Realme GT5 Pro review

GSMArena Team, 02 January 2024.

4.1

Flagship-grade hardware on two out of three rear cameras

The GT5 Pro features a triple camera system on its back, with two of the modules already seen on high-end models from related brands - the main camera we sort of got to experience on the Oppo Find N3 (and the OnePlus Open, of course), while the telephoto is familiar from the Find X6 Pro. The ultrawide is a more forgettable piece of kit, and we may have even stumbled upon it in past devices.

The primary camera uses a LYT-808 sensor, part of Sony's new LYTIA lineup, which benefits from the latest stacked architecture that improves light gathering. It's a sister product to the LYT-T808 in the Oppo Find N3, and in both devices, it's being reported as IMX 888, but unlike the Find N3, the GT5 Pro has another line in hardware apps with a 'lyt808' string.

There's also the difference in resolution between the two in official specs - the Oppo says 48MP, and the Realme lists it as 50MP, but you have got to remember it's a multi-aspect sensor with a raw resolution of 52MP, so they can crop it whichever way they choose.

The lens has an equivalent focal length of 23mm (24mm in the Find's specs, but that could be another angle of the minor difference in crop and rounding up or down). The f/1.7 aperture and optical stabilization remain on the specsheet.

The telephoto is based on the 50MP IMX 890 sensor, which has a 1/1.56" optical format and a 1.0µm pixel pitch. The periscope lens has a 65mm equivalent focal length and an f/2.6 aperture, and it's stabilized. More importantly, perhaps, it can focus from rather close, coming in handy in more shooting scenarios.

Least remarkable - or, rather, downright mundane - is the ultrawide camera. It uses the IMX 355 sensor (1/4.0", 1.12µm) with a 16mm-equivalent lens with an f/2.2 aperture. The focus is fixed here.

Over on the front of the GT5 Pro, there's a 32MP selfie camera that's using the IMX 615. The lens has a 22mm equivalent focal length and an f/2.5 aperture. There is no autofocus on this one, either.

Camera app and features

The camera app is the familiar Realme one, with a few specific touches here or there. There are fewer menus - most of the modes are now on the main rolodex, which is good.

For example, there's no AI Scene Enhancement toggle (also known as Chroma Boost or Dazzle Color). Instead, there's an exposure compensation button - something you typically do by tapping on the screen and moving a contextual slider (which also works, by the way).

There is a Pro mode for all three cameras, and you get to tweak exposure (ISO, shutter speed, and compensation), white balance (by light temperature, but no presets), and focus manually. Shooting aids like focus peaking and a live histogram are also available.

There is also a Street mode, where you can try the Auto zoom feature - you tap on a subject, and the phone crops into the frame and tries to keep it at the center of the photo, so you don't need to move your phone frantically when framing.

Camera UI

Daylight photo quality

Daylight photos from the GT5 Pro's main camera are very good. The dynamic range is nicely wide, the auto white balance is generally accurate, and the colors are vibrant without pushing it overboard. Detail is on par with others in the 12-ish megapixel category, and it's rendered in a reasonably natural way.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x)

The full-res photos have a rather upscaled quality to them - we see no reason to use that mode.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), 50MP

The 2x zoom level results are similar in terms of captured detail to the 50MP mode, albeit there is more noise reduction applied. The contrast is also better. It's not the vivo X100 Pro, though, which could produce essentially the same per-pixel detail at 2x as it could at 1x.

Daylight samples, main camera (2x)

Zooming in to 3x, things are looking better. Detail is great and even though it comes with a fine grain that wasn't present in the main camera's output, we're fans of the rendition. Contrast is high, dynamic range is wide and colors maintain the likeable vivid look.

