Realme GT 6T Review: The New Best Mid-Range Killer?

The Realme GT series is finally returning to the Indian market with the Realme GT 6T. The Realme GT 6T is a performance-focused device powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 SoC. But hey, don’t let the naming fool you; the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 is just as powerful as the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3, if not more so in some aspects.

Starting at INR 30,999, the Realme GT 6T promises to be an all-rounder with its excellent display, top-notch performance, and super-fast charging. So, where exactly has Realme cut corners to achieve this aggressive price tag, and are these compromises significant enough to affect the overall user experience? Let’s dive into this review and see how the Realme GT 6T fares in various aspects.

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Realme GT 6T Review - Box Contents

The Realme GT 6T says goodbye to the artistic GT boxes we used to get with the Realme GT Neo3, realme GT2, and the Realme GT2 Pro. Instead, the phone comes with a generic Realme box with the following principal contents:

• realme GT 6T 
• 120W charger 
• Type-A to Type-C cable
• Opaque protective case 
• SIM ejector tool

Realme GT 6T Review – Design & Build

The Realme GT 6T sports a distinctive design that differentiates it from previous Realme models. Gone is the large circular camera module seen on many of the brand’s 2024 releases. Instead, the GT 6T features two sleek camera rings with a dual LED flash, all housed within a shiny silver visor that spans the device’s width. The rest of the back showcases a matte finish, adding a touch of sophistication to its overall look.

The back of the phone is made of plastic, so it’s prone to fingerprints, smudges, and scratches, just like any other plastic phone. The side frame is also made of plastic but has a metal-like finish for a premium look.

The GT 6 T’s in-hand feel is top-notch. It may not give you the most premium experience, but it doesn’t disappoint either. Never did I feel like I was holding a phone that has a 5500 mAh battery and weighs 191g. Realme has done an excellent job of distributing the weight on this device. 

Let’s also examine the ports and buttons. At the bottom, you get a Type-C port, primary speakers, a primary microphone, and a SIM card tray that accepts two nano SIM cards. 

On the left, you get a power button and volume rockers that feel tactile and responsive. The top of the phone houses a secondary speaker, a secondary microphone, and an IR blaster. The right side of the device is all clean.

The phone is curved on the sides, making it easy to hold in the hand for long periods. Realme ships a decently opaque protective case in the box if you want some protection. 

Finally, the Realme GT 6T comes in two colorways: Fluid Silver and Razor Green. My personal favorite is the Fluid Silver, which I am reviewing right now. 

Overall, the Realme GT 6T is fairly good in design and build quality. Sure, a metal frame and glass back would have made it more appealing, but the device’s price would have also increased.

Realme GT 6T Review – Display and Speakers

The Realme GT 6 T’s display is a treat. And when I say that, I really mean it. Just take a look at the specs. It’s a 6.78-inch 1.5K 8T LTPO curved AMOLED display with an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120 Hz, touch sampling rate of 360 Hz, and 6000 nits of peak brightness. The bezels are fairly slim at 1.36mm.

Woah! 6000 nits of peak brightness? Can this display actually go that bright? Well, the 6000 nits is just the local peak brightness achieved when viewing HDR content on the display. The actual auto mode brightness is 1600 nits, and the manual slider brightness is 1000 nits. 1600 nits is still brighter than most phones’ HDR peak brightness. And yeah, this phone gets plenty bright, even in harsh sunlight.

Speaking of HDR, the display supports HDR10 and HDR10+ on YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. Unfortunately, Dolby Vision isn’t supported, as Realme decided not to license it.

This display’s refresh rate can smartly switch between 1 and 120 Hz depending on the content you are viewing. Realme claims that its new Turbocharged Touch Sampling feature can boost its touch sampling to a whopping 2500 Hz during gaming.

Okay, but what about the colors? The display comes with the Vivid color mode by default, which can sometimes oversaturate the display colors. Overall, the colors are vibrant, and they look really eye-catching. You can switch to the Natural mode or make a new mode yourself if you wish so.

Unlike most 1.5K display phones, the Realme GT 6T allows you to switch between FHD (1080p) and 1.5K (1264p) to save battery or improve sharpness. Again, there are a plethora of display settings that you can use to customize the Realme GT 6T’s display experience.

The display is subtly curved on the vertical edges, giving it a premium look. In my brief usage, I did not encounter any accidental touches. And if you are worried about display protection, Gorilla Glass Victus 2 has you covered. 

The display features 2160 Hz high-frequency PWM dimming, sleep mode, ambient color adaptation, DC dimming, and many other features to ensure the safety and protection of your eyes.

