Realme GT2 Pro review

Realme UI 3.0 based on Android 12

As one would expect, the Realme GT2 Pro runs on the latest Android 12 plastered with Realme UI 3.0. Since this is a flagship device, you can expect at least two years of major updates.

Visually, the OS hasn't changed much. Realme UI has a colorful UI with customizable UI elements and its own iconography for the notification shade and the general Settings menu. The app drawer hasn't been tweaked either, but we did notice a bit of inconsistency with the swipe up and swipe down gestures on the Home screen when opening/closing the drawer. A small annoyance that shouldn't bother most users.

Home screen, recent apps, notification shade, app drawer

Realme also kept the so-called Icon pull-down gesture. Swiping alongside the left or right edge of the screen crams icons at the bottom half of the screen so they can be easily reached with your thumb. The gesture is pretty reliable as well. By default, the swipe down gesture on the Home screen opens up the so-called global search, but you can always set the notification shade instead.

Icon pull-down gesture

When it comes to Android 12-specific features, most of them are under-the-hood changes. However, the privacy-focused efforts from Google are translated into Realme UI 3.0. The so-called Privacy dashboard is one example. It's a unified view for all your permissions and user data settings. It gives you information on which apps and how often they access your information or ask for certain permissions. It looks and feels like the Digital wellbeing dashboard introduced with Android 10.

Android 12 privacy settings

In addition to those privacy features, Android 12 lets you choose the accuracy of your location shared with certain apps. Let's say you want to share an approximate location with some apps instead of your exact location. And when a certain app is accessing your mic or camera, a green dot will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen so you'd know what's going on.

For a more in-depth look at Android 12, we suggest reading our full Android 12 review as we will try to focus on the Realme UI itself in the following paragraphs.

As before, Realme UI offers deep customization of the interface by letting you choose accent colors (or a combination of accent colors), wallpapers, icons, the shape of the quick toggles as well as the font and size. All of these settings are found in the Personalization sub-menu.

Personalization settings

The Dark mode isn't a new feature, especially for Realme's UI, but with the second iteration of the OS, you get some additional options. Scheduling the Dark mode is possible, of course, and forcing it on third-party apps is also available. We were surprised by the color schemes, however, as the Dark mode now offers three variations - dark gray instead of black and a bit lighter gray. The gray color has been proven to be just as effective as the pitch-black color when it comes to energy consumption. So going for a lighter gray might be a sweet spot for users that are hesitant to use the conventional Dark mode.

The Always-on display customizations aren't left out. You can customize it to your liking or choose from the default presets. Scheduling is also an option.

ALways-on display settings

Under the Special features sub-menu, Realme put the Smart sidebar and Flexible windows features, both of which boost multitasking. When turned on, the sidebar offers quick access to some of your favorite apps. The system allows you to adjust the position of the sidebar, which is crucial because it might interfere with the back gesture if you are using the standard Android gestures. Anyway, tap and hold on an app icon enters split-screen mode while a single tap opens up the app in a floating window or as Realme likes to call it, "Flexible window". The supported apps can be opened in small, draggable and size-adjustable windows.

Flexible window

A few good words about the vibration motor - it seems to be improved upon as the haptic feedback feels precise, punchy and strong. It feels great alongside the whole frame of the phone when typing or during certain actions when navigating through menus and apps.

The good old screen-off gestures that allow you to launch certain apps or the flashlight by drawing letters on a locked screen are here to stay.

Screen-off gestures

In the Realme labs, where the company likes to introduce experimental features, there's one that caught our eye. You can stream music to a Bluetooth headset and wired headphones simultaneously. Pretty neat if you are traveling with a friend and want to listen to the same tunes.

Realme labs and heart rate measurements

Lastly, let's talk about the fingerprint reader. It's fast, it's accurate, reliable, and it seems to be well-positioned. We see a tendency in some phones lately with fingerprints placed way too close to the bottom edge. This one seems to be at the right spot. Two new features are now available with the fingerprint reader, though. One of them is the built-in heart rate monitor, which seems to be rather okay in terms of accuracy in the user's resting state, but it's largely inconsistent also. A Quick launch option is now available and seems to be taken straight from OnePlus' OxygenOS. You just tap on the fingerprint scanner and hold until icons for your pre-defined apps appear. Dragging your finger on one of them launches the app in question.

