Realme GT 6T Review: Featherweight price, heavyweight performance

Pros
- Vibrant Super AMOLED, 120Hz display
- Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3’s performance
- Impressive battery life and charging support
- Comes with the charger and the required cable in the box
- Sleek and lightweight design that looks appealing
- Excellent thermal and RAM management
- Will get AI features, but sometime in June.

Cons
- Plastic build quality for a flagship device is a letdown
- Ads and bloatware, even during setting the device up
- Netflix, some apps lack HDR support
- Dolby Vision not supported on Netflix
- New SoC still needs to be optimised for games
- The camera array needs an update.

Price: Rs 39,999 for the 512GB+12GB unit. Starts at Rs 30,999
Rating: 4.25/5

Realme has been inundating the Indian smartphone market one after the other. However, the one device that tech enthusiasts and fans of Realme have been impatiently waiting for, has finally hit the market after a hiatus of two years. We are, of course, talking about the Realme GT 6T.

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Saying that Realme is trying to mount a comeback would be an understatement. The Realme GT 6T is a great package that combines several segment-first specs and rock-solid performance — It has a great display, one of the best battery lives in its segment, and rock-solid performance. Plus, the fact that Realme has been very aggressive with its pricing just sweetens the deal.

Is it perfect? Certainly not. During our review of the Realme GT 6T, we did come across some issues. However, that does not stop Realme from training its sights on some of the most in-demand flagships from other, established players, at almost one-third their price.

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So how does the Realme GT 6T fare? Does it fail to stand true to what Realme wants and hopes it to be, or does the brand have something really potent in its hands? We find out.

Realme GT 6T review: The design
Realme is known for making some quirky choices with its devices over the years. However, The GT 6T has to be one the most understated devices they have made, even with that mirror finish, which they are calling the Nano Mirror Design.

The glossy dual-tone finish of the handset gives it a sleek and a very modern aesthetic which makes it look premium. However, some users may find it to be too plain.

Irrespective of how one feels about the glossy basic, it does have a downside — it is much more prone to smudging and gathering fingerprints than some of the other design choices that Realme has gone for in the past. As a result, within hours of using this phone without the included cover, it looked aged and far less premium than it actually was.

The device’s rear panel and the frame are made of plastic and has a curved screen at the front. Despite that, the edge is smooth enough and has a flatter edge, which makes it feel ergonomic in the hand and is actually pretty comfortable to grip.

The relatively slim profile of the handset, measuring in at just just 8.65mm in thickness, also enhances its sleek and modern aesthetic while ensuring a comfortable fit in the hand or pocket. The device also comes with a water and dust protection rating of IP65.

Despite its plastic construction, the Realme GT 6T weighs in at 191 grams. This is because the device is packing a pretty massive 5,500mAh battery, as well as one of the biggest vapour chambers in a smartphone. More on that later.

At the rear, we also find a distinctive design element in the form of three individual rings housing the cameras and LED flashes. Made of high-grade stainless steel, these camera rings add do add a bit of flair to the device. However, this also means that the modules protrude out of the back, because of which it is not possible to lay the device flat on a table, on its back.

As for the buttons, we get them on the right side of the device. The power buttons and the volume rockers have a good bit of space between them, and they feel tactile enough when pressed. However, they are a bit wobbly There is nothing on the left side.

At the bottom of the device, we get a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfer, alongside a dual SIM tray and a speaker grille. We also get an IR blaster at the top of the device, which helps users use the GT 6T as a remote to control certain compatible household appliances.

The device also features an in-display fingerprint scanner which is pretty quick, accurate and responsive. Some users may find its placement slightly lower on the screen than usual, but that shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Realme GT 6T review: The display
The display is where the Realme GT 6T really shines through and through. We get a 6.78-inch FHD+ AMOLED curved display with a maximum resolution of 2780X1264. It supports an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz and is a ProXDR display. You also get to switch between having a resolution of 1.5K or 1080P, in case you want to prolong your battery life a little.

In terms of brightness, Realme claims that the GT 6T has one of the brightest displays, 6000 nits Local Peak brightness. The Realme GT 6T also comes with 8T LTPO. What’s really surprising though is the fact that you’re getting an LTPO display, at this price point, when other manufacturers usually make do with the much inferior LTPS displays.

Although the 1.5K display supports HDR in a number of apps, we don’t see HDR10 & Dolby Vision in services like Netflix.

