After we saw some phones in the realme GT line-up, the company launched one more GT smartphone in India, this is the realme GT NEO 3T which is an upgrade to the last year’s realme GT NEO2. realme also has the realme GT neo 3 which was launched a few months back and now we see another smartphone in the GT NEO series. The realme GT NEO 3T is an upper midrange smartphone that packs a powerful Snapdragon 870 CPU, 80W SuperDart Charge fast charging, 120 Hz E4 AMOLED display, and more. We spend some time on the phone to let you know how good is the phone, here’s our realme GT NEO 3T review.
realme GT NEO 3T Specifications
- Display: 6.7-inch AMOLED 10-bit color display, Full HD+ resolution (2,400 x 1,080 pixels), 120 Hz refresh rate, 1300 nits peak brightness, 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, Corning Gorilla Glass 5 (front)
- Software: realme UI 3.0 interface, Android 12 operating system
- CPU: 7nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 octa-core SoC clocked at 3.2 GHz (Kryo 585 processor)
- GPU: Adreno 650 Graphics
- Memory: 6 GB OR 8 GB LPDDR5 RAM
- Storage: 128 GB OR 256 GB UFS 3.1 internal storage
- Main Camera: Triple cameras (64 MP main + 8 MP ultra-wide + 2 MP macro), 4K Video Recording (60fps), dual-LED flash
- Selfie Camera: 16 MP
- Others: Stereo Speakers, In-display fingerprint scanner, Face Unlock, Stainless Steel Vapour Cooling System Plus, Tactile Engine 2.0 (X-axis Linear Motor)
- Cellular: 5G network, dual SIM, dual standby support
- Battery: 5,000 mAh battery
- Charging: 80W SuperDart fast charging (11V, 7.3A), 0%-50% in 12 minutes
- Price: ₹29,999 (6 GB + 128 GB), ₹31,999 (8 GB + 128 GB), ₹33,999 (8 GB + 256 GB)
- Offers: Up to ₹7,000 discount on the first sale
Design, Display, & Build Quality
On the design front, the realme GT NEO 3T has an 8.7 mm thickness and is 194 grams in weight, but feels offers slim and light in weight. The back has a smooth matte finish Racing Flag design and it looks amazing. There are a total of three color variants of the smartphone – Dash Yellow, Shade Black, and Drifting White, we got the Dash Yellow color as you can see in the images below.
But, no AG glass design, it has polycarbonate materials, and the sides aren’t metallic, but that didn’t give us any inferior feel, the design is solid, and the build quality is great in our opinion. We can see the tapered design and curved edges and it looks slightly similar to the realme GT NEO2 5G, but when we compare it with that of the realme GT NEO 3T, you see the metallic design on the realme GT NEO2 5G was quite better.
The realme GT NEO 3T equips a 6.7-inch E4 AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution (2,400 x 1,080 pixels) and a 120 Hz refresh rate. The display has a peak brightness of 1300 nits and comes with a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The screen has an in-display fingerprint scanner and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The backside has triple cameras with a racing stripe in between the two big camera modules, you can see a dual LED flash and a realme logo at the bottom.
The right side has a power button, the left side has volume controls, the top has a microphone and a loudspeaker (stereo) and the bottom side also offers a loudspeaker making dual speakers. The bottom side also offers a USB Type-C, a microphone, and a 5G SIM tray that supports dual SIMs and no microSD slot. You also have to get a USB Type-C to 3.5 mm adapter separately to plug in any 3.5 mm earphones/headphones on this phone.
The phone has stereo speakers and supports Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Audio. It also has Tactile Engine 2.0 (X-axis Linear Motor) for haptic feedback.
Software, User Interface, and Features
Like the rest of its high-end siblings, you will also see the same realme UI 3.0 on the realme GT NEO 3T and the interface is based on the Android 12 operating system. The realme GT NEO 3T has a security patch dated 5th July 2022.
The realme UI 3.0 is better than the older realme UIs and feels light and smooth, it has better optimizations and gives you a smoother experience (120 Hz refresh rate also acts in here). The realme UI 3.0 has been seamlessly optimized for Android 12 and it’s much more improved.
The realme UI 3.0 packs a whole lot of features on top of all the native Android 12 perks and offers a bunch of customizations. It brings a new look and new Fluid Space design, UI personalization, smoother animations, custom Always-On Display, new privacy features, and more.
Features that you can find on the phone are its Sketchpad AOD (Always On Display) for a customized lock screen experience, Smart Theming with Wallpaper Coloring based on the current theme, Floating Window 2.0 which aids in better multitasking, and Privacy & Safety Features to take control over your data and apps conveniently. You can customize the icons using the icon packs, you can change fingerprint animations, also edge lighting, as well as change the screen refresh rate, display enhancements, and RAM expansion. You can see more about the realme UI 3.0 features here.
There’s a GT mode for activating high-performance on the phone an it can be accessed from the notification shade. About the apps that came with this phone, you will find bloatware that can be removed. A handful of third-party apps can be seen such as Facebook, Josh, Dailyhunt, Booking.com, Moj, Snapchat, LinkedIn, PhonePe, Amazon, and a few more including apps from realme. The user interface is however smooth and lag-free, the experience overall is good and feels smooth due to its 120 Hz refresh rate.
