Realme GT3 hands-on review

Camera

For the most part, the camera hardware remains unchanged. The main shooter still uses the 50MP 1/1.56", 1.0µm sensor with multi-directional PDAF and is paired with optical image stabilization. However, the aperture is smaller now at f/1.9 instead of f/1.8 but we doubt that this would make any measurable difference in the real world.

Main camera samples

And some portrait samples too.

Portraits

The ultrawide is the commonly used 8MP f/2.2 camera, but it's marketed with 112-degree FoV, which is less than last year's 119-degree FoV. And when it comes to the macro camera, that has been replaced with a 2MP camera paired with a microscopic f/3.3 lens. This one is arguably more useful than the 2MP macro camera everyone uses, so we welcome the change.

Ultrawide camera samples

The 16 MP, f/2.5, 25mm (wide), 1/3.09", 1.0µm is sticking around too.

Selfies

Charging

The GT3's iconic feature this year is undoubtedly the world's fastest charging tech on a commercial smartphone to date. The handset supports up to 240W wired charging using its own charging brick and cable. Realme had to design a custom 12A charging cable that can handle the current.

The charger, on the other hand, is surprisingly "normal" in size. Sure, it's a bit beefy but it's not what we expected for a 240W charger. And it's no laptop-grade big either. The company achieved that by using a dual GaN mini design, which was crucial to keep the size in check.

240W SuperVOOC charger

To ensure the safety of the charging process, the company has implemented more than 60 layers of protection and the battery itself is the world's first supporting over 200W charging. A TÜV Rheinland certification ensures that the battery will retain 80% of its capacity after 1,600 charging cycles, which is pretty impressive on its own, if true.

And as one would expect, the GT3 outpaces even the Realme GT Neo 3 150W from last year, which was able to charge its 4,500 mAh battery in just 16 minutes. The GT Neo 3 is advertised to be able to do that in just under 10 minutes. And according to our preliminary tests, that may turn out to be accurate.

In the first 3 minutes, we got 30% of the charge back, at the 5-minute mark, the battery was at 52% and in less than 8 minutes - 77%. And the best part is that the device was far from being hot. A bit warm, yes.

We will make sure to thoroughly test the charging speed in our full review, but this should do for now.

Early verdict

The Realme GT3 is аn affordable flagship with some unique features on board, despite the relatively high price. The latter seems to be an issue with all phones launching in 2023, so it seems like the norm in this year's context. It's still a high-performance smartphone with some premium features. And it's also a huge upgrade over the Realme GT2 from last year.

The fast charging tech is obviously the biggest advantage of the GT3 and unlike some other handsets that aim to persuade users with gimmicky, "world's first" features, Realme's offering is actually bringing a useful world's first tech. At first glance, it seems that the GT3 will have a rightful place in 2023, but we still have to put the handset through our usual set of tests, so stay tuned for our full review.