Realme GT Neo 3T vs iQOO Neo 6: Can the well packaged Realme GT Neo 3T take on the segment best iQOO Neo 6?

The premium mid-range segment has been very popular with many smartphone launches from brands like Xiaomi, Realme, iQOO, OnePlus, etc. Vivo’s sub-brand iQOO has given stiff competition to almost all smartphones with its Neo 6 which has been a very strong contender and provides all the necessary specifications in this price segment.

The iQOO Neo 6 (Review) packs in a good build and design, a nice 120Hz AMOLED display for media consumption, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset for gaming and performance, a good set of triple cameras, and much more. On the other hand, Realme launched another smartphone in the premium mid-range segment in its Neo series called the Realme GT Neo 3T.

The Realme GT Neo 3T is a powerful premium mid-range smartphone that provides some very good specifications like a nice design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset, a good set of triple cameras, 80W fast charging, etc. So can the new entrant from Realme dethrone the segment best iQOO Neo 6 or will the iQOO Neo 6 continue to rule in this segment?

Let’s find out in the full comparison.

In terms of build, both smartphones have a polycarbonate back with different design elements. The Realme GT Neo 3T sports an interesting back with a racing flag design which does shine when light strikes the back. On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 has a plain back with no textures or patterns but the back does show the transition between different colours when light hits at different angles. 

Both of them get a frosted finish at the back thus providing good grip in hands but the back of the Realme GT Neo 3T is slightly more curved toward the sides compared to the iQOO Neo 6. The Realme GT Neo 3T sports a rectangular camera module that houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight and it does protrude slightly. 

On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 has a square-shaped camera module that houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight in the top larger half whereas the lower half has the bold Neo logo that looks interesting. The Realme GT Neo 3T does not provide an IP rating whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has an IP53 rating which makes it splash-resistant.

In terms of weight distribution, the Realme GT Neo 3T weighs around 193grams which makes it slightly heavier than the 190grams of weight on the iQOO Neo 6. Around the sides, both smartphones are equally thick and house a polycarbonate frame instead of aluminium that houses the volume buttons with a power button. 

On the top, both smartphones have a secondary noise-cancelling microphone but the iQOO Neo 6 gets an IR Blaster to control various devices. At the bottom, both smartphones have a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a dual SIM card slot, and a primary microphone. Neither of them has support for a microSD card slot nor a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Coming to the front, both smartphones have a single punch-hole display with the punch-hole located in the top left corner on the Realme GT Neo 3T whereas it is located in the top centre on the iQOO Neo 6. The Realme GT Neo 3T has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has Scott Xensation glass protection on the front.

Both the Realme GT Neo 3T and the iQOO Neo 6 sport a similar-sized 6.62-inches Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) E4 AMOLED displays with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. Both the smartphones have minimum bezels to the sides. Both these displays support a 120Hz refresh rate which means scrolling through social media, web pages and other multi-tasking between applications feels smoother.

However, you can either switch between 60Hz or 120Hz or set it to Auto on both smartphones as you do not get any dynamic refresh rate as such. Both of them also get a 240Hz touch sampling rate, providing faster touch responses during gaming. Since these both displays are AMOLED, the viewing angles and colour reproduction is very good on both of them.

In terms of brightness, both the displays can achieve a peak brightness of 1300nits and both of them have good visibility under direct sunlight. You get multiple display settings on both of them and can set the display to a warmer or cooler tone by using the slider. Both of them also get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works fast. 

Both of them have support for HDR on YouTube and have Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc but currently, Netlflix does not support HDR on the Realme GT Neo 3T whereas the iQOO Neo 6 supports it. Overall, both these displays are great for media consumption.

Both the Realme GT Neo 3T and the iQOO Neo 6 are powered by the powerful flagship Snapdragon 870 chipset so you get very good performance in all the daily tasks on both smartphones also in terms of app opening/closing, both are very fast. Both smartphones can easily play games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Apex Legends, and BGMI at the highest graphics settings.

In BGMI, both smartphones can easily run at HDR graphics with Ultra/Extreme frame rates but the iQOO Neo 6 goes one step up by providing support for 90fps also which the Realme GT Neo 3T lacks. After long hours of gaming, there were some very minor frame drops on the Realme GT Neo 3T whereas it was not such the case with the iQOO Neo 6.

Both smartphones get a dedicated vapour cooling system that dissipates heat faster after long hours of gaming but here the temperatures were slightly lower on the Realme GT Neo 3T compared to the iQOO Neo 6. In the CPU throttling test, both the smartphones did not show any sign of throttling as such but the iQOO Neo 6 could maintain a better-sustained performance of 85-90 per cent compared to 80 per cent on the Realme GT Neo 3T.

In terms of benchmarks, both smartphones score equally well. In terms of network connectivity, both smartphones have support for good carrier aggregation and when it comes to 5G support, the Realme GT Neo 3T supports 8 bands of 5G compared to 4 bands of 5G on the iQOO Neo 6. Both smartphones get 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB storage with UFS 3.1 speeds.

Overall, the performance is equally good on both smartphones as they can handle all the light and heavy tasks easily but the iQOO Neo 6 edges slightly ahead when it comes to the gaming experience.

The Realme GT Neo 3T runs on RealmeUI 3.0 and the iQOO Neo 6 runs on the FunTouchOS 12, both of which are based on Android 12 out of the box. Both the user interfaces provide a lot of features like a sidebar where you can access all your favourite applications, an Android 12-based colour picker throughout the user interface depending on the wallpaper, Privacy Dashboard, and many customizations.

