Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Review: A smartphone made for speed?
Recently Realme has launched its successor GT Neo 3. It has a main camera with OIS feature and a new processor. It also comes with a special 150W fast charging model which I am going to review today. Is the Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) a step up from its predecessor? Let us know in the review how it competes with other premium smartphones in this segment.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Price in India
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Its price in India is Rs 42,999. This model has a 4,500mAh battery and a 150W charger is available in the box. Its 80W model has a 5,000mAh battery. This model comes in two variants. One has 8GB RAM and 128GB storage, its price is Rs 36,999. The second variant has 8GB RAM and 256GB storage. Its price is Rs 38,999. Both models come with three color options which include Asphalt Black, Nitro Blue and Spring White. These have racing stripes on the rear panel in Nitro Blue and Spring White, while the Black variant has a plain finish.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Design
The design of Realme GT Neo 3 is similar to GT Neo 2. The difference can be seen in its new finish, rear camera layout and center punch hole cutout for selfie. This time, instead of the glossy dual tone rear glass panel found in GT Neo 2, the company has given simple matte finish AG glass, which gets fingerprints very easily.
GT Neo 3, OnePlus 10R Looks even more premium and feels good in the hand. Its weight is 188 grams, which is not too heavy, but cannot be said to be better for one-handed use. The large display has Gorilla Glass 5 protection and fingerprints are visible on it. But these can be cleaned easily. Its hole punch AMOLED display has thin bezels all around which adds more value to its premium look.
The mid frame of the phone is made of polycarbonate. Like the back panel, it also has a matte finish so that it feels like slipping in the hand. But the company has provided a transparent TPU case with the box which gives good grip and even after putting it on, the design of the phone remains easily visible to everyone.
Realme GT Neo 3 specifications and software
Realme GT Neo 3 has MediaTek Dimensity 8100 SoC. The company has given it an imaging chipset which is called dedicated display processor. The company says that it will reduce power usage and increase gaming performance. For connectivity, it has support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and Type-C port as well as satellite navigation system. The fingerprint scanner is placed within the display and it works well.
Realme has created a better user interface with Android 12 by mixing Material You and Realme UI. Realme UI 3.0 looks like stock on the phone and its icons look slightly different from those of Pixel phones. All widgets on Android 12 work as expected and its theme engine changes the color of the keyboard, widgets and other icons based on the applied wallpaper. The Personalization section found in the Settings app looks similar to that of OnePlus and Oppo. In this you can customize things like icon shape, quick settings icon and system font.
Like other Realme phones, it also comes with pre-installed third party apps from around the world. But these software do not spoil the experience and they can also be uninstalled if needed. But the notifications I received from the Themes Store app bothered me a lot.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Performance
Realme GT Neo 3 has a 6.7 inch FullHD Plus AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 120Hz. It shines brightly even in direct sunlight and there is no problem in reading. Colors look quite punchy in its default vivid screen color mode. The refresh rate is adaptive but can only switch between 60Hz and 120Hz, depending on the app running. It was running at 60Hz while watching a movie and at 120Hz while navigating the user interface. The display was locked to 60Hz in games when it should normally be 120Hz, which disappointed me.
HDR10 video streaming certification is missing for apps like Netflix but standard content looks sharp, with good black levels. The stereo speakers provided in the phone produce loud and clear sound, which makes the video and gaming experience better.
The performance of its software was also fine. Its benchmark scores come close to those of a phone with a Snapdragon 888 chip. The phone scored 8,10,225 points on AnTuTu. It scored 969 and 4,065 points respectively in single and multi-core tests on Geekbench. In GFXBench’s T-rex and Manhattan 3.1 gaming tests, it managed 54fps and 60fps, respectively, despite being powered by the Snapdragon 888. Xiaomi 11T Pro Here it runs at 121fps and 100fps.
Its real-world gaming performance was also not impressive unless GT mode was enabled. In regular mode, games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends were seen skipping frames on high graphic settings, but played well in medium mode. In GT Mode, these games ran well even at the highest possible settings but did not seem as smooth as I would have liked. Surprisingly, I also found a 60fps mode while playing Asphalt 9:Legends, which I have only noticed so far on a device with a Snapdragon processor.
