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realme GT 2 Pro Review

Written By Louie Diangson
Published • April 14th, 2022
Gadget ReviewsMobile
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realme first unveiled the realme GT 2 Pro in China in January, then a couple of months later, became available in the Philippines. Being a member of the GT family, the GT2 Pro is the company’s most powerful smartphone to date, packing a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip. But aside from performance, this phone can deliver more. Find out in our review.

Table of Contents

Design and Construction

realme GT 2 Pro Review

Right off the bat, we’d like to say that the realme GT2 Pro is one of the most premium smartphones I’ve handled that is priced under PHP 35K. For glass protection alone, it already has one of the bests in the market, Gorilla Glass Victus.

That glass is enclosed in a curved aluminum frame. It’s cool to the touch, has a smooth textured finish, and blends almost seamlessly with the back panel.

The volume button is made of metal and is found on the left side.

While the power button, which is also metal with a textured finish, is on the right side. The buttons feel premium as well. Solid, tactile, but quiet. realme even placed the buttons perfectly near the middle of the frame so that your thumb and index finger will naturally land on them upon holding.

Up top, we have the secondary microphone, then down below we have the nano-SIM card tray, main microphone, USB-C, and the loudspeaker.

Looking at the back, we have the large camera module that houses the 50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide, and the microlens. From this side, you will also see this beautiful panel made from ISCC-certified biopolymer. The material feels like a combination of soft rubber and ceramic, which is really nice. realme says that the material tries to replicate paper.

The back panel is also textured for added grip and has the realme badge etched on the upper right. You will also see the signature of Naoto Fukusawa, a world-renowned industrial designer who helped design the GT2 Pro.

Overall, the realme GT2 Pro is a premium and beautiful smartphone that is not only nice to look at but to hold as well.

Display and Multimedia

The screen on the GT2 Pro is beautiful. And that’s because we’re looking at a large 6.7-inch display with WQHD+ (1440 x 3216) resolution or equal to 509ppi. That’s one sharp screen for its size. It also uses an AMOLED panel to produce deep blacks and punchy colors, and a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth animations and transitions.

That’s not all, though, as it comes with features like dark mode with three levels of darkness and adaptive contrast depending on the lighting condition, screen color mode, natural tone display, eye comfort, image sharpener, video color enhancer, video motion enhancement (doesn’t work side-by-side with image sharpener), bright HDR video mode, adaptive refresh rate (60Hz/120Hz), and adaptive screen resolution (FHD+/WQHD+).

In other words, realme really packed the GT2 Pro with features to make sure you have control over your viewing experience.

When it comes to audio, we have a dual speaker setup with the secondary speaker found by the earpiece. It’s immersive with crisp mids and highs. Although the lows are not that replicated. It’s good enough for casual use though, but we still recommend an external speaker or headphones for better quality.

Cameras

As mentioned earlier, the realme GT2 Pro has a triple rear camera setup with a 50MP main, 50MP ultra-wide, and microlens. For selfies, we have a 32MP shooter. It has features like Night, Street, Portrait, Starry mode, and Microscope.

We’re very much impressed with its shooting performance. It focuses fast and shoots quickly. Even the Night mode only requires an extra second for it to get more details.

The images produced are really sharp with accurate colors, good contrast, and a high dynamic range. It’s also great for implementing bokeh effects without looking too artificial. Micro shot is a very cool feature as it gives you a glimpse of a microscopic world. Something macro cameras cannot do. It’s prone to shakes, though, but once you get that proper focus, the result is amazing.

Shots taken in low-light also come out great. It’s not as sharp as daytime shots, but details are still there and the colors still look great. The same can be said with selfies, although, it’s not as good as the main cameras in low-light and when implementing bokeh effects.

For videos, it can shoot at a maximum of 8K resolution at 24fps or 4K at 60fps. Quality is great as well and can produce sharp and stable videos thanks to OIS. Watch the sample below.

https://youtu.be/Ou9HZKpee_c

OS, UI, and Apps

The realme GT2 Pro runs on realme UI 3.0 based on Android 12. The interface feels almost stock and uses multiple home screens to house apps. The usual Google apps are here and some third-party like Facebook, Amazon, Booking, and LinkedIn. Those can be uninstalled though.

