Within a span of four years of foraying into India, Realme has grown into a big brand. The success is mainly attributed to the feature-rich available at affordable rates and this helped the company to get a good foothold in the budget and mid-range segments.
Now, with an aim to target the niche premium consumers, the company has come up with the new GT 2 Pro in India. It comes with unique exquisite design language, and feature-rich photography hardware and is powered by ever-reliable Qualcomm chipset.
I used the GT 2 Pro for a week and here're my thoughts new Realme premium phones.
Design, build quality and display
Realme GT 2 Pro is one of the most good-looking phones of 2022. I love the textured shell on the back, very unique among its peers. Also, the build quality is top-class.
It is touted to be the industry's first phone with a bio-based polymer design. It is developed by Realme in collaboration with Naoto Fukasawa.
Also, the GT 2 Pro boasts TCO certification and is said to have passed the stringent evaluation of safety, user-friendly performance, and environmental sustainability performance.
The shell is made of eco-friendly Sabic ISCC-certified bio-based materials extracted from renewable raw materials such as paper pulp and fallen leaves. Users can scribble with a pencil on the back and create art on it. It is easy to clean with a cloth too.
Also, the plastic content of the retail package is now reduced to 0.3 per cent compared to previous Realme phones, which had 21.7 per cent. And, 100 per cent of the printing ink used on the box is made of environmentally-friendly soy-based oil.
It also features a sturdy metallic frame around the edges and the cover cascades smoothly to the mid-rib of the structure and colour the shell's colour blends beautifully with the rails.
Also, the triple-camera module doesn't protrude much from the back. The phone slips into the pocket quite easily without any fuss.
Our review model is paper green. The company also offers two other options-- paper white and steel back; they are good too.
It features a power button on the right and the volume rockers to the left with two antenna bands on either side. At the base, you will find the Type-C port with a mic and SIM stray to its left and the loudspeaker with one antenna band to the right.
At the top, the phone features a smooth flat design with a lone antenna band and a mic.
On the front, the company has incorporated a flat display panel. It sports a 6.7-inch Quad HD+ (3216×1440p) AMOLED LTPO screen. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus shield on top, which ensures the device's screen is well guarded against the scratches dues to pen or keys in the pant pocket.
The display is very bright and when any multimedia content is played on, the colours of the subjects and objects on the screen come off rich and vibrant. It offers a delightful viewing experience.
I also appreciate the company for slotting the in-screen fingerprint a little higher from the base, compared to the rival brands, which place the sensor way below and make it difficult for the thumb to reach it, to unlock the phone.
In the Realme GT 2 Pro, the thumb or even the index finger can easily reach the biometric without any difficulty. Also, it responds quickly to the finger impression and unlocks the screen.
Performance
Realme GT 2 Pro is powered by 4nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 octa-core chipset (3.00 GHz Cortex-X2 x 3 + 2.50 GHz Cortex-A710 x 3 + 1.80 GHz Cortex-A510 x 4) backed by Adreno 730 GPU, Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0, and 8GB/12GB LPDDR5 RAM, 128GB/256GB storage, It also houses a 5,000mAh battery with 67W charger support.
Our review unit is a 12GB RAM + 256GB storage variant. Out-of-the-box, operating system + pre-installed apps (14.6GB) and 'other' (6.35GB) unspecified things in the phone add up to 20.95GB storage, leaving the user with 235GB. This is enough to take thousands of photos and videos, and also install several third-party apps.
Also, it supports RAM expansion up to an additional 7GB, meaning it can be bumped up to 19GB RAM.
As advertised, the phone performed smoothly. The credit also partly goes to the stainless Steel Vapor Cooling technology that does a good job of dissipating over-heating during power-intensive tasks such as 4K video recording or playing graphics-rich games such as Asphalt 9: Legends.
The premium Realme phone comes with a 5,000mAh Li-ion battery. During the entire review period, the device was able to consistently offer a full day of battery life with more than 30 percent left before I used to retire to the bed.
The battery life depends on how we use it all through the day. I am active for a little over 14 hours and in that, I average around five to six hours of screen-time. I mostly consume multimedia content during commuting between home and the office (vice-versa) and in short breaks during the office work mostly to browse newsfeeds on social media platforms.
Also, with 67W charger support, I never felt any anxiety issue of the battery dying out before I reach home. The device can fully charge from zero to 100 per cent in around 35 minutes.
Photography
Realme GT 2 Pro boasts a triple camera module-- one main 50MP (with Sony IMX766, all-pixel Omni-directional PDAF: Phase Detection Auto Focus and OIS: Optical Image Stabilisation, f/1.8) backed by ultra-wide 150-degree 50MP (with Samsung JN1 sensor, f/2.2) and a 2MP 40x micro-lens camera backed with dual-tone dual-LED flash.
It takes fantastic photos in the bright sunny conditions. The camera processes colours, a bit more aggressively, resulting in warmer than natural, in the pictures. But, they are visually pleasing. The dull colours of the flowers look more rich and vibrant, this is what consumers like and Realme is just catering to the need.
The ultra-wide-angle modes live up to the hype. It was able to capture most of the Nandi hill range in a single frame. Even the 2X zoom mode, is able to get a good picture with less loss of quality.
In the night mode, the phone was able to get decent low-light pictures on par with rival brands of its class.
The most impressive aspect of the Realme GT 2 Pro that sets up from any of the competition is the Microscope mode. Though you have to dig through 'More' settings, it is an excellent feature. To be honest, I, initially was really skeptical about its capability. But, it proved me wrong.
As you can see from the samples, the 40X microscope view of the Passion fruit leaf, and the fabrics of the face mask and chair, are remarkably great.
Though we need a stable hand to get that perfect ultra close-up shot, Realme engineers have done an exceptional job on developing the microscope mode feature on GT 2 Pro, in their first attempt.
The phone, which comes with gyro-EIS (Electronic Image Stabilisation) feature, is also capable of recording good quality videos in 8K at 24fps (frames per second), 4K at 30/60fps and 1080p at 30/60/240fps.
On the front, a 32MP (with Sony IMX615 sensor, f/2.4). It takes really good selfies and also the video quality too is decent on par with rival brands.
Final thoughts
Realme GT 2 Pro is a fantastic premium phone and I am really impressed with the attention to detail, the company has given prominence to the design language and photography hardware.
The paper-like texture of the rear-side shell is visually appealing and the microscope camera mode, makes this phone really stand out among the rival brands.
Realme GT 2 Pro is available in two storage variants, priced at Rs 49,999 (8GB+128GB), and Rs 57,999 (12GB+256GB).
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