The battery life of the phone is good. It lasted for a day and a half on a single charge, even when I used it for heavy gaming and camera use. The phone lasted 19 hours and 26 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is quite good for a premium smartphone.
Its 150W charger charged the phone from zero to 100 percent in just 16 minutes. Till now this is the fastest charging speed available in any phone. During this time the phone had become very hot due to which I was also feeling a little worried. However, the company has claimed that many safety measures have been taken to prevent any kind of accident. Like OnePlus 10R Endurance Edition, it also gets a notification, which warns of the phone getting hot during charging.
Realme GT Neo 3 camera
Realme GT Neo 3 comes with a primary camera (OIS), it is a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor. The second camera is an 8-megapixel ultrawide lens and the third camera is a 2-megapixel macro shooter. Focus is fixed in both the secondary cameras. A 16-megapixel camera is provided in the front for selfie. In this the company has used Samsung sensor whose aperture is larger and field of view is also larger.
Compared to GT Neo 2, the performance of the phone proves to be quite good in daylight. Exposure was good in landscape photos and dynamic range was also good. Photos taken with the primary camera had good details but looked a bit saturated, especially when compared to photos taken with the ultrawide camera.
Photos taken with the ultrawide camera offer a large field of view of 120 degrees, but the dynamic range in these photos was comparatively limited and the photos were giving a slight blur effect at the edges of the frame. The sharpness was good in the close-up shots of flowers taken with the primary camera but the photo looked saturated. Its 2X digital zoom works fine but the detail in the photo gets reduced a bit.
Photos taken in portrait mode were managing colors well. These were toned down and looked natural. Edge detection was good and dynamic range along with background exposure was good. Selfies taken from its front camera were a bit oversharp and looked saturated. The background seemed too bright. Selfies in portrait mode looked better in quality but edge detection here was average.
The macro camera took average photos which had a purple fringing effect at the edges. The focus system was a bit troublesome here. Photos taken in low-light with the phone’s primary camera had good details and dynamic range was also good. In the photo taken in night mode, the scene seemed brighter due to which the bright areas of the actual scene looked more blown out. Selfies taken in low-light were not special and looked soft with less details. Low-light selfies taken in Portrait mode were noisy with a lot of noise and the subject seemed to be lacking texture.
The quality of the video recorded from the phone was quite good. Videos shot at 1080p in daylight were good but the details were not so much. Videos shot in 4K had good details but the dynamic range was reduced here. These also lacked stabilization. Its AI Highlights feature improved dynamic range but videos weren’t as smooth and sharp and the resolution was limited to 1080p 30fps. Videos recorded at 1080p in low-light had limited dynamic range and appeared soft. Footage recorded in 4K at 30fps looked best, but stabilization was again lacking here.
Compared to Realme GT Neo 2, the image quality of its primary camera has become much better. The company has also used this sensor in low-cost smartphones like Realme 9 Pro+ 5G. I liked the photo quality but it lags far behind competing devices like iQoo 9 SE.
our decision
As for the GT Neo 3 (150W), I agree with the company that it is a smartphone built for speed. It has a car racing-inspired design, a 150W charging system, a crisp 120Hz display, and a well-performing processor. Its camera has improved a lot compared to the older model.
Having more features does not make it a competitive smartphone. Apart from the upgrades from the previous model, it comes close to the rest of its rivals. Its 150W charging system makes the phone overheat, and its 120Hz refresh rate doesn’t work for most of the games I tried to play. The phone lags a little behind in terms of performance compared to its competitors with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. Features like IP rating and wireless charging are not available in it. Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G And Apple iPhone (2022) Available at this price.
I would go so far as to say that even its regular 80W model seems a bit expensive as the iQoo 9 SE offers better cameras and performance at a lower starting price. If you are a fan of Realme, then you can buy Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) at its current price, or you can also consider buying it as the smartphone with the fastest charging speed currently.