However, the Privacy Dashboard allows the user to see which application is using the microphone, camera or location but this needs feature needs some improvement on the iQOO Neo 6 since some apps are not well optimized. Both of them have Android 12-based widgets available and customizations include changing icon shape and size, different styles for Always-On display, fingerprint scanner, etc.

In terms of bloatware, both user interfaces have a couple amount of bloatware but it is slightly less on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Realme GT Neo 3T, but these can be uninstalled on both easily. In terms of software updates, both smartphones are assured to get another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security updates. So in software experience, it all depends on personal preference.

Both the Realme GT Neo 3T and the iQOO Neo 6 sport a triple camera setup which consists of a 64MP main camera with f/1.9 aperture on the iQOO Neo 6 and f/1.8 on the Realme GT Neo 3T, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera and a 2MP macro camera. The iQOO Neo 6 uses the Samsung GW1 sensor for its main camera. On the front, both have a 16MP camera.

The images from the main camera on both smartphones come out with a good amount of details and dynamic range but the colours look oversaturated on the Realme GT Neo 3T compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which has natural colours. There is slight noise present on the Realme GT Neo 3T images and on the other hand, there is some oversharpening in the images of the iQOO Neo 6.

At night, the images taken on the main camera on both smartphones come out with sharper details and dynamic range but the details do look slightly softer and have more noise on the Realme GT Neo 3T compared to the iQOO Neo 6. With the Night Mode turned on, the images look good on both smartphones but still, there is some room for improvement is needed on the Realme GT Neo 3T.

The 8MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of dynamic range on both smartphones but the level of detail looks softer on both of them and also around the sides, there is a lot of distortion and noise present. Similar is the case during the night when details look soft and both of them have a lot of noise present in the background but with the dedicated night mode, noise reduces slightly and dynamic range improves.

The 2MP macro camera on both smartphones is a fixed focus camera so the level of detail looks softer, there is a lot of noise and poor dynamic range. In terms of portraits, the dynamic range is good on both but the colours look oversaturated on the Realme GT Neo 3T edge detection is good on both and when it comes to background blur, the iQOO Neo 6 is slightly better and also you get the better contrast than the Realme GT Neo 3T.

On the front, both cameras are 16MP, but the details look sharper and have better dynamic range on the iQOO Neo 6, also it has natural colours compared to the Realme GT Neo 3T which has oversaturated colours and a slight amount of noise in the background. In terms of portrait selfies, the Realme GT Neo 3T tends to oversharpen the background more compared to the iQOO Neo 6 but edge detection is good on both.

In terms of videos, both smartphones can record 4K videos at 60fps resulting in sharper details and good dynamic range but the iQOO Neo 6 goes one step up by providing OIS which the Realme GT Neo 3T lacks so you get less noise in the videos of the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Realme GT Neo 3T. At 1080p at 60fps, the videos come out well on both with excellent dynamic range but still, the iQOO Neo 6 is better.

The ultrawide camera on both smartphones is restricted to 1080p video recording at 30fps and the footage comes with a lot of noise and distortion around the edges but the colours look natural on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Realme GT Neo 3T. On the front, both cameras have EIS, but the video footage is restricted to 1080p at 30fps and the videos have slightly better dynamic range on the iQOO Neo 6.

Overall, definitely, when it comes to cameras, the iQOO Neo 6 has a clear edge over the Realme GT Neo 3T.

When it comes to battery capacity, the Realme GT Neo 3T sports a larger battery of 5000mAh compared to a 4500mAh battery on the iQOO Neo 6. Both smartphones can easily last for one to one and half days with normal usage which includes casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. and the display is set to 120Hz but switching to 60Hz gives more than two days of backup on both smartphones.

With the display being set to 120Hz and with heavy usage like rendering videos, attending 7-8 hours of calls, playing games, etc., both smartphones lasted for one single day easily with some charge left. The Realme GT Neo 3T provides a slightly better standard screen-on time of around 6.5-7 hours which is slightly better than the 5.5-6 hours of screen-on time on the iQOO Neo 6.

In terms of charging speeds, both smartphones support 80W fast charging and both of them get a dedicated 80W fast charger bundled inside the box that can charge both smartphones from 0 to 100 per cent within 40-45 minutes which is pretty fast. Overall, the battery life is slightly better on the Realme GT Neo 3T compared to the iQOO Neo 6.

Both the smartphones have a dual stereo speaker setup where the earpiece and the loudspeaker together produce a stereo effect and are equally good but the clarity is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Realme GT Neo 3T but the speaker on the Realme GT Neo 3T sounds louder at the highest settings compared to the iQOO Neo 6. 

Both smartphones lack a 3.5mm headphone jack and both of them get support for Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output. One advantage that the iQOO Neo 6 has is that inside the box you get a USB Type-C to 3.5mm converter inside the box so you can you the wired earphones which is not the case with the Realme GT Neo 3T.

Both smartphones are very good offerings in the premium mid-range segment as they offer a good build and design, E4 AMOLED displays with 120Hz refresh rate with stereo speakers for media consumption, powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset for performance and gaming, good set of triple cameras, good battery life with fast charging and software experience is also good on both.

However, there are a couple of differences between both smartphones. The iQOO Neo 6 has the better set of cameras, the performance and gaming experience is slightly better, and also you get features like IP53 rating and support for HDR on Netflix all of which is not present on the Realme GT Neo 3T. On the other hand, the Realme GT Neo 3T has a slightly better battery life compared to the iQOO Neo 6.

So if you want a smartphone with all the good features and battery life is your highest priority, then the Realme GT Neo 3T is a good option to consider but considering all the specifications and the excellent gaming performance you get, the iQOO Neo 6 is an excellent premium mid-range smartphone and it definitely holds the clear edge over the Realme GT Neo 3T.