The display is protected by the best that Corning has to offer, the Gorilla Glass Victus 2. During our regular usage, it dealt with the odd coins and keys in our pockets pretty well.

Under normal circumstances, we get 1000 nits of normal peak brightness and about 1600 nits at HBM. Considering just how capable the display is, we also get support for Dolby Vision, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.

What makes the display really pop out is the lack of bezels. The thickest one, the bottom bezel measures 1.94mm, which is seriously impressive. Even flagships from other manufacturers that cost triple what the GT 6T does don’t manage to get bezels this thin. You also get a punch-hole camera at the centre of the top edge.

Plus, you also get tons of neat tricks with the display and some certifications to keep your eyes protected. For example, the display has SGS AI Eye-Protection, which uses AI to actively monitor how a user looks at the display, how often they yawn and blink their eyes, to analyse just how fatigued a user is. It then very cleverly adjusts the colour temperature of the display to something warmer and makes it more comfortable.

You also get a bunch of other eye-protection features such as sleep mode, ambient color adaptation, DC dimming etc. The Realme GT 6T also comes with TUV Intelligent 3.0 Certification, which indicates that the display is intelligent enough to minimise blue light emissions and flicker from the display when viewing content.

All of those things aside, coming to the quality of the display, we have to say, we are thoroughly impressed, especially when we consider how the GT 6T is priced. Realme has been consistently putting out the best display in the mid-range and budget segment, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that their flagship for the year will have a display that just slaps.

The image quality may not be the sharpest, but it still is pretty sharp enough that it would be extremely difficult for anyone to notice that this isn’t a proper 2K display, but a 1.5K one. In terms of colours and contrast though, the display won’t disappoint. You get really colours, with great contrast thanks to that AMOLED panel. The 10-bit display covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour range. Furthermore, the darks and the lights have really great separation. Watching any piece of content truly is a joy.

Even under direct sunlight, the visibility is great. We were hard-pressed to tell if the display faded at all when we were testing it out in the sun. That automatically puts it miles ahead of the devices it is competing with at this price point.

Realme GT 6T review: The camera
The Realme GT 6T comes with some pretty noteworthy hardware. For the main camera, it sports a beefy 50MP primary rear camera. It is a Sony LYT-600 sensor with a lens that has an aperture of f/1.88. Furthermore, it packs an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor with a wide-angle lens with an aperture of f/2.2.

When it comes to taking photos in daylight, the Realme GT 6T’s performance is good enough, although it doesn’t quite match the top-tier quality of that we see in other flagships, nor from devices at this price point. You’ll get pretty solid detail and pretty accurate colours at normal ranges, thanks to the GT 6T’s Hyper Light Engine. The camera also uses AI to accurately identify scene depth and subjects, which helps in better subject isolation. However, try to zoom in, and all hell breaks loose.

By default, photos are saved as 12MP shots, but you can switch to 50MP to capture more detail in your shots.

You also get a bunch of nifty other features like Quick Shot, and Target Zooming, all of which are pretty fun to play around with, and do genuinely work really well at times. Realme says that they are using an all-new algorithm called the HyperShot2.0 Image architecture. This lets the camera to process data from the sensors in a much quicker manner and incorporates an updated anti-shake algorithm. All of these combine to give you a pretty solid camera experience.

HDR photos are pretty solid as well. The phone’s tendency to amp up colours can be a plus in certain situations.

In low-light conditions and at night, the camera still delivers good results. It’s smart enough to activate Night Mode on its own when needed, although it can sometimes go overboard with noise reduction.

You also get a new Street Photo Mode. Although they were a bit shaky as a feature in some of the previous Realme devices, the GT 6T does improve on some of the features that made the last generation of Street Photo a little finicky to use. This time around, it is a lot more refined.

As for the video recording capabilities, the Realme GT 6T can record up to 4K videos at up to 60fps, thanks to the 50MP primary camera. Video quality is pretty consistent with what we have seen from Realme devices of the past, and comes with only a slight improvement over the previous generation devices.

As for the selfie camera, the Realme GT 6T gets a 32MP Sony IMX615 sensor. The front camera also does remarkably well at taking portraits, although the edge detection can occasionally be a bit wonky at times. As for videos, it does 4K@30fps, which is again, pretty solid.