Hardware, Performance, and Gaming
Moving to its hardware, the realme GT NEO 3T packs the same Qualcomm chip we saw on the realme GT NEO2 5G, Snapdragon 870 which has a flagship-grade performance and it’s similar to the Snapdragon 865+, but with higher clock speeds. The CPU is also among its highlights aside from its 80W fast charging. The Snapdragon 870 has all the power you need and is more than enough for gamers who are on a budget (sub-₹30K price bracket). The GPU on the chip is Adreno 650 GPU for high-end gaming.
It is manufactured in power efficient 7nm process and offers higher clocked CPU and GPU cores compared to its predecessor. Therefore, the Snapdragon 870 is slightly faster than the old Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+ and slots in behind the high-end Snapdragon 888.
About the CPU, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 is a high-end SoC manufactured in a 7nm process consisting of 1+3+4 Kryo core configurations, one high-performance prime core Kryo 585 clocked at 3.2 GHz, three performance Kryo 585 cores clocked at 2.42 GHz, and four power-efficient Kryo 585 cores clocked at 1.8 GHz.
The performance of the chip as said is powerful enough to handle many heavy applications and is also capable of handling gaming with smooth frame rates. You can check the benchmarks for its performance, one of our Geekbench 5 benchmarks scored 969 points in a single-core CPU benchmark and 2,591 points in a multi-core CPU benchmark. The GPU has scored 3,658 points which means it has the power to handle high-end GPU tasks.
Gaming is an important factor on this phone, if you are a gamer, there’s plenty of graphics power you need, and guess what, the Adreno 650 can handle many games on the highest possible graphics. If you are a gamer, you don’t need to think about its gaming performance, the realme GT NEO 3T is the best pick for gamers in this class.
For cooling, the realme GT NEO 3T offers Stainless Steel Vapour Cooling System Plus which helps in dissipating the heat while you play games, do heavy use of the phone, and use the camera extensively, as well as long hours of video playbacks. The Stainless Steel Vapour Cooling System Plus has a 4129 mm² Cooling Area and packs with the diamond thermal gel and an 8-layer heat dissipation system as per realme.
Speaking of the RAM and storage options, the realme GT NEO 3T has a fast LPDDR5 RAM type and UFS 3.1 storage type which is another major point to consider, this is among the fastest storage and RAM types. About the variants, you will find three RAM variants i.e. 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, 8 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, and the top-end 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage. The storage cannot be expanded as it doesn’t come with a microSD card slot.
The realme GT NEO 3T also comes with RAM expansion technology that helps you increase the RAM to an extra 7 GB making a total of 15 GB of RAM on the phone (8 GB model). The price for the realme GT NEO 3T starts at ₹29,999 for its base variant 6 GB RAM + 128 GB variant, ₹31,999 for 8 GB RAM + 128 GB variant, and ₹33,999 for 8 GB RAM + 256 GB variant.
Cameras
On the camera’s front, the backside has a triple camera setup with 64 MP as the main camera with two side cameras, one of 8 MP for wide-angle photography and 2 MP for macro shots. The front side has a 16 MP camera for selfie and video calling needs. The camera setup is quite similar to the realme GT NEO2 5G and you can expect a similar performance out of the cameras. No OIS is available so as is the telephoto lens.
The camera interface has a bunch of features – Street Photography mode, Pro mode, Ultra macro, Dual-View Video, Film, Slow-mo, Pano, Tilt-Shift, alongwith all the regular features. The camera can shoot 4K videos at 60 fps which is good, and also shoots wide-angle videos as well as 240 fps slow motion videos.
If we talk about the image quality, the main camera takes amazing still shots in the daylight, the photos appear to be bright and colorful. Here are some camera samples we got to show you, take a look at them below.
realme GT NEO 3T Camera Samples
Battery Runtime and Charging
realme GT NEO 3T comes with a 5,000 mAh battery with support for 80W fast charging and it’s fast enough to charge the phone 50% in just 12 minutes.
You get a 160W Type-C charger in the box, it is rated 160W (20V, 8A) while the phone is rated 80W. realme says it has TÜV Rheinland safe fast charge system certification, smart MCU current control management, and 38 levels of safety protection for safe charging.
The 5,000 mAh battery can last up to 1.5 or up to 2 days depending on your usage, the fast charging comes in handy, and in just a few minutes, you get plenty of battery juice. As per realme, the phone can deliver 29 hours of calling time, 88 hours of music playback, and 26 hours of video playback.
Verdict – realme GT NEO 3T
The realme GT NEO 3T packs a punch when it comes to performance, the Snapdragon 870 offers a fast flagship-grade performance which is also great for heavy gamers. It has an E4 AMOLED display with a fast 120 Hz refresh rate and comes with superfast 80W fast charging. Everything about the phone is great if you are a performance user, you have most things you need on this phone at this price. The 64 MP main camera takes impressive shots, has enough camera modes to play with, and records 4K at 60 fps, 240 fps slow motion, just the only thing is the lack of OIS support which some photography enthusiasts may demand. In addition to that, other things on the phone are its fully-featured realme UI 3.0, RAM expansion tech, Stainless Steel Vapour Cooling System Plus, and stereo speakers, all of which make the smartphone overall good value for money.
In the end, all we have to say is that the realme GT NEO 3T is a powerful performer and is a great pick if you have a budget of around ₹30,000. The price starts at ₹29,999 and realme is offering up to a ₹7,000 discount during the initial sale.
