Realme GT Neo 3T Review: Power and performance for not a lot of money

The Realme GT series gained many models in 2022, and here’s another – sitting in the middle, complete with many features punching above its weight.

It might seem like another day, another Realme phone launch, but the company has always strived to offer loads of choice to consumers on a budget, but wish to choose from a wide range of features to suit their personal needs.

The GT Neo 3T is the sibling of the GT Neo 3, and instead of coming with the 150W fast-charging tech, it makes do with ‘just’ 80W instead. That’s still crazy fast, and matches the charging performance of Oppo’s flagship Find X5 Pro. Compared to what Apple and Samsung offers its customers, 80W is still pretty incredible.

The GT Neo 3T includes a once flagship-level chipset, a large AMOLED display with HDR10+ support, a fast refresh rate, stereo sound, as well as a decent primary and selfie camera. The other cameras are perhaps a little less impressive, but it still combines to produce a good offering for less money than a version that ticks every single box.

At £369, it’s affordable and compares very well with other products on the market for similar pricing. Realme’s custom UI, based on Android 12, is also now very stable, with stacks of features and the look and feel is virtually identical to the more expensive phones, like the Oppo Find X5 range.

Having reviewed so many other models of late, I won’t be going over all of the elements that haven’t changed from one phone to the next, and concentrating on the key features I think will explain best what this phone is about.

There have been so many Realme phones released so far this year that you can read the reviews of the Realme 9 Pro+, the Realme GT 2, Realme GT 2 Pro, and the Realme GT Neo 3 to get a better understanding of all the choices.

Design & Build

The model I received on loan to do a review was a Dragon Ball Z limited edition. I’ll talk about that more later on, but UK users can get the phone in a choice of rears in black, or yellow. The phone comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of non-expandable RAM.

As with almost every single other Realme phone, you have a fairly recognisable camera arrangement in the top-left on the rear, a power button on the right-hand side (from the front), volume keys on the left, and a USB-C port at the base.

There’s no 3.5mm headphone jack, even though some other phones at the lower price have had this in the past. Realme will gladly sell you one of its many wireless audio products – and from time to time you may even be able to get something bundled for no extra cost.

Display

The 6.62-inch AMOLED display is a great size for media consumption and gaming, and as it comes with HDR10+ support, a peak brightness of 1,300 nits, plus 120Hz refresh rate, everything displayed on it looks great. There are a myriad of image enhancing options like image sharpening, video colour enhancing, motion enhancement, and bright HDR playback. Again, just like the more expensive models.

Camera

In the case of the GT Neo 3T, it’s the Realme 9 Pro model that matches the same camera specs (the one model I haven’t reviewed), with a 64-megapixel primary camera (f/1.8), 8-megapixel ultra-wide (f/2.3 119-degree FoV), and a 2-megapixel macro camera.

This means this phone is quite unique in not using Sony’s OIS-enabled IMX766 50-megapixel sensor, but don’t let that necessarily put you off. You can see from the results below that it is a very capable camera.

The selfie camera comes in at 16-megapixels, and video capture from the rear tops out at 4K and 60fps. It also includes the excellent street photography mode that increases the shutter speed and lets you fix the focus to get solid photos amongst all the action – and without having to mess around in the professional mode (which is there if you need it, along with a bunch of other modes).

Photo Gallery

Performance & Battery

The Snapdragon 870 chipset might be getting on a bit these days, but as long as it can offer such a great balance between performance and battery life then it still has a place in a phone wanting to offer great value without compromise.

I would suggest that it is one of Qualcomm’s best chipsets of late, with fewer thermal issues of the more powerful alternatives. It really doesn’t look out of place amongst the more powerful rivals – and I’d challenge you to see a difference in 95% of usage cases.

The chipset still enables the phone to come with Bluetooth 5.2 support and Wi-Fi 6, making it excellent in the connectivity department. There’s dual 5G SIM slots, making this nicely future proofed.

And while the Realme GT Neo 3 may come with the fanciest of fast charging technology, the GT Neo 3T’s 80W charging will still get you from empty to full in a little over half an hour. The battery capacity is higher also, at 5,000mAh, which should give you even more screen-on-time.

Overall

While I think Realme has perhaps released too many devices with similar specs this year, it does at least give you plenty of choice to decide what your priorities are – from screen size, battery capacity, camera specs, or performance. There’s something for everyone, and if price also plays a part then the GT Neo 3T is cheaper than a lot of the competition too.

The model I reviewed was the limited-edition Dragon Ball Z edition that comes with a unique rear design, some collectable stickers and cards, a customised SIM eject tool, and a cool customised box (all of which is likely to become quite the collectable)- but that’s officially only available in mainland Europe right now. While you could import one, chances are you’ll opt for one of the more ordinary colours in the form of yellow or black (see below).

At the time of publishing there’s yet one more model to come to the line-up, although the GT 2 Explorer Master is as yet not confirmed for a UK release – and with the latest Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, it will almost certainly be the most expensive model yet with a price of £600 or more. As such, you shouldn’t need to worry too much about that if this phone ticks the right boxes.

Pricing and Availability

• 8GB RAM + 128GB Storage – £369
• Dash Yellow or Shade Black colour options

Key Specifications

	Realme GT Neo 3T (80W)
Size/Weight	162.9 x 75.8 x 8.7mm 195g
Screen	6.62-inch AMOLED FHD+ 1080×2400 pixels 120Hz refresh rate HDR10+ Corning Gorilla Glass 5
Audio	Dolby Atmos Stereo Sound
Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 (75nm) Octo-core, Max freq 3.2GHz Adreno 650 GPU
RAM	8GB
Storage	128GB UFS 3.1
Camera (front)	Punch-hole 16MP Fixed Focus (f/2.5) Video: 1080p 30fps with EIS
Camera (rear)	Primary: 64MP (f/1.8) Ultra-wide: 8MP (f/2.3) 119 degree FoV Macro: 2MP (f/2.4) Video: 4K/60 Primary Camera Video: 1080p/30 Ultra-Wide Camera
Connectivity	Dual band Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) 5G NR (SA & NSA) Sub 6 4G+ with VoLTE, ViLTE and VoWiFi Bluetooth 5.2 NFC USB-C
Battery	5,000mAh 80W fast-charging
Other	Protective case Factory fitted screen protector Dual SIM (Dual Standby) 80W Power Supply in box
Price	£369

More information

• Realme