A major point here is the telephoto camera's ability to focus relatively close, making for some nice shots of nearby subjects with strong separation from out-of-focus backgrounds or foregrounds. We'll explore what that means for the Realme's macro photography capabilities a bit later on.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (3x)

The full-res mode on the telephoto is hardly useful - as was the case on the main camera. One thing of note here is that the 50MP images have a slightly wider field of view than the 12.5MP ones. That explains the 65mm equivalent focal length on the full-res shots and the 72mm one on the binned images - in that sense, both the officially specified 65mm focal length equivalent and the 3x zoom level (counting from the 23-ish mm main camera) can be considered correct.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (3x), 50MP

Similarly to the 1x-2x situation, the 6x results out of the telephoto camera aren't more detailed than the 50MP 3x shots, only these are a little smother. That is to say, 6x isn't really all that great when examined at 1:1, though it's still what we'd consider alright. Plus, if you're only going to be viewing the images at fit-to-screen magnification, you may not even notice the drop in quality at pixel level.

Daylight samples, telephoto camera (6x)

The ultrawide camera on the GT5 Pro is the only meh unit from a hardware perspective, with just 8MP of resolution and no autofocus. It's also not all that wide either, with a focal length equivalent of 16mm after the distortion correction has done its job, particularly next to a main camera at 23mm equivalent.

Having set the expectations low then, the ultrawide camera's images are okay. The detail is good in the center, but sharpness drops towards the corners, and that distortion correction isn't entirely effective either. Dynamic range and colors are pretty great, though, so there's that.

Daylight samples, ultrawide camera (0.6x)

Low-light photo quality

Our experience with the GT5 Pro in low light was pretty intriguing when it came to the Night mode implementation. There's the usual Auto Night mode crescent that pops up in Photo mode in the corner of the viewfinder in dark scenes, and you can turn it off. Then there's the dedicated Night mode.

The thing is though, we observed virtually no difference in the behavior of the phone (the time it needed to take a photo) or the photos themselves, between all three scenarios - Photo mode with Auto Night, Photo mode without Auto Night, and Night mode. That was mostly the case on all three cameras, with minor nuances in the fact that the auto night mode wouldn't always kick in all cameras in all scenes. Not that it made much of a difference, since the images would have all been the same anyway.

Main camera

Starting off with the main camera, we're getting very good exposures with well-preserved highlights and mostly good shadow development - we'd take a bit more light in there, but perhaps you prefer your images more 'realistic', with less shadow boost like Realme's take. The auto-white balance worked well, and the colors have a healthy level of saturation. The detail is very good, and there's no noise to speak of.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x), Photo mode, auto Night off or didn't kick in

Low-light samples, main camera (1x), Night mode

Low-light samples, main camera (1x), Photo mode, auto Night on

At 2x zoom, pixel-level detail isn't spectacular, and there's heavier sharpening to try and make up for the lack of actual sharpness. Once again, though, we'd say these are okay images, particularly for low-light conditions.

Low-light samples, main camera (2x), Photo mode, auto Night disabled or didn't kick in

Low-light samples, main camera (2x), Night mode

Low-light samples, main camera (2x), Photo mode, auto Night on

Telephoto camera

The telephoto appeared less eager to summon the crescent - it only showed up for four of the ten scenes below. That's largely irrelevant, though, since the Night mode and the Night mode-less Photo mode shots look the same to our eyes anyway. Highlight preservation is key here, with slightly less emphasis on shadow boost - the same approach as on the main camera. White balance and color rendition are hard to fault, and detail is very good - high marks across the board.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (3x), Photo mode, auto Night off or didn't kick in

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (3x), Night mode

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (3x), Photo mode, auto Night on

At 6x zoom level we got even fewer auto Night mode shots. The images we captured still have very good exposure characteristics and color, only the per-pixel detail isn't quite as sound. Solid performance overall though, given the lighting conditions.

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (6x), Photo mode, auto Night off or didn't kick in

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (6x), Night mode

Low-light samples, telephoto camera (6x), Photo mode, auto Night on

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera was more consistent in engaging the auto Night mode, though we'll have to reiterate that we didn't observe any meaningful difference between the results in all three scenarios.

We have some praise about the handling of exposures and the dynamic range as well as the color reproduction. We're less enthusiastic about the detail levels and sharpness, but things weren't exactly rosy in those respects during the day, so why expect miracles at night.

Low-light samples, ultrawide camera (0.6x), Photo mode, auto Night off