Realme is one of those companies that are never afraid to try out new things — at least in terms of design. They manage to pull it off in most cases, while some don’t land well. The Realme GT 2 Pro, from a couple of months ago, had a unique way to let people bring out their artistic side by allowing them to doodle on the back panel using a pencil. The name ‘GT’ gives you a sense of speed — be it Gran Turismo or the Royal Enfield Continental GT. We saw the Realme GT Neo 3 following a racing design, which has been continued on the Realme GT Neo 3T, with some changes.
The Realme GT Neo 3T is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC and is touted to be the most affordable device to support 80W fast charging. So what does it bring to the table at a starting price of Rs 29,999? Here are our first impressions of the same.
Realme GT Neo 3T First Impressions: The unboxing experience
Unboxing the Realme GT Neo 3T is pretty straightforward. It comes in a tall box with the usual branding. Upon opening it up, you are greeted with some paperwork and a tagline that says, “Exploring the aesthetics of technology”. There’s also a TPU case included along with a SIM ejector tool. Digging in, the Realme GT Neo 3T sits in all its glory, followed by an 80W chunky SuperDart charging brick and a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable for charging and data transfer purposes.
Realme GT Neo 3T First Impressions: Design and display
Motorsport fans are more than likely to enjoy rocking the Realme GT Neo 3T, partially because of its back panel design. The first thing to notice about the device was its uncanny resemblance to the previously launched Realme GT Neo 2 — except for a few tweaks here and there. The back panel is made of plastic and does not attract any smudges or fingerprints. It’s available in three different colours: Dash Yellow, Drifting White, and Shade Black. We have the white colour variant, which looks good. It sports a racing flag design, which we think looks more prominent on the yellow variant, and very subtle on the black variant. The white one hangs in between.
There’s a more subtle Realme logo at the bottom, unlike the flashy one on the Realme GT Neo 2 (Neo Green). The camera island protrudes a bit, causing the phone to wobble when kept on flat surfaces. The bottom panel is home to a USB Type-C port, speaker grille, primary microphone, and a SIM tray. The individual volume rockers occupy the left side, while the right sees the power button. The top frame only houses the secondary microphone for noise cancellation during calls. The in-hand feel of the device is good, specifically because of the curved edges on the back panel, which give it a good grip. However, it’s on the heavier side and tips the scales at 194 grams. The phone is also slightly thick at 8.65mm measurements.
The front of the Realme GT Neo 3T sports a 6.62-inch AMOLED display. It has a resolution of 1080 x 2400 with a pixel density of 397ppi. The display refreshes at 120Hz, although we noticed that the settings do not allow us to switch it to 90Hz. Instead, it’s either 60Hz or 120Hz. We would’ve preferred to see a 90Hz mode to save up some battery when faster refresh rates are not needed. The company claims a screen-to-body ratio of 92.6%, and the bezels are symmetrical except for the bottom one, which is slightly thicker in comparison. So far, we haven’t seen the bottom chin as an issue while consuming content. It hits a peak brightness of 1300 nits, so reading content outdoors should not be an issue. It houses a hole-punch camera at the top left of the display. There’s an in-display fingerprint sensor which is placed well at the bottom of the display. It’s responsive and quick at unlocking the phone. The display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5, for accidental drops.
Realme GT Neo 3T First Impressions: Pricing and variants
The Realme GT Neo 3T is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC, the same processor found on the Realme GT Neo 2. It supports as many as 5 5G bands and has slots for 2 nano SIM cards. Besides this, it also features Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6, and NFC. The Realme GT Neo 3T also uses LPDDR4x RAM and UFS 3.1 for storage.
While the nomenclature might be a bit confusing, considering the Realme GT Neo 3T is a part of the ‘3’ series. But, it feels more like a spiritual successor to the Realme GT Neo 2 — that starts with the design and is carried forward to the camera system. It sports a triple camera setup at the rear. It features a 64-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. The hole-punch camera at the front houses a 16-megapixel shooter for selfies. We took the Realme GT Neo 3T for a quick camera testing session, and it produced images with punchy colours and good details. But it tends to overdo some things. We’ll go into more detail about the camera setup in our full review coming soon.
Jumping onto the software side. It comes with Realme UI 3.0 based on Android 12 out of the box. Our unit is currently running on the July security patch. Realme promises 2 years of software upgrades and 3 years of security updates. It comes with a bunch of pre-installed bloatware. There’s no IP rating with the Realme GT Neo 3T. However, it does come with a rubber seal on the SIM tray for a bit of safety. It packs in a 5,000mAh battery. Realme also claims that this is the most affordable smartphone to come with an 80W charger in the box. We will be testing the charging speeds shortly.
It’s available in three storage variants. The 6GB + 128GB variant will cost you Rs 29,999, and the 8GB + 128GB will come with a price tag of Rs 31,999, while the highest variant with 8GB + 256GB will be offered at Rs 33,999. This means it will be competing against the likes of the Poco F4 5G and the Moto Edge 30 Pro. The iQOO Neo 6 is yet another device that falls under this bracket. It offers an 8GB RAM variant at Rs 29,999 and comes with the same Snapdragon 870 chipset. The Realme GT Neo 3T does sound like a decent package. But it will be interesting to see how well it fares against the competition. Keep an eye out for our review to find out if this should be your next device.
