Realme GT2 Pro review

Competition

The Realme GT2 Pro is the company's most premium flagship ever; there's no doubt about that. And its price shows. If you get it as an early bird, you can snatch one of the base 8GB/128GB memory options for just €650, making it quite competitive. However, the regular price is €750, and in this segment, the competition might be better equipped.

The GT2 Pro has almost all the bells and whistles - excellent HRR screen, a flagship SoC, an unorthodox design, great camera capabilities, big battery combined with fast charging solution and some neat features such as 360-degree NFC, nice haptic feedback and a built-in heart-rate sensor. Still, there are two big missteps that need to be taken into account. The lack of a proper telephoto camera and the absence of wireless charging are the most noteworthy. Those are features that you'd expect in a €700+ phone.

Let's start with the recently released vivo iQOO 9 Pro from BBK Electronics. It's currently one of the few Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-powered alternatives in India, asking INR 64,999 and offers almost the same feature set as its not-so-distant sibling, the GT2 Pro. It even has wireless charging, faster wired charging and a full-fledged telephoto camera. That last bit comes with some caveats, so we suggest referring to our full review to learn more about that. Nonetheless, we are pretty sure that the GT2 Pro will be priced considerably lower than the iQOO 9 Pro in India.

vivo iQOO 9 Pro • Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G • Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G • Google Pixel 6

The recently released Samsung Galaxy S21 FE is a great alternative to the GT2 Pro, especially in Europe, as the device can be found at less than €600 right now. That's way below the early bird price of the GT2 Pro even. Samsung's contender has a comparable, if not better, display, great camera hardware that includes a real 3x telephoto camera, wireless charging, and although it runs on a last year's chipset, it's still the flagship Snapdragon 888. And that's more than enough for the vast majority of users. The GT2 Pro, on the other hand, edges out the S21 FE with superior ultrawide camera performance, longer battery life, charging speed and bigger screen with higher resolution.

While we are in the Samsung camp, let's not forget the still widely available Samsung Galaxy S21+. Sure, it's a flagship from exactly one year ago but Samsung's recent pledge to extend its software support to four years of major updates and five years of monthly security patches instantly grants some added value to its older flagships. After all, the Galaxy S21+ is one of the company's top flagships for 2021 with a superb display, great camera performance, wireless charging, comparable battery life and the Exynos 2100 from last year is a perfectly capable SoC. The GT2 Pro only has the price advantage in the first few weeks of its release (€650 vs. €750) and offers faster charging.

And in case you are lucky enough to reside in a market where Google's Pixel 6 is available, you may want to consider it as well. In fact, the vanilla Pixel 6 asks about €650 and offers a slightly better camera performance with its main cam, wireless charging and vanilla Android OS eligible for long and timely software support from Google. It's hard to argue with the GT2 Pro's faster charging, excellent ultrawide camera and longer battery life, though.

Verdict

The early bird price of the Realme GT2 Pro makes the phone a lucrative offer, but its regular price of €750 puts it against some big, more recognizable names in the industry. That's not to say the handset is not well-equipped for the job. The GT2 Pro still has a great display, long battery life, fast charging, excellent camera performance across all scenarios (especially the ultrawide with its added-value features), and utilizes the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1's full potential. We are quite keen on the Paper White and Paper Green design options as they eliminate smudges and provide superior grip to glass-made devices. Oh, and the bio-based polymer seems to keep the surface temperatures low even after long periods of gaming.

So even at €750, the Realme GT2 Pro is an easy recommendation, but it could have been one of our top picks for this year if it wasn't for the telephoto camera and wireless charging omission.

Pros

• Superb 120Hz LTPO2 AMOLED display with granular HRR control.
• We really liked the Paper-like texture of the back.
• Good sustained performance, low surface temperatures.
• Excellent camera performance all-around (especially the ultrawide).
• Extra long battery life, fast charging
• Customizable and feature-rich Realme UI 3.0, Android 12
• Neat features such as 360-degree NFC, crisp vibration motor, microscopic lens

Cons

• The Paper designs might not feel as premium for some.
• Selfies are meh.
• Lacks telephoto camera.
• No wireless charging.