Recently Realme has launched its successor GT Neo 3. It has a main camera with OIS function and a new processor. It also comes with a special 150W fast charging model that I’m going to review today. Is the Realme GT Neo 3 (150 W) a step up from its predecessor? Let us know in the review how it stacks up against the rest of the premium smartphones in this segment.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) PRICE IN INDIA
The price of Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) in India is Rs 42,999. This model has a 4500 mAh battery and a 150 W charger is available in the box. Its 80W model has a 5,000mAh battery. This model comes in two variants. One gets 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, it is priced at Rs 36,999. The second variant gets 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. Its price is 38,999 rupees. Both models come with three color options including Asphalt Black, Nitro Blue, and Spring White. These include racing stripes on the rear panel in Nitro Blue and Spring White, while the plain finish has been given to the Black variant.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) Design
The design of Realme GT Neo 3 is similar to GT Neo 2. The difference is seen in its new finish, rear camera design, and center hole cutout for selfies. Instead of the two-tone glossy rear glass panel found on the GT Neo 2, the company has given it a simple matte-finish AG glass this time around, which fingerprints fall on very quickly.
The GT Neo 3 looks even more premium than the OnePlus 10R and feels great in the hand. It weighs 188 grams, which is not very heavy, but you can’t say better for one-handed use. Gorilla Glass 5 protection is available on the large screen, and fingerprints are visible on it. But they can be easily cleaned. Its punch-hole AMOLED display has slim bezels all around it that add more value to its premium look.
The middle frame of the phone is made of polycarbonate. Like the back panel, it too has a matte finish, making it feel slippery in the hand. But the company has included a transparent TPU skin with the box that provides a good grip and the design of the phone is easily visible to everyone even after applying it.
Realme GT Neo 3 Specifications and Software
MediaTek Dimensity 8100 SoC has been given in Realme GT Neo 3. The company has provided an imaging chipset which is called Dedicated Display Processor. The company says it will reduce power usage and boost gaming performance. For connectivity, you get support for the sat-nav system along with Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, and a Type-C port. The fingerprint scanner sits below the screen and works well.
Realme has created a better UI by combining Material You and Realme UI with Android 12. The Realme UI 3.0 looks almost standard and the icons look slightly different than on Pixel phones. All widgets in 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 OnePlus and Oppo. In this, you can customize things like the 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 this software does not spoil the experience and can also be uninstalled if necessary. But the Themes Store app notifications annoyed me a lot.
Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) performance
Realme GT Neo 3 has a 6.7-inch AMOLED FullHD Plus display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It shines brightly even in direct sunlight and there is no problem in reading. The colors look quite striking in its default Vivid Screen color mode. The refresh rate is adaptive, but it can only switch between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on the app that’s running. It ran at 60Hz while watching movies and at 120Hz while browsing the UI. The screen locked to 60Hz in games when it should normally be 120Hz, which disappointed me.
HDR10 streaming video certification for apps like Netflix is lacking, but standard content looks sharp, with decent black levels. The stereo speakers provided in the phone emit loud and clear sound which makes for a much better gaming and video experience.
Their software performance was also okay. Its benchmark scores are close to those of a phone with a Snapdragon 888 chip. The phone scored 8,10,225 points on AnTuTu. It scored 969 and 4065 points, respectively, in the single-core and multi-core tests on Geekbench. It managed 54fps and 60fps on GFXBench’s T-rex and Manhattan 3.1 gaming tests, while the Snapdragon 888-powered Xiaomi 11T Pro managed 121fps and 100fps here.
Its real-world gaming performance wasn’t very impressive either, until GT mode was enabled. Games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends displayed frame skips on high graphics settings in normal mode, but ran fine in medium mode. In GT mode, games ran fine even at the highest possible settings, but they didn’t feel as smooth as I’d prefer. Surprisingly, I also got a 60fps mode while playing Asphalt 9: Legends, which is the only one I’ve noticed so far on a device with a Snapdragon processor.
The phone’s battery life is good. It lasted a day and a half on a single charge, though I used it for intense gaming and camera use. The phone ran for 19 hours and 26 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is good for a premium smartphone.
Its 150W charger charged the phone from zero to 100 percent in just 16 minutes. So far this is the fastest charging speed available on any phone. During this, the phone had gotten really hot, so I was getting a bit worried about it as well. Although the company has assured that many security measures have been taken in it to avoid any type of accident. Like the OnePlus 10R Endurance Edition, you also get a notification warning that the phone gets hot while charging.
Realme GT Neo 3 Camera
Realme GT Neo 3 comes with the main camera (OIS), it is a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor. The second camera is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens and the third camera is a 2-megapixel macro camera. Fixed focus has been given on both secondary cameras. At the front it has been given a 16-megapixel selfie camera. In this, the company has used the Samsung sensor, whose aperture is larger and the field of view is also larger.
Compared to GT Neo 2, the phone’s daylight performance proves to be very good. Exposure was good on landscape photos, and dynamic range was good too. Details in photos taken with the main camera were good, but photos looked a bit saturated, especially compared to photos taken with the ultra-wide camera.
Photos taken with the ultra-wide camera offer a great 120-degree field of view, but the dynamic range in these photos was comparatively limited, and the photos gave a slight blur effect at the edges of the frame. Sharpness was good on close-ups of flowers taken with the main camera, but the photo looked saturated. Its 2X digital zoom works well but the detail in the photo is reduced a bit.
Photos taken in portrait mode handled colors well. It was toned down and looked natural. Edge detection was good and dynamic range was good along with background exposure. Selfies taken with its front-facing camera were slightly sharp and looked oversaturated. The background seemed too bright. Selfie quality in portrait mode was better, but edge detection was average here.
The macro camera clicked average photos with a purple fringe effect at the edges. Here the focus system bothered a bit. Photos taken in low light with the phone’s main camera had good detail, and dynamic range was better, too. In the photo taken with Night mode, the scene appeared brighter, making the bright areas of the actual scene appear duller. Selfies taken in low light weren’t special and looked bland with less detail. Low-light Portrait mode selfies were captured with a lot of noise in which there was a major lack of texture in the subject.
The quality of the video recorded from the phone was quite good. Videos shot at 1080p in daylight were decent, but details weren’t that great. Videos shot in 4K showed good detail, but the dynamic range was reduced here. There was also a lack of stabilization on these. Its AI Highlight feature improved dynamic range, but videos weren’t as smooth and sharp and resolution was limited to 1080p 30fps. Video shot at 1080p in low light had limited dynamic range and looked soft. Footage shot in 4K at 30fps looked better, but here again the stabilization was lacking.
Compared to Realme GT Neo 2, the image quality of its main camera has been greatly improved. The company has also used this sensor in low-cost smartphones such as the Realme 9 Pro+ 5G. I liked the photo quality, but it lags far behind competing devices like the iQoo 9 SE.
our decision
For the GT Neo 3 (150 W), I agree with the company that it is a smartphone built for speed. It has a racing-inspired design, a 150W charging system, a crisp 120Hz display, and a well-performing processor. Compared to the previous model, its camera has improved a lot.
Having more features does not make it a competitive smartphone. Apart from the improvement compared to the previous model, it is close to the rest of the rivals. Its 150W charging system gets the phone very hot, and its 120Hz refresh rate doesn’t quite cut it for most of the games I’ve tested. The phone lags a bit behind its rivals in terms of performance with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. You don’t get features like IP rating and wireless charging that are available on the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G and Apple iPhone (2022) at the same price.
I would even go so far as to say that even the 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, you can go for the Realme GT Neo 3 (150W) at its current price, or even consider buying it as a smartphone with the fastest charging speed currently.