A proper flagship from Realme that provides the best in class experience!!
Realme’s success lies in its mid-range and premium mid-range segment of smartphones which includes the number and the X-series. One of the very first flagship smartphones from Realme was the Realme X50 Pro packed with almost all the flagship specifications almost at an affordable price compared to other smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, etc.
Last year, Realme also came up with the GT series of which the Realme GT (Review) has been the flagship smartphone which includes a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 888 chipset, a good set of cameras, and a 4500mAh battery with support for 65W fast charging. Now there are another two smartphones in the GT lineup launched by Realme namely – Realme GT 2 and the GT 2 Pro.
The Realme GT 2 Pro seems to be the perfect flagship made by Realme as it brings some specifications like a striking design that looks unique, a Quad HD+120Hz LTPO 2.0 AMOLED, flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, a larger 5000mAh battery with 65W fast charging and a good set of triple cameras which seem to be interesting.
There are a couple of other flagship smartphones from other brands with very strong offerings, so how does this flagship Realme GT 2 Pro stack up against the competition? Is it with considering this Realme flagship? Let’s find out in the full review.
Realme GT 2 Pro Design:
Realme has always been at the forefront in bringing some innovative design elements to its smartphones last year like the huge Dare To Leap logo on the back of some Realme smartphones and also saw the popular GT series that consists of the Realme GT Master Edition (Review) which has a suitcase design and Realme GT with the Vegan Leather finish at the back.
The Realme GT 2 Pro sports a newer design as the back is made up of bio-based polymer that seems to be like paper instead of polycarbonate and you can easily write on the back. However, you do miss out on a premium glass back which could have been better considering this is a flagship from Realme. The back has been made from renewable sources.
This back has a textured design that provides a good grip and does not catch fingerprints or smudges. The camera module is also rectangular and houses triple cameras and a dual-LED flashlight. Besides the camera module, there is Realme’s Naoto Fukusawa’s signature just below the Realme logo which looks good and you do not get Dare To Leap written on the back which is a good thing.
The Realme GT 2 Pro is available in two colors – Paper Green and Paper White. Both these colors have a plain look and there is no flashy stuff at the back. Around the sides, there is an aluminum frame that does feel premium and it houses the power button on the right whereas the left side has the volume buttons. The top of the smartphone houses the secondary noise-canceling microphone.
The bottom of the smartphone houses the USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone, and a dual SIM card slot. There is no microSD card for storage expansion and neither a 3.5mm headphone jack. The back does have support for wireless charging which is slightly disappointing as Realme is claiming this to be a proper flagship.
The Realme GT 2 Pro weighs around 189grams and is 8.2mm in thickness around the sides. There is no official IP rating but you get some kind of splash resistance though. There is a punch-hole display on the front with minimum bezels around the sides. Overall, the build feels unique and environment friendly and the design looks good.
Realme GT 2 Pro Display:
The Realme GT 2 Pro has a 6.7-inches Quad HD+(1440×3216 pixels) AMOLED display which is the first for a Realme smartphone to have a 2K display. This display is a flat display, unlike some other flagship smartphones that have a curved display. As this is an AMOLED display, you get great viewing angles and color reproduction is very good as the colors look punchier on the display.
This is a second-generation LTPO panel that switches refresh rate very much faster from as low as 1Hz and going all the way to 120Hz depending on the application usage in the background. For example, the refresh rate switches to 1Hz when you are watching any static content like scrolling through the settings menu, while watching a video, the display switches to 40 or 60Hz and during gaming, it switches to 120Hz.
The refresh rate switches immediately thus leading to good battery life. If you want slightly better battery life, then there is the standard 60Hz option also. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, there is a 360Hz touch sampling rate which can increase up to a massive 1000Hz touch sampling rate also which is really good for faster touch responses during gaming.
The Realme GT 2 Pro also sports MEMC technology that bumps up the fps while watching a video. For example, it lets you convert a 30fps video to a 60fps video by adding extra smoothness thus providing a good experience. The display on the Realme GT 2 Pro is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus which is one of the best display protection.