A good multimedia experience is incomplete without a good pair of stereo speakers. The Realme GT 6T has a stereo speaker setup that produces clear and crisp vocals. As for music, you’ll have a decent experience with the good separation of sound frequencies. And yeah, the speakers are loud enough for you to watch videos in a mildly noisy environment.

Realme GT 6T Review - Software and Haptics

The Realme GT 6T comes with the latest Realme UI 5.0, based on Android 14. The software experience is fairly good, with a few inconveniences here and there. Being the positive person I am, let’s talk about the good first.

The Realme GT 6T uses the same animation engine as OPPO’s flagship Find X7 Ultra (Review), resulting in buttery smooth animations. The phone feels smooth and responsive. However, I noticed some occasional jitters when opening or closing certain apps.

Unlike the lock screen, the home screen is highly customizable, and yes, you can change the icon pack on the default launcher. Additionally, there’s gesture support for third-party launchers (cough…HyperOS…cough).

You get the new Quick Settings layout and an improved media player that (finally) allows you to adjust the media volume right from the Quick Settings. There’s also support for Air Gestures and Smart Sensing (scans a QR code when you double-tap the back of the phone). 

realme says the phone will soon get an update that will bring some AI features. The odd thing is that they haven’t revealed any AI features yet, even though the box advertises AI.

And guess what? The saga of ads and recommendations continues. The Realme GT 6T bombards you with toggles of ads and recommendations as you set it up. 

When disabling these toggles (the turn-off and turn-on buttons are flipped), there are also dark patterns. There are a few bloatware apps, but not as many as what we are used to seeing on the Realme Number series or more affordable Realme smartphones.

Finally, Realme has promised three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates for the Realme GT 6T. Hopefully, we’ll see Android 15 on this device soon.

The haptics are also very well integrated into the UI. When using gestures, you get haptic feedback when adjusting the volume or brightness, which is a neat touch. Sadly, Realme has removed some of the O-HAPTICS features, though.

Realme GT 6T Review – Performance

The Realme GT 6T has the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset, Qualcomm’s latest and most powerful 7 series chipset. In fact, the 7+ Gen 3’s performance is quite similar to that of the more expensive Snapdragon 8s Gen 3.

Above the screen, there’s a large copper foil alongside superconductive graphite. Cooling components include a dual Stainless Steel Vapor Chamber and cooling gel. The setup also features mainboard graphite copper foil, bottom copper foil, and supporting graphite and aluminum components. This is all to ensure that the phone stays cool and its performance is sustained for extended periods.

So, to test out the performance, I played a few games, including BGMI, CODM, Genshin Impact, and a few lightweight games like Clash of Clans. The overall gaming performance is good; you can easily play your favorite mobile games at high settings.

As for BGMI, I could crank up the graphics to Ultra HDR + Ultra or HDR + Extreme. In the latter setting, with GT Mode turned on, I got an average of 50 FPS. Unfortunately, there was no 90 FPS option, but I hope this will be added to a future update. 

Moving on to CODM, the Realme GT 6T allows you to play the game in High + Max settings or Very High + Very High. I got an average of 45 FPS in the latter setting with GT Mode turned on. And yeah, there were no major heating issues, even after 30 minutes of gameplay.

Now, let’s talk about the real deal—Genshin Impact. It’s a very heavy game that even some flagships struggle to run properly. The Realme GT 6T was able to achieve about 30 FPS in the default settings. After 30 minutes of gameplay, the phone reached a temperature of 41 °C. Lightweight games like Clash of Clans run buttery smooth on the phone. I faced no lags or jitters when playing such games. 

If you are interested in synthetic benchmarks, I have also tested them. The Realme GT 6T scores about 1,50,000 on AnTuTu, which is an excellent number for this price. As for Geekbench, the phone scores 1841 in single-core performance and 4673 in multi-core performance.

I also ran a 3D Mark Wildlife Stress test to see how well the device handles sustained performance. The phone achieved the best loop score of 11,163 with 56% stability. The temperature went up from 33 °C to 45 °C, which is not a big deal considering the ambient temperatures are already really high these days. I also noticed a battery drain of 10% in the 20-minute stress test.

The Realme GT’s 256 GB and 512 GB variants come with UFS 4.0 storage, while the base 128 GB variant only comes with UFS 3.1. For the uninitiated, UFS 4.0 is two times faster than UFS 3.1 while being more efficient. Nevertheless, I ran a storage test on the 512 GB variant of the device, which gave a score of 1,91,421.