Other features include Phone Manager to boost the device, Payment protection, App lock, Private Safe, Hide apps, App cloner, Kid Space, System cloner, and Multiple users.

There are also plenty of personalization features, Edge lighting, and some extra features in the realme Lab like dual-mode audio, sleep capsule, and heart rate measurement. Yes, the GT2 Pro can use the in-display fingerprint scanner to get an estimate of your heart rate.

Storage-wise, we’re getting a 256GB UFS 3.1. There’s no support for microSD cards, but we don’t think it’s a downer. Most flagship phones nowadays don’t have microSD card slots.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the realme GT2 Pro is a 4nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip with an octa-core CPU clocked at a maximum of 3.00GHz, an Adreno 730 GPU, and 12GB LPDDR5 RAM. As expected, we didn’t encounter any issues with its performance given its specs. It breezed through all tasks including gaming. Some warming can be felt at the back but it’s normal. The GT2 Pro’s stainless steel vapor chamber with copper allow back and Diamond Thermal Gel is working well to keep things cool. Check out the benchmarks below:

• AnTuTu v9 – 960,289
• AnTuTu Storage Test v9 – 66,957, 1,775 MB/s (Seq. Read), 1,251.7 MB/s (Seq. Write)
• PC Mark – 12,563 (Work 3.0)
• 3D Mark – 9,399 (Wild Life), 2,566 (Wild Life Extreme)
• Geekbench 5 – 1,252 (Single-Core), 3,448 (Multi-Core), 6,085 (OpenCL)

Connectivity and Battery Life

The realme GT2 Pro has everything covered — dual-SIM, 5G SA/NSA dual-mode, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, and NFC with 360-degree detection meaning realme increased the NFC area by 500% and the sensor range by 20% so you can easily tap it on a supported device from almost any angle.

In addition, the GT2 Pro boasts a HyperSmart antenna which consists of 12 antennas around the frame. The device will automatically select the optimum antennas for increased signals.

For the battery, it has a 5,000mAh capacity, capable of more than 20 hours of playback. In our experience, it’s a whole day of heavy usage with adaptive refresh rates and resolution activated. PC Mark’s battery test rated the battery at 14 hours and 23 minutes. Charging, on the other hand, takes a little over 30 minutes using the 65W SuperDart charger.

Conclusion

To be honest, I haven’t encountered a realme 21 device that really wowed me, which is understandable considering the company’s offerings were mostly centered on providing competitively priced mid-rangers. Well, until now. The realme GT2 Pro became that Android that I wanted to have. It looks great, has outstanding performance, great cameras with micro, and a big battery.

I was even surprised that realme priced the 12GB + 256GB model at PHP 34,990USD 596INR 50,547EUR 568CNY 4,342. It can even go lower during sale events. That is a price that is hard to beat, considering that its competitors are priced at PHP 40K and up. The design, specs, and price combo is just hard to beat. And all I can say is, I want it.

realme GT 2 Pro specs:
6.7-inch WQHD+ (1440 x 3216) AMOLED display
120Hz refresh rate
Corning Gorilla Victus
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip
Adreno 730 GPU
8GB, 12GB LPDDR5 RAM
128GB, 256GB, 512GB UFS 3.1
Triple rear cameras:
• 50MP F1.8 main
• 50MP F2.2 ultra-wide
• Micro lens
32MP F2.4 front camera
Dual-5G
Dual-SIM
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, Beidou, GLONASS, QZSS, GALILEO, IRNSS, AGPS
NFC (360-degrees)
Dual speakers
Hi-res audio certification
USB Type-C
realme UI 3.0 (Android 12)
5,000mAh battery w/ 65W fast charging
163.2 x 74.7 x 8.18mm
189~199g
Paper White, Paper Green, Steel Black, Titanium Blue