Realme GT 3 review

Verdict

The Realme GT 3 isn’t the most eye-catching smartphone, but the combination of a flagship chipset, great display and incredibly fast 240W charging makes it a solid choice nonetheless.

Introduction

It’s all well and good having a high-end smartphone but if the device regularly takes over an hour to charge, forgetting to plug in your phone at night can leave you standing by your charger tapping your foot the next day. 

This is where Oppo sub-brand Realme comes in with the Realme GT 3. According to the company, the third iteration of the Realme GT is capable of taking a phone from 0 to 100% in as little as 10 minutes, meaning you could be out of the door in no time. 

Realme initially debuted its 240W charging technology in the China-exclusive Realme GT Neo 5 earlier this year and now the company is bringing it to international markets with the GT 3. 

Keep reading to find out more about this fast-charging smartphone.

Editor’s Note: Despite revealing the Realme GT 3 at the Europe-focused MWC 2023 with plans to ship the phone internationally months later, Realme has confirmed to Trusted Reviews that the launch will no longer be going ahead. It’ll be sold in China and markets like South East Asia, but not in the UK, Europe or US as planned.

Design and screen

• The Realme GT 3 has a more subtle look than its predecessors 
• There’s an RGB light on the back for notifications
• The 6.74-inch display has a 144Hz refresh rate 

When it comes to its design, the Realme GT 3 strays far from the uniquely paper-textured Realme GT 2 that came before it. It looks nothing like the sporty vegan leather Realme GT that came before that, either. 

Instead, the Realme GT 3 has a much less flashy glass back that shimmers subtly when it catches the light. Most of the interest here lies in the camera module, which takes up the top section of the screen with three cameras and a (fake) version of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset that powers the phone. 

In my opinion, the GT 3 is sleeker and a bit more sophisticated in design than its predecessors. However, it’s also very plain-looking when compared with those phones and it only comes in black and white variants, making it look all business.

There is a neat RGB ring that lights up around the chip to alert its user of notifications and you can customise the colour and the speed at which it flashes, but it doesn’t show up quite as well under sunlight as it does in a darker room.

Despite its glass back, the rear of the phone does do a good job of staving off fingerprints, but you’ll want to watch out for smudges on the camera module as this is a different story. 

Flip the phone around and you’ll be met with a 6.74-inch AMOLED display. I found the screen to be bright and vibrant and video streamed on the screen was sharp.

Other perks to the display include a smooth 144Hz refresh rate, as well as a highly-customisable always-on display to show key information, like the time and battery life, at a glance without requiring you to unlock the phone, though the latter is fairly ordinary among Android counterparts.

Camera 

• The Realme GT 3 has a triple camera with a 50MP main sensor 
• Photos are detailed and colours are realistic, but the 50MP mode loses some contrast
• The camera can also record video at 4K/60fps

The Realme GT 3 packs a triple rear camera that consists of a 50-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor and a 2-megapixel microscope sensor. This is the same setup as the Realme GT 2 and sits just below the GT 2 Pro, which opted for a second 50-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera over an 8-megapixel one.

I found the camera to be fantastic at producing vibrant colours and sharp details, but I’m not entirely sold on the 50-megapixel mode. While the images certainly came out brighter and more highly detailed, they lose quite a bit of contrast making them appear a bit flat in comparison to photos snapped in the standard camera mode.

That being said, both options work fantastically in low light, retaining a good amount of detail though the results can verge on looking oversharpened at times.

The phone isn’t ideal for taking photos at distances, though with no telephoto lens that isn’t really a surprise. The digital zoom looks good up to around 5x, which is the point at which images start to become a little too sharp and noisy to use.

It’s a shame Realme didn’t add a telephoto camera to this phone – especially seeing as the third microscope sensor feels a bit gimmicky. 

When it comes to video, the GT 3 can record sharp 4K video at 60fps. Turn the phone over and you’ll find a 16-megapixel front camera capable of capturing detailed selfies with impressively natural colours and plenty of warmth to the skin.

Performance 

• The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 
• There’s up to 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage 
• The Realme UI 4.0 skin is minimal and customisable 

The Realme GT 3 is powered by Qualcomm’s mid-2022 flagship SoC, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 – as you might have guessed from the chipset embedded in the rear of the phone. The processor is paired with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. 

I found the performance to be as speedy as I’d hoped, with apps loading up fast and pre-installed games like Piano Hop feeling slick on the smartphone. 

The GT 3 also scored well in our benchmarks, with a single-core score of 1383 and a multi-core score of 3842 in Geekbench 6 and maxing out both the Sling Shot and Sling Shot Extreme tests. 

Realme has pasted its Realme UI 4.0 skin over Android 13 and I found I enjoyed using the software. It doesn’t overwhelm you with features and there’s a lot you can customise from the always-on display and the RGB light to the more typical wallpapers and themes. You can even multitask with a split-screen view and floating windows. 

My only complaint here is that there is a bit of bloatware to contend with, particularly when it comes to games. However, these are easy enough to remove if you’re not interested in playing titles like Candy Crush and Royal Match. 

Battery life 

• The Realme GT 3 has a large 4600 mAh battery 
• 240W charging is fast but falls a bit short of claims 
• There’s no wireless charging here

The highlight of the Realme GT 3 is no doubt its blazingly fast 240W charging. In fact, it’s the fastest charging available in any phone at any price right now.  

Realme claims the 4600mAh battery can go from 0 to 100% in 10 minutes, 50% in 4 minutes and 20% in as little as 80 seconds. All of these speeds can be achieved using the USB-C charging brick and cable in the box, claims Realme. 

This probably sounds too good to be true and, in my experience, it is somewhat. In fact, I found the charging time to be just under double that Realme lists on paper, with the phone reaching 50% in 7 minutes and 25 seconds and 100% in 18 minutes and 27 seconds. 

This is still impressively fast charging and knowing that I can charge my phone fully in less than 20 minutes feels very reassuring when I’m running late getting out the door. It’s speedier than the 65W fast charging on the GT 2 and GT 2 Pro and I did find it satisfying to see the battery crawl 1% higher with every second that passed around the 30-50% mark.  

However, I am suspicious that there may be an issue with my sample and I’m currently in communication with Realme about it. If this turns out to be the case, I’ll be sure to update this review.

The battery life itself is excellent and I found the phone could last a full day of use with ease. Sadly, there’s no support for wireless charging so don’t expect to be able to charge this phone with a Qi charging pad, but that’s a sacrifice you’ll have to make as Realme has clearly focussed on speed over wireless convenience with this phone.

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