First Experience: What Makes Realme GT Neo 3 A Must Buy
Realme India Vice President of Realme Global and CEO of Realme India & Europe Madhav Seth Launched the all new Realme GT Neo 3 phone that promises to deliver excellence above its competitors. The GT Neo 3 has mid-range smartphone and sports a sleek design that isn’t really distinctive, but the race car banding makes it stand out with its inspiration from Ford anonced by the brand head. But that’s about the looks. On the inside, the phone packs the flagship MediaTek Dimensity 8100, which is a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 equivalent. This evidently makes it a powerpack phone, which is supported by a high-specced display and camera, but thats not it, we will run you through with the extensive review of this amazing sporty Neo 3.
Display
The GT Neo 3 features a 6.7 inch full HD+ display (1080x2412 Pixels) with a 12Hz refreshrate. the display also supports HDR10+. It runs Android12 out of the box along with Realme UI 3.0 on Top.
Similar to GT Neo 2 it offers 120Hz 6.7-inch Full HD AMOLED display with Gorilla Glass 5 protection, which essentially means it is less prone to scratches and is more durable. It features three rear cameras, a 50MP primary camera with a Sony IMX766 sensor, an 8MP ultra wide-angle camera and a 2MP macro camera. The specifications and even the design is strikingly similar to the OnePlus 10R, which launched within the same week as GT Neo 3. The only difference is the OS, the rest remains the same.
The GT Neo 3 comes with a usual Realme packing similar to other Realme smartphones. You will get a transparent silicone protective case, SIM ejector, 150W/80W charger depending on which variant you choose, and a USB Type-C charging cable. The charging cable is thicker and feels more durable than most charging cables that come bundled. It is available in three colours, nitro blue, sprint white, and asphalt black.
With its nitro blue with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. By far, I can say GT Neo 3 can be called an overall winner as it impresses with charging speeds, runs games well, has an average battery life and a decent set of cameras.
Performance and Features
Realme GT Neo 3 is the first phone in India equipped with Dimensity 8100 5G chipset. It has 12GB/8GB of RAM and 128GB/ 256GB of storage. There is no microSD slot. The phone has 2 nano-SIM slots, stereo speakers, and two microphones.
The GT mode also kicks in when you launch a game and it claims to crank up the processor's clock speed, but I did not notice anything vastly different in terms of responsiveness, compared to without this mode. In addition, you also get Low power mode and balanced mode to increase battery efficiency.
Camera & Battery Performance
The Realme GT Neo 3 features three rear cameras – a 64MP, 8MP ultra-wide-angle, and a 2MP macro camera. Rear are handled by a 16MP front-facing camera.
For all the self procliamed photographers, you can certainly click good looking photos. The photos look sharp, show good dynamic range even while you are on the move. The autofocus is quick and it handles light pretty well in well-lit situations.
It offers up to 20x zoom, but the results were good upto 5x zoom whereas 10x and 20x feel like a step too far in terms of clarity.
Video quality in daylight and night is decent at best. You can shoot 720p at 60fps, 1080p at 60fps and 4K at 60fps. GT Neo 3 doesn't offer any stabilisation in these settings.
The night mode is pretty effective as it gives balanced exposure and good color tones with both cameras.
According to Realme, it is the world’s fastest charging smartphone with 150W charging. In my usage, the phone managed to go from a dead battery to a 100% charge in just 17 minutes.
The Realme GT Neo 3 comes with a choice of 80W or 150W fast charging tech and our unit came with a 4500 mAh battery and 150W fast charging. This means that the phone can be fully charged by the time you take your morning shower or complete your breakfast.
During the time we used the phone we did notice that the phone would charge at an insanely fast speed. Though the ultra-fast charging toggle is turned off by default and you need to manually turn it on.
Specs and Software
This is a very capable processor and can handle resource hungry tasks easily. We’ve tried playing a few games and browsed the internet while streaming songs in the background – the phone performed all the tasks thrown at it without breaking a drop of sweat. We did not notice any heating issues during the limited time we played games on the phone.
The phone runs on Android 12 powered Realme UI 3. It even got an update as we started using the phone. Though the biggest complaint that we have with any Realme device is the number of unwanted applications that come pre-installed on the phone.
When we set up the phone for the first time, apart from Google and Realme suite of applications, it had Byju’s, Finshell, Facebook, HeyFun, HotApps, Josh, LinkedIn, Moj, PhonePe, Realme Link, Realme Store, Snapchat, Soloop Cut and many more applications that we’d hardly use. While some of these apps can be uninstalled, the Realme Suite remains on the phone which means that you keep getting unwanted alerts.
Price
Ram Storage 80W charging (5000 MAh battery) 80W charging (5000 MAh battery)
8/128 GB Rs. 36,999 NA
12/256 GB Rs. 38,999 Rs. 42,999
Verdict
The Realme GT Neo 3 is a snappy smartphone that can be charged fully before you even realize it. This is indeed one of the biggest conveniences and once you get used to this rapid charging, there is absolutely no going back.
Apart from the charging tech, the phone has a lot of highlights, which include its rear panel design, the gorgeous display and the powerful chipset at its core.
Overall, we’d give the phone a 8-10.
(With inputs from Nitish Rampal)