All in all, though, the Realme UI 3.0 looks snappy, offers some new features and looks and feels the same as the previous iteration of the software, for better or worse. It's also highly customizable, and that's something a lot of Android users are looking for. Bonus points for that.

Synthetic and sustained performance

The Realme GT2 Pro employs Qualcomm's latest and greatest - the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC based on Samsung's 4nm process. It holds an octa-core CPU with three different clusters. The main Cortex-X2 core runs at 3.0 GHz, aided by 3x Cortex-A710 cores ticking at 2.5 GHz, plus a third cluster of 4x Cortex-A510 at 1.8 GHz for less demanding tasks to preserve energy. The Adren 730 GPU takes care of graphically-intensive tasks.

The GT2 Pro offers either 8 or 12GB of RAM with non-expandable storage. The 8GB variant comes paired with either 128 or 256GB of storage, while the 12GB option offers 256 or 512GB.

We ran the usual benchmarks to see if the GT2 Pro utilizes the chipset's full potential and also see how it stacks against the competition.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  3855
• iQOO 9 Pro
  3708
• Realme GT 5G
  3555
• Realme GT2 Pro
  3501
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  3476
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  3049
• Google Pixel 6
  2899

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  1246
• Realme GT2 Pro
  1238
• iQOO 9 Pro
  1231
• Realme GT 5G
  1139
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  1096
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  1091
• Google Pixel 6
  1030

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  1056488
• iQOO 9 Pro
  997948
• Realme GT2 Pro
  966251
• Realme GT 5G
  810433
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  719696
• Google Pixel 6
  676831

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  64
• Google Pixel 6
  43
• Realme GT2 Pro
  39
• Realme GT 5G
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  37
• iQOO 9 Pro
  37

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  48
• Realme GT2 Pro
  46
• iQOO 9 Pro
  44
• Google Pixel 6
  30
• Realme GT 5G
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  26
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  25

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  77
• Google Pixel 6
  57
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  56
• Realme GT 5G
  55
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  54
• Realme GT2 Pro
  48
• iQOO 9 Pro
  46

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  97
• Realme GT2 Pro
  95
• iQOO 9 Pro
  95
• Google Pixel 6
  66
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  66
• Realme GT 5G
  65
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  57

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• ZTE nubia Red Magic 7
  10118
• iQOO 9 Pro
  9673
• Realme GT2 Pro
  9487
• Google Pixel 6
  6832
• Realme GT 5G
  5872
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  5757
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  5432

Unsurprisingly, the handset came out ahead of the competition in pretty much all scenarios and also showed the promised 20% gains over the Snapdragon 888/888+. We even see it a tad faster than Samsung's Exynos 2200 in CPU-bound tests and asserting significant dominance in the combined and GPU-intensive tests.

However, since the handset is running a higher resolution 1440p display, the onscreen GPU test results are lower compared to other 1080p flagships while maintaining the lead in offscreen scenarios.

The GT2 Pro also seems to have comparable performance to other Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered devices such as the iQOO 9 Pro and the ZTE nubia Red Magic 7. It's important to note, however, that in some tests, the phone refused to go beyond 60fps, so some results are lower than they should be. Specifically the onscreen tests.

Sustained performance

Realme thinks users will take advantage of the powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC and play games on the phone. For a good gaming session, however, you need a proper cooling solution that keeps temperatures at a reasonable level and maintains high performance over long periods of time. That's why the new passive cooling system is the largest on any smartphone available today. We can't confirm those claims, so we take Realme's word for it.

The so-called Stainless Steel Vapor Cooling Max solution covers a 36.761mm2 cooling area, which is 105% up from last year's design and improves efficiency by 25%. The system consists of 9 layers that include a Diamond Thermal Gel, which is around 50-60% better thermal conductor than the standard thermal paste.

Now, let's put that cooling design to the test.

CPU throttle stress test

The CPU maintained about 74% of its maximum performance but judging by the graphic, this is just one dip that touched the 74% mark. For the most part, the CPU performance hovered around 80%. By the looks of it, you may experience some drastic dips when playing, but those should be short and far and few between.

The good news is that the side frame gets warm while the back is perfectly comfortable to hold after long gaming sessions.