In daily usage, the Realme GT 6T is smooth and snappy. App loading times are lightning fast, and thanks to the UFS 4.0 storage, games like BGMI and CODM also load quickly.

Realme GT 6T Review – Cameras

Unlike the Realme 12 Pro series, the company didn’t make a big deal about the cameras with the Realme GT 6T at the launch event. So, are the cameras any good? Let’s take a look at the specs first.

• Main camera: 50 MP SONY LYT-600 f/1.88 1/1.953” 26mm
• Ultra-wide: 8 MP SONY IMX355 f/2.2 1/4” 16mm 122° FOV
• Front camera: 32 MP SONY IMX615 f/2.4 1/2.74” 

Main Camera 

Let’s start with the primary camera. In daylight, the camera takes decent photos with good HDR. It sometimes messes up with the exposure, especially if you are shooting against harsh light or if you are far away (see samples below). The details and the white balance are fine, but not something to brag about.

Skin tones are not consistent. Sometimes, it captures natural skin tones, while other times, it results in some sort of whitewashing. Speaking of which, the camera mostly captures vivid photos, which some might even call oversaturated. Indoors, you can get some decent shots, but don’t expect too much as the sensor size is 1/2″

Fortunately, the Realme GT 6T allows you to capture portrait photos at 2x, which results in some really good portraits as long as the subject is still. The depth of field is really good, and so is the edge detection

Low-light photos are surprisingly good. Night mode kicks in automatically as soon as it gets darker. Sure, there is some noise, and the exposure is a bit off, but the photos and videos in low light are usable and even good enough to post on social media. 

The primary camera can record videos up to 4K @ 60 FPS. However, stabilization and portrait mode video are locked at 1080p only. The videos on the primary camera are detailed and well-exposed, although they do not fare well in harsh sunlight.

Ultra-wide 

The ultra-wide camera has little to say. Its 8 MP sensor captures photos that are merely usable, and the color science rarely matches that of the main camera. The FOV is decent at 112°. 

The ultra-wide camera’s low-light shots are just acceptable. It can shoot at a maximum resolution of 2K @ 30 FPS. I wish Realme had used a slightly better sensor, perhaps a 12 MP ultra-wide.  

Front Camera 

The Realme GT 6T front camera is good enough for capturing solo or group selfies. It has a 0.8x toggle that lets you capture more people into the frame. The dynamic range is also very impressive for a 1/3″ sensor. Low-light selfies are surprisingly good, which I assume is thanks to the 7+ Gen 3’s ISP. 

Portrait selfies are a hit and a miss. You can get some cool-looking bokeh in good lighting, but the camera tends to struggle with harsh sunlight where there is too much or in low light where there is not much light. Regardless, the front camera can take detailed, well-exposed, and high-dynamic range selfies. 

The front camera can shoot videos in up to 4K @ 30 FPS. The footage has a decent dynamic range but tends to struggle in some situations. The audio pick up is also fine. And yeah, just like the main camera, the front camera can also record videos in portrait mode, allowing you create cinematic videos.

Camera UI

The camera app of realme UI feels outdated and isn’t the most polished one that I have used. For example, you can swipe down on to bring some controls at the bottom, but this only works in the Photo mode. Hopefully, realme will take notes and improve the camera app as this is a huge part of the camera experience of a smartphone.

Overall, the cameras on the Realme GT 6T deliver good results. For a performance-centric device, it does an excellent job of capturing photos and videos using just a 1/2″ sensor. If you are not a camera enthusiast or a media creator, the Realme GT 6T will surely get the job done for you.

Realme GT 6T Review – Battery Life and Charging

The Realme GT 6T excels in battery life and charging capabilities. It features a dual-cell 5500 mAh battery that supports 120W SUPERVOOC fast charging. While Realme claims the phone can go from 0 to 50% in 10 minutes, in real-world usage, it takes about 15 minutes. A full charge takes approximately 35 minutes. The phone also supports 18W PD charging.

As for battery life, I could use the device for 7 to 8 hours with medium usage, such as scrolling on social media apps, typing documents, using the camera, and taking videos. With heavy usage, including 5G mobile data, hotspots turned on, and playing games, I got around 5 to 6 hours of screen-on time. The idle drain was around 2.8% per hour.

Realme GT 6T Review - Network and Connectivity

The Realme GT 6T supports dual SA models and comes with all the 5G bands needed to use 5G on Jio and Airtel networks. I was getting decent 5G speeds and had no issues with network connectivity. As for other connectivity options, you get support for Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and NFC for making contactless payments.

Review Verdict: Should You Buy the Realme GT 6T?