In terms of brightness, this display can achieve a peak brightness of 1400nits which is good and it is easily visible under direct sunlight. There is also support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms but still, there is no support for HDR on Netflix as of now and Realme may fix this issue in a future software update. On Youtube, there is support for HDR.
Overall, the display is one of the best for media consumption.
Realme GT 2 Pro Performance:
The Realme GT 2 Pro is powered by the latest and the most powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset found on most of the flagships of 2022. In terms of daily tasks, the smartphone can handle all tasks easily whether switching between applications, rendering videos, web browsing, playing games, etc., and also in games like BGMI, you can run on HDR graphics with Ultra frame rates.
The gameplay is very smooth without any stutters or lags but after long hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone does get much warmer Realme has equipped with a stainless steel vapor cooling system which does dissipate heat up to some extent but still, the back heats quite often. In terms of CPU throttling tests, the Realme GT 2 Pro could achieve a sustained performance of around 70-75 percent which is good but still, the percentage does drop to 50-60 percent at times.
In terms of benchmarks, the smartphone scored well but if you run multiple benchmarks like Geekbench 5.1 and Antutu in a continuous manner the scores do dip a lot. When it comes to 5G support, there is support for up to 8 5G bands and you get good carrier aggregation also. The Realme GT 2 Pro comes in two models – 8/12GB LPDDR5 RAM with 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage.
There is also virtual RAM using which you can increase the RAM between 3GB to 7GB for enhanced multitasking. Overall, the performance and gaming feel excellent but the presence of overheating does let it down.
Realme GT 2 Pro Software:
The Realme GT 2 Pro runs on the latest RealmeUI 3.0 based on Android 12. As we all know that RealmeUI seems identical to ColorOS so you get a lot of customizations under the Personalizations tab where you can change the icon shape and size, the layout of the home screen, and different animations for the fingerprint scanner, and also various styles for the Always-On display.
Other features include the Smart Sidebar and Flexible windows where you can pin a particular application to the home screen in the form of a floating window. Since it is running on Android 12, there is a Privacy Dashboard where it shows which apps are used and also lets to choose the location for a particular application.
Like the Realme 9 Pro Plus, here also there is a heart rate monitor where you use your fingerprint scanner to measure heart rate, and also there is also a Dual Music Mode where you can listen to audio both through wired and wireless way simultaneously. Other than this as this is a Realme flagship smartphone, you are assured to get another three years of Android OS updates and four years of security updates.
But the only catch in the RealmeUI is the presence of bloatware which is larger in number and can be uninstalled easily. So on an overall basis, you get a great software experience with the RealmeUI if you do not consider the bloatware present.
Realme GT 2 Pro Cameras:
The Realme GT 2 Pro sports a triple camera setup that consists of a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX766 sensor for the main camera, a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera, and a 3MP f/3.0 micro camera which is a new addition instead of a macro camera or a telephoto camera. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.4 camera for selfies.
The images from the main camera come out with good details and the level of sharpness is great with good dynamic range. The colors come out to be natural without any oversharpening in the background. The noise is very less in the background but with the 50MP mode, the details come out much sharper and the noise is slightly more.
At night, the images from the Realme GT 2 Pro come out with an excellent dynamic range and details look much sharper without much noise. The colors look natural and there is no oversharpening taking place in the background. With the night mode turned on, the highlights in the shadows are restored and the dynamic range also improves a bit.
The 50MP ultrawide camera is similar to one found on the OnePlus 10 Pro and this ultrawide camera has a larger 150-degree field of view. The images come out with good details that look slightly softer than that of the main camera and the dynamic range is good. The colors look natural without any oversharpening You also have a fisheye effect present which results in good details and dynamic range.
At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details that look slightly softer and have a wider dynamic range. There is a lot of noise present in the background with colors close to natural. With the night mode turned on, the images have a slightly better dynamic range and details look slightly better and the 150-degree lens does result in some softness and decent dynamic range.
The 3MP microscopic camera is an interesting addition here as this camera can be very much closer to a subject by applying a 20x zoom and this can go all the way up to 40x zoom. The micro images have an excellent level of detail with good dynamic range and noise is also on the lower side. However, still, a telephoto camera implementation could have been better.
