Since the dawn of the GT series, Realme has been pushing out some impressive phones that are designed with power and performance in mind. And the latest Realme GT Neo 3 is no exception. The main theme of the GT Neo 3 is speed, whether that comes in the form of a powerful chipset or incredibly fast charging. The Realme GT Neo 3 was recently unveiled in India, with a starting price of 36,999, putting it smack dab between the premium mid-rangers and flagship killers. So without any further delays, here’s a quick look at the new Realme GT Neo 3.
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Realme India CEO Madhav Sheth made clear at the latest event that the company wouldn’t compromise on design integrity, no matter the pricing of its devices. And the GT Neo 3 follows the same ambitious design of previous Realme phones. The phone comes in blue and white colours with two racing stripes running across the left of the device. There’s also a matte black model with no racing stripes if you are looking for a more subtle touch.
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The back of the phone is carved out of a piece of matte AG glass, making the surface quite smooth and resistant to fingerprints. The camera layout on the back of the GT Neo 3 is similar to that on the OnePlus 9 Pro (Review), although it has one less camera sensor. The rest of the design is pretty standard, with the hole-punch camera cut out on the front and the traditional buttons and ports. The Realme GT Neo 3 retains the plastic from the Realme GT 2 Pro (Review), while the Neo 3 also comes with Gorilla Glass 5 on the back.
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On the front, the GT Neo 3 sports a vibrant 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel with 10-bit colours. The screen also supports HDR10+ and 100 percent DCI-P3 colour coverage. The display also supports a 120Hz refresh rate and a touch sampling rate of up to 1000Hz. It also comes with an optical fingerprint reader under the display. The display pumps out sharp images and vibrant colours, while also offering excellent viewing angles. The screen on the GT Neo 3 is quite fast and responsive, making it excellent for gaming. It isn’t quite flagship-grade, but it’s the next best thing.
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Moving on to performance and the Realme GT Neo 3 certainly managed to impress. The GT Neo 3 was the world’s first smartphone to feature the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 SoC. Furthermore, the chip is paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Realme has also equipped the GT Neo 3 with a large vapour chamber with 9 layers for optimal heat dissipation.
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In our Geekbench test, the MediaTek chip on the GT Neo 3 performed exceptionally, surpassing the Realme GT 2 Pro (Review) with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip in the multicore test. Additionally, I also tested Call of Duty: Mobile, which ran on high graphics with max frame rates without any frame drops. Speaking of frames, the GT Neo 3 also comes with a dedicated display processor that is aimed at delivering sustained peak performance to ensure no frame rate drops while gaming.
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For optics, the Realme GT Neo 3 gets a triple-camera setup with a 50 MP Sony IMX766 sensor at the helm with support for OIS. The main camera is accompanied by an 8 MP ultrawide lens and a 2 MP macro unit. On the front, the Neo 3 opts for a 16 MP selfie camera with an f/2.45 aperture.
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The main camera on the Realme GT Neo 3 takes detailed shots in daylight. Images were sharp with mostly accurate colours, although saturation can be on the heavy side at times.
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The ultrawide camera also works well in daylight, although there’s visibly less detail and sharpness. You also notice the colour shift straight off the get-go.
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Switching to night mode in low light brings in more light and detail in scenes. It is also effective in providing good colour tones and good exposure. Night mode on the ultrawide all depends on the ambient light in the scene but can often result in underwhelming images. The 16 MP selfie camera also takes detailed photos in bright light. It also snaps portraits with good edge detection and nice image separation.
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The Realme GT Neo 3 also comes with a ton of different camera modes including Dual Video, Ultra Macro, Tilt-Shift, and more. You also get a Pro mode. The GT Neo 3’s main camera can also record 4K videos at up to 60fps, while the primary sensor also supports OIS. If you only take photos using the main camera, then the Realme GT Neo 3’s camera is quite formidable, although it does suffer from the same shortcomings as most Realme devices, delivering a sub-par ultrawide camera and a gimmicky macro lens.
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Another impressive aspect of the Realme GT Neo 3 is the fact that the phone offers excellent battery life and super-fast charging. The phone packs a massive 5,000 mAh battery that delivers an entire day of heavy usage on a single charge. However, charging support is the real star of the show here. The phone’s 150W charging support can fully power the battery in a little over 15 minutes, giving you more than enough time to power your handset just before heading out. The Realme GT Neo 3 also comes with 80W fast-charging support, which is touted to go from 0 to 50 percent in just 12 minutes.
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On the software side, the GT Neo 3 runs Android 12 with the Realme UI 3.0 skin on top. There’s not a lot to say about Realme UI, it is more or less a cleaner take on Oppo’s ColorOS. Realme’s interface is easy to navigate and most bloatware on the device can be uninstalled. We will dive more into Realme UI 3.0 in our full Realme GT Neo 3 review, which is coming next week.
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When Realme says that the GT Neo 3 is designed with speed in mind, they weren’t kidding. Everything about this handset spells ‘speed’, from the incredibly fast charging to the powerful chipset and the quick and responsive display. But it isn’t only on the outside, the design also has racing aesthetics. Even Realme UI is getting better if you consider that the vast majority of pre-loaded bloatware can be uninstalled from the get-go.
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The main camera on the GT Neo 3 also performed quite well under most circumstances but falls well short in more complex lighting. Camera performance was admirable in daylight and in lowlight scenes with good ambient light, but I wouldn’t call this a flagship-grade camera setup or even close. My use of the cameras on the phone was brief and we will take an in-depth look at the cameras, software, and performance in our upcoming full Realme GT Neo 3 review.
