Realme GT 5G review

The usual triple camera; single selfie shooter

The Realme GT 5G features a triple-camera setup on its back. There is a 64MP primary shooter, an 8MP ultrawide snapper, and a 2MP macro cam. A dual-LED dual-tone flash is also around.

The front camera for selfies is a 16MP imager.

The Realme GT 5G has a 64MP primary camera with Sony IMX 682 Quad-Bayer sensor with 26mm f/1.8 lens, 0.8µm pixels, and PDAF. There is no optical stabilization. This camera shoots by default in 16MP. Night Mode is available on this camera.

Unlike on the Realme 8 Pro and its 108MP camera, there is no lossless zoom available on the Realme GT's 64MP primary.

Second is the ultrawide snapper with an 8MP sensor behind f/2.3 lens. There is no autofocus. Night Mode works on this camera, too.

The macro camera uses a 2MP sensor with f/2.4 aperture and focus fixed at about 4cm.

Finally, the selfie camera has a 16MP sensor with 1.0µm pixels behind 26mm f/2.5 lens. The focus is fixed. Night Mode should be available on this shooter, too.

The camera app is the familiar Oppo/Realme one with a few tweaks for the latest version. There are fewer menus - most of the modes are now on the main rolodex, which is good. It offers AI Scene Enhancement (also known as Chroma Boost or Dazzle Color) - it's like an advanced HDR mode, which may stack several images to offers even further improvements in the dynamic range, but the most prominent "improvement" is the higher color saturation.

In the Expert mode, you get to tweak exposure (ISO in the 100-6400 range and shutter speed in the 1/8000s-32s range, 1/2s for the ultrawide), white balance (by light temperature, but no presets), manual focus (in arbitrary 0 to 1 units with 0 being close focus and 1 being infinity) and exposure compensation (-2EV to +2EV in 1/6EV increments).

You do get to shoot on the main and ultrawide cams in this Expert mode, but switching them is handled in a truly bizarre way. You get the familiar 1x-2x-5x selector, but that doesn't operate the actual cameras - it's a digital zoom from whichever camera you've picked from the tree selector on the opposite end of the viewfinder. Indeed, the trees switch cameras, and once you select a module from there, no focusing distance considerations will auto-switch it - that's good.

Camera app

We were happy to find the video resolution issue has been fixed since the Realme 8 Pro - now the ultrawide toggle is always visible, no matter the chosen resolution.

Photo quality - daylight

The main camera saves 16MP photos by default, and those are pretty good. There is enough detail, the noise is incredibly low, while the contrast and the dynamic range are excellent.

The white balance is spot on, and the colors are always accurate.

These are not flagship-grade photos, though. High-frequency detail is once again an issue for Realme's image processing, and things like grass and bushes are often smeared by the processing algorithms. We can also spot oil-painting-like effects across various sports - reflections, monuments, people.

Indeed, the 16MP photos from the primary camera are more than good for a mid-ranger, but we found them a bit overprocessed with somewhat artificial look at times. They are not bad, not at all, just not the best we've seen for the reasons we've mentioned.

Main camera, 16MP

Realme offers an AI Scene Enhancement toggle (previously known as Chroma Boost and Dazzle Color) within the camera app. It usually makes an HDR photo with eye-popping colors, depending on the scene.

When the algorithm detects Blue Sky, Buildings or Grass you can clearly see the saturated colors. If saturated colors is what you are looking for, then you should keep the AI toggle on.

Main camera with AI, 16MP

Unlike the Realme 8 Pro, the Realme GT does not offer lossless zoom. Whether it's 2x or 5x, it's a pure digital zoom done by cropping and upscaling. The photos look okay on the phone's screen, but you better not look at them in full resolution.

Main camera 2x zoom, 16MP

There is a dedicated 64MP mode, and it produces good high-res photos. They are huge in size - between 20MB and 30MB. But they lack the overly aggressive processing applied on the regular photos - the sharpening, then smoothing and noise reduction.

That's why the 64MP photos aren't that sharp and noticeably noisier. They won't yield (much) more detail if downsized to 16MP, but if you like their natural look - you should try shooting in 64MP.

Main camera, 64MP

We liked the 8MP ultrawide photos. They offer enough detail for this type of camera and sensor, the noise is kept reasonably low, and the dynamic range is particularly wide.