In terms of portraits, the edge detection is good with proper background blur. The dynamic range is excellent with details looking sharper. The skin tones look natural but the noise is slightly on the higher side. On the front, there is a 32MP camera that does a good job in terms of selfies which results in good dynamic range and details also look sharper with very less noise in the background.
There is some amount of oversharpening taking place in the background during selfies and the colors also look slightly washed out also. With the HDR turned on, colors do look oversaturated but noise is more present. At night, the selfies come out with good dynamic range, and with the night mode turned on, the details look much better with less noise. The portrait selfies come out with good edge detection.
The main camera can record 8K videos at 30fps which comes out with a good dynamic range but details look slightly softer and there is a larger amount of noise present in the background. However, the 8K videos do have a narrow field of view compared to the 4K videos. The presence of OIS on the main camera does make a difference as it works perfectly in 4K and 1080p resolution.
Switching to 4K at 60fps, the videos are much better stabilized resulting in good dynamic range and details also look sharper with less noise present. The ultrawide camera can also record 4K videos at 60fps and these videos come out with good details that look sharper and colors also come out natural with very less noise in the background. The dynamic range is very good though.
Switching to 1080p on both the main and the ultrawide camera’s results in good stabilized videos with excellent dynamic range and details look sharper with very less noise in the background. The front camera on the Realme GT 2 Pro come with support for 1080p videos at 60fps which is slightly disappointing as there is no support for 4K recording but still the videos come out with a good dynamic range.
However, they do suffer from oversharpening and Realme has not provided EIS on the front camera, so as a result, these videos have a large amount of noise and during the night, these videos come out with decent dynamic range though you do have a night mode that does improve the exposure and details also look slightly sharper. Overall, the cameras are good for a flagship smartphone but the lack of a telephoto camera is disappointing.
Realme GT 2 Pro Battery Life:
The Realme GT 2 Pro sports a large 5000mAh battery which is good for a smartphone having a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. With heavy usage and the display is set to 120Hz, the battery lasted for a single day with almost no charge left and you need a quick change around night for usage. With the display switched to 60Hz and heavy usage, the battery easily lasted for one day with some charge left.
In terms of normal usage, which includes casual web browsing, playing games casually, streaming social media, etc., the battery easily lasted for two days with the display set to standard 60Hz and when switched to 120Hz, you can expect one and a half-day of battery life. Due to the thermal throttling of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, the battery consumption is slightly on the higher side.
The standard screen-on time was around 5-6 hours which is decent but not the best. In terms of charging, the Realme GT 2 Pro supports 65W SuperVOOC charging as the 65W fast charger is included inside the box and it takes around 35-40 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 percent. However, being a flagship from Realme, it does lack wireless charging which is slightly disappointing.
Realme GT 2 Pro Audio Quality:
The Realme GT 2 Pro houses a dual stereo speaker setup and the sound is equally loud from the top as well as the bottom. However, the sound quality is not the best when compared to other stereo speakers but still, it is good. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack here For enhanced sound output, you get Dolby Atmos.
Verdict:
Realme has finally worked on its roots and has delivered almost a perfect flagship that fulfills all the necessities that a flagship smartphone does. The build may not be as premium as glass but the bio-polymer material used is a unique thought from Realme that looks striking and the back design looks good, the 120Hz AMOLED LTPO 2.0 display is great for media consumption, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset handles all tasks easily, the software experience is good as you get a lot of features and assurity of longer software updates cycle, and decent battery life.
However, there are some areas where the Realme GT 2 Pro could not deliver like the battery life is mediocre and could have been better, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 throttles the performance a lot and results in overheating, there is neither IP rating nor support for wireless charging present as it is a flagship and RealmeUI though feature-rich has a considerable amount of bloatware present.
So as an overall package, if you do not consider the small issues like mediocre battery life, support for wireless charging, and bloatware, then the Realme GT 2 Pro is a complete all-rounder flagship that will set new benchmarks for the Realme and is worth buying.