 7 Pro.

Backed by 6GB of RAM, we certainly didn’t experience any major issues with day to day tasks. Everything flies by nice and smoothly, even with that 120Hz refresh rate active. No, it’s not as silky smooth an experience as with a premium 120Hz phone like the OnePlus 8T. But the fact that the Realme 7 5G is running at this speed at all is pretty impressive.

Gaming performance is very good too. PUBG defaults to HD graphics and high frame rate settings by default, and it largely maintains a smooth (if not stutter-free) gameplay experience. Intense 2D games like Dead Cells and Juicy Realm also perform admirably, the latter on maxed out settings.

You don’t get the benefits of the Realme 7 Pro’s stereo speakers with these games, sadly, so you’ll have to make do with a bottom-mounted mono setup. You do get a 3.5mm jack, at least.

An ample 128GB of storage should see to all your app and media needs, though we should probably sound a note of caution around that new(ish) Dimensity 800U CPU. We couldn’t get Netflix to run during our time with the phone, suggesting that app support might not be quite as universal or as speedy as with more mainstream Qualcomm chips.

Realme’s custom Realme UI isn’t a particularly distinctive take on Android 10, but like the Vivo Y70, it benefits from keeping things simple.

The home screen is clean and uncluttered, with simple icons and familiar menus, and Google Feed situated to the left. It’s packed full of Google apps, too, with just a small handful of homegrown options and bundled extras like Facebook and WPS Office to do with as you wish.

Battery life

• 5,000mAh battery
• 30W Dart Charge

Just like the Realme 7, the Realme 7 5G benefits from a huge 5,000mAh battery. This will ensure a day of comfortable usage without any fretting over running out of juice.

There are a couple of variations this time around, however. Chief among those is a faster 120Hz display refresh rate, which will inevitably take its toll.

Perhaps this explains why the Realme 7 5G lost 11% of its charge after 60 minutes of video streaming with the screen brightness set to max. The Realme 7 lost the same about after 90 minutes of video playback.

Of course, it’s never a precise art measuring battery drain in this way, with several factors coming into play. In general, stamina simply won’t be a concern for the vast majority of users.

Especially not with Realme’s Dart Charge plug bundled in. Just like the Realme 7, you get a 30W charger in the box, which Realme claims can get you from 0 to 100% in just over an hour.

In our practical experience, we were able to get from 33% to 91% in 30 minutes, which is pretty good. Not as good as the Realme 7 Pro, with its 65W charger, but good nonetheless.

Should I buy the Realme 7 5G?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

First reviewed: December 2020