Realme GT 6T 5G review: The performance, software experience and UI
The Realme GT 6T is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset, making it the first phone in India to feature the new SoC. Paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage (though the base 128GB variant utilizes UFS 3.1), the GT 6T offers some seriously impressive performance chops. Our test unit came with 512GB + 12GB of RAM + 12GB Extended RAM

In our day-to-day usage, the GT 6T proves to be a solid performer, and can effortlessly handling multiple apps running simultaneously in the background. It also has a pretty solid RAM management system so the device stays snappy and quick to respond even if you have a ton of apps opened in the background and are constantly switching between them.

As expected from any device in Realme’s GT series, the gaming chops of the GT 6T is seriously impressive. By no means is it the best gaming smartphone, but considering what it costs, its is impressive. Titles like BGMI, CoD Mobile, and Warzone Mobile run smoothly at high or ultra-high settings, consistently delivering 45-55fps, that too without heating up much.

Additionally, gamers can use the proprietary GT Mode to further control performance. It allows users to keep an eye on their framerates and monitor the temperature, control the sensitivity of the device and overlaying apps for a better and more immersive gaming experience.

With future updates optimizing for newer chipsets, we expect even better gaming performance, We wouldn’t be surprised if we see more than 60fps or 90fps in some games, once developers have had the chance to optimise their offerings from the new 7 series SoC. Realme themselves say that the GT 6T will start supporting 90fps in BGMI by mid-June, once an update is pushed.

What really impressed us was the fact how the device manages heat, whether you’re pushing it in gaming or are shooting a 4K video. Even when using the device outdoors in the atrocious heat of Delhi’s summer this year, the phone remains relatively cool. Although the device does heat up when you have been pushing it to the T for hours at a straight, it’s barely noticeable.

The reason the GT 6T is able to keep itself cool this well for so long is because of a much larger and more refined vapour chamber which Realme is calling the Iceberg Vapor Cooling System
Coming to the interface, we get butter-smooth animations, and seamless app transitions when multitasking. Additionally, users get ton of OxygenOS-ported features such as File Dock and the comprehensive Microsoft Phone Link experience. RealmeUI 5.0 also presents a tidy layout compared to its counterparts.

However, it does come with some pre-installed applications, approximately six, alongside Glance on the lock screen. Notably, there are advertisements present in the search menu, which is a major drawback in our book, especially if a device is supposed to be from the flagship series of a manufacturer. And of course, this being a Realme device, we get a a lot of bloatware, although not as much as what we have seen in some of their more budget offerings.

Out of the box, the Realme GT 6T operates on Android 14 with the RealmeUI 5.0 overlaid on top. Realme is promising impressive software support, offering 3 years of major OS updates and 4 years of security patches.

Realme GT 6T review: The battery life
The Realme GT 6T is in a different league altogether when it comes to battery life and charging capabilities. With our typical moderate usage which involving things like social media browsing, photography and videography, and watching some, the device lasted an impressive 8 hours before needing to be plugged in again. These results were achieved with auto-brightness and auto-refresh rate settings enabled.

Even under heavy usage scenarios, which included using it as a hotspot, binge-watching shows at the highest brightness and lots of gaming, we got about 6-7 hours of screen-on time.

For regular users, this translates to a solid 1.5 to 2 days of usage on a single charge, if they wish to hypermile it and use it lightly.

Powering the device is a dual-cell 5500 mAh battery, which is paired with 120W SUPERVOOC fast charging technology. While Realme claims that the phone can reach 50% charge in just 10 minutes, realistically it takes 12-15 minutes. A full charge, however, takes about just 30 minutes. Additionally, the phone supports 18W PD charging, providing users with flexibility in charging options.

Realme GT 6T review: The verdict
The Realme GT series is back in the Indian market with a major bang, thanks to the GT 6T’s specifications and features at this price. It has a stunning display, the performance is top-notch, and the charging speed is lightning-fast — all major green flags.

We were particularly impressed with its gaming performance and how it handled multitasking without breaking a sweat. Realme is also teasing some exciting AI features for the GT 6T, so that’s something to look forward to.

Of course, it isn’t perfect — no phone is. The camera could use some fine-tuning, and while I personally like the design, it certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, especially for fans of the older Realme GT series devices.

That being said, for those looking at specs and performance alone, the GT 6T looks super impressive, especially for its price. And at Rs 31,000, it’s a steal considering the performance it offers. Plus, with Realme extending its OS updates policy to 3 years for this model, you can expect to enjoy the latest features for even longer.

If you’re in the market for a new smartphone in the Rs 30,000 – Rs 35,000 range, the Realme GT 6T is definitely worth considering, especially if it is performance that you’re going for.