Realme GT 6T review

Smartphone brands are struggling to differentiate their phones in hardware, and the differences boil down largely to design elements. Vegan leather and frosted glass designs have become somewhat cliched, and the GT 6T’s glossy two-tone rear design offers much relief. The device is available in Fluid Silver and Razor Green colours, and we received the silver colour variant. The design presents an overall matte metal undertone with a broad naked metal finished band enclosing the camera unit in what Realme calls nano mirror design. Realme’s detailed literature could get a material science enthusiast drooling over it. Like all things glossy, it amplifies dust, smudges and tiny droplets if you have sweaty hands like mine. 

From the front and sides, the phone is similar to the 3D curved glass designs that became a trend with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge released in 2015. The phone has a thick silver-finished flat plastic frame that provides a sturdy feel. The rear lens units are protected by high-grade stainless steel and the screen has a Gorilla Glass Victus 2 panel shielding it.

The GT 6T’s FHD+ (2780 x 1264) AMOLED display offers 120Hz of peak refresh rate and Dolby Vision support in tune with most leading smartphones in this segment. The use of LTPO tech ensures dynamic refresh rates for power efficiency without compromising on performance, and the display offers up to 6000 nits of local peak brightness (1600 nits in practical situations) along with touch sampling rates of up to 2500 Hz. Refresh rates can go down to 1Hz to conserve power in less demanding situations. The result is a near-flawless visual experience both indoors and in bright sunlight. 

The display is TUV-certified for eye protection and includes AI-enabled features that analyse a user’s blinking and yawning frequency to judge alertness and fatigue, taking steps to reduce eye strain, using features like sleep mode, ambient colour adaptation and dimming. The device employs DC dimming in bright situations and switches to 2160Hz high-frequency PWM dimming when brightness falls below 70 nits.

Smartphone brands consider triple cameras a necessity to survive in the Indian mid-priced phone market, and this is probably the reason for those 2MP macro units occupying the third slot. In this context, the phone’s twin camera configuration is a rather bold move from Realme. The 50MP main camera is supplemented by an 8MP wide-angle unit at the rear. The main camera uses a Sony LYT 600 sensor and reproduces excellent details with brilliant colour rendition. The camera is optically stabilised. There’s a 2x mode for convenience if you are ready to compromise on some fine details. The wide-angle camera uses a Sony IMX355 sensor and tends to render images with a slightly warmer tone. The images look a tad cooler on the phone’s display than on a calibrated monitor.

Portrait mode enhances the sharpness and renders the images with a natural-looking shallow depth of field. However, we didn’t observe any difference in night shots while using the Night mode. The front camera is a 32MP module that picks up fine details in portraits, unlike many we have seen. However, this camera needs some calibration in colour and black levels. Overall, it produced warmer tones than the original. The main camera can capture 4K footage at up to 60 fps. 

The GT 6T offers a street mode with marked 16mm, 26mm, and 52mm equivalent focal length settings simulating popular prime lenses for street photography. This mode also provides Auto Zoom feature, which comes in handy while capturing product shots and details.

The Realme GT 6T runs on Android 14 under a Realme UI 5.0 wrapping and the interface is quite intuitive and responsive. You get tonnes of bloatware, but many of these can be uninstalled. Nevertheless it’s a daunting task. The phone uses a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC, the mid-range flagship fabricated on 4nm process. The CPU includes one high-performance Kryo Prime core, four Kryo Gold cores and three Kryo Silver high-efficiency cores for optimal balance between performance and power efficiency. The GPU frequency can be customised to suit your gaming preference.

The GT 6T is available in four variants with 8GB and 12GB LPDDR5X RAM options. The 8GB variant comes in 128 and 256 GB storage options while the 12GB variant is available in 256 and 512 GB (UFS4.0) options. RAM can be doubled virtually if you want to extract more juice out of the device. You also get a universal remote and provisions for Smart Home integration. 

Realme promises three years of OS and four years of security updates.

The Realme GT 6T offers a 9-layer cooling system including a 3D tempered dual vapour chamber, side full partition cooling, large copper foils and superconductive graphite at crucial points to direct heat away from the sources and dissipate from comparatively less sensitive areas. We didn’t experience any uncomfortable heating issues even while playing action-packed, graphic-intensive games. The device could handle the highest graphic settings for most games including Call of Duty, though we notices some lag in Ultra graphics mode in Modern Warships, which is the case with all mid-range phones we have tested so far.

The device houses two 2750mAh cells connected in series for a combined capacity of 5500mAh. The dual-cell architecture allows the GT 6T to charge faster without the battery overheating. Apart from the various SVOOC standard charging protocols, the device supports 18W QC, PD, and VOOC fast charging. Realme also shared with us an exhaustive list of safety features built into the charging circuitry. The phone ships with a 120W GaN charger, and we can safely bet that this is one of the most compact 120W adapters we have seen. The adapter tops up the phone in no time, and if you are the impatient type who has a habit of checking the charge status every now and then, the charging gauge animation itself is therapeutic to watch as the charger is engaged in its task.

Realme has delivered yet another powerful mid-ranger with the GT 6T. The device offers a smooth experience with a responsive interface and brilliant display. If you are a gamer, this device provides ample power and graphics capability to satiate your need for a smooth, uninterrupted experience with customisable optimal thermals.

The camera is good for most of your needs, though the front snapper and 2x zoom will do better with a tweak of colours and levels, probably doable with a firmware update. 

Overall, a great option in the mid-range smartphone segment.