Just like it was with the Realme 8 Pro's ultrawide snapper, this one also saves photos with a noticeable reddish tint. It's not the end of the world, but the color difference between the main and ultrawide camera is noticeable immediately.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The 2MP macro camera has its focus fixed at 4cm, and shooting a sharp picture requires a bunch of tries but eventually, you learn the sweet spot and how to recognize when your subject is on focus.

The 2MP macro shots are good - they are detailed, colorful and sharp. The contrast is high, too. The photos once again look a bit overprocessed, but we doubt that your Instagram followers looking at that flower petal or bug would mind the look.

Macro camera, 2MP

The Realme GT can shoot portraits with its main camera even if there is no dedicated depth sensor. The subject separation isn't stellar because of that, but the photos are excellent - detailed, sharp, with good colors and contrast. We liked the blur, too.

Portraits, 16MP

The Realme GT has the same selfie camera as the 8 Pro - it uses Quad-Bayer sensor behind f/2.5 lens, while the focus is fixed.

The selfie photo quality is okay, considering the GT saves photos in 16MP instead of the natively binned 4MP. The resolved detail is obviously average, but everything else is great - contrast, colors, dynamic range.

Selfies, 16MP

Portrait mode is available for selfies, too. The photos have the same qualities as the regular selfie photos. The subject separation, while far from ideal, is acceptable for such a camera, and the defocusing looks good.

Portrait selfies, 16MP

Photo quality - low-light

The main camera takes balanced 16MP photos at night. The exposure is quite balanced, the sharpness is good, and the resolved detail is plenty. The noise reduction process is gentle as it doesn't smear fine detail, but it obviously leaves a lot of noise across the photos. The noise levels are tolerable, and we think that Realme has done a great job with the low-light processing striking the right balance at everything.

There are many clipped highlights, but that's to be expected as there are no other enhancements when shooting in the default Photo mode.

Main camera, 16MP

The AI opts for Night Mode at night and may or may not over-saturate the colors. There is a dedicated Night Mode switch, too. It usually takes about 2-3 seconds to take a photo and another 2s to save it.

The Night Mode saves much brighter photos and exposes even a lot more detail than before. The noise is clean a bit better here, and overall the Night Mode photos are excellent.

The highlights remain clipped even with all the enhancements. And there are various artefacts in areas of high-frequency detail such as building decorations, foliage, and the tiny white stones. But these are not enough to ruin our positive impressions.

Main camera Night Mode, 16MP

The 8MP low-light photos from the ultrawide camera are not good. While they offer good colors, they are soft and dark, making them mostly unusable.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

Night Mode works on the ultrawide camera, and it does a brilliant job at saving a great ultrawide image at night. The noise is cleaned proficiently, there is a ton of fine detail, the sharpness is excellent, and the exposure is much better - all photos are noticeably brighter (not over the top bright).

We strongly recommend using the Night Mode when shooting with the ultrawide camera.

Ultrawide Night Mode, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Realme GT 5G. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

Realme GT 5G against the Poco F3 and the nubia Red Magic 6R in our Photo compare tool

Video quality

The Realme GT captures videos with its main camera and ultrawide snappers. The main camera records video up to 4K at 60fps, and there's 1080p at both 30fps and 60fps. The ultrawide shooter is limited to 1080p@30fps video capturing.

You get the option to choose between the h.264 and h.265 codecs.

Electronic stabilization is available - it is always-on and applied across all cameras, on all resolutions and frame rates.

The Realme GT is generous with the bitrates - the 4K footage gets 50Mbps while 1080p/30fps is allocated a similarly above-average 15Mbps when using the h.264 codec. The audio bitrate is always 320kbps, and the sound is stereo.

The 4K videos captured 30fps with the main camera are great - there is plenty of resolved detail, the noise is low, the colors are accurate, and the dynamic range is above average. The audio sounds quite nice, too.

Shooting in 4K at 60fps uses a small crop from the center of the sensor. The picture is equally good to the 4K30 as far as colors, contrast, and dynamic range are concerned. But the captured detail is not good same - the video looks more like digitally zoomed or, say, upscaled from lower resolution.

Realme is also offering this AI Highlight video mode. It is shot in 1080p at night and does look good, probably because of the lower resolution. What it does is literally highlighting the light sources giving them a slightly better look and color saturation.

The 1080p clips from the ultrawide camera are rather average. The detail is okay, but the dynamic range is low, and there is a noticeable reddish tint.

Finally, here is the Realme GT 5G in our video comparison database.

2160p: Realme GT 5G against the Poco F3 and the nubia Red Magic 6R in our Video compare tool