Killing flagships is not an easy task, yet we occasionally

 Killing flagships is not an easy task, yet we occasionally see a device successfully breaking through the defences and managing to kill, or at least seriously cripple existing flagships in the segmental battle group. Realme props up the GT as that daredevil from their stables, integrating the powerful Snapdragon 888 SoC in a 5G device that retails within a ‘sub-flagship’ price range.

Make no mistake, the Realme GT is a head-turner, or at least our review unit proved so. We received the beautifully crafted Racing Yellow variant, which sports a premium vegan leather back with a glossy black band extending up to the camera bump. It is also offered in Dashing Blue and Dashing Silver. The device is quite handy, perfectly sized for single-hand operation. The phone accepts dual SIM and offers a 3.5mm headphone jack.

As mentioned before, the GT is powered by the 5nm Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform, which makes the phone a true gaming and multimedia powerhouse. It uses a Realme UI 2.0 skin over Android 11, and comes with an extensive range of bloatware. Many of these can be uninstalled. The blue and silver variants offer 8GB LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB UFS3.1 ROM, while the yellow variant is available in 12GB/256GB configuration and is dearer by `4000. The GT allows dynamic RAM extension up to 5GB providing a boost in performance when you need. The device offers Wi-Fi 6 Extended and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity along with support for 11 5G bands.The phone uses a 6.43-inch Super AMOLED display offering FHD+ (2400x1080) resolution and up to 120Hz refresh rate. A touch sampling rate of 360Hz makes it responsive for gaming. We tried graphic intensive games like Modern Warships and high response ones such as Call of Duty, and the device proved its mettle as a gaming powerhouse. We did not notice any heating issue, thanks to Realme’s newly developed stainless-steel cooling system and large heat sink. The phone offers a GT mode that optimises it for gaming. The screen offers up to 1000 nits of brightness and reproduces 100 percent DCI-P3 colour gamut.

The Realme GT houses a Sony triple camera system with a 64MP main camera offering multi-frame algorithm for better noise reduction. An 8MP wide-angle camera and a 2MP macro camera complete the trio. The 16MP Sony wide-angle selfie camera at the front also offers bokeh mode like the main camera. The camera is probably the best in a Realme phone. The images were punchy and detailed. AI mode predictably over-saturated the images beyond accepted levels. However, without AI, the images reproduced tones true to the original. Portraits showed excellent bokeh and skin tones were reproduced well. However, we did miss a telephoto camera in the device. 4K video capture was smooth and detailed. The stereo speakers provide great audio, and it helps while holding in landscape orientation, when your index finger is likely to obstruct part of the bottom speaker array.

The Realme GT uses a 4500 mAh battery and is supplied with a 65W SuperDart charger with five levels of charging protection. The adaptor tops up the battery in just over half-an-hour.