Hands on: Realme GT Neo 3 review

The Realme GT Neo 3 carries the baton from its predecessor and offers the performance that you’d ask for from an upper-midrange device. The phone is buttery smooth on both sides i.es not only does the 120 Hz refresh rate on this display makes the phone slick; the glossy glass back is slippery too. 

If you’re coming from a device (like me) that has a textured rear panel offering assuring grip, single-hand usage or snapping out the GT Neo 3 from your pocket could be a nightmare – at least till the time you build the muscle memory or snap on a case.

While we’ve spent only a little time playing games on this phone and completing some mundane tasks, the overall experience only got better.

Though that doesn’t mean that this phone is perfect and it does have a few chinks in its armour. Even though it has a blazing fast charging tech of 80W or 150W, it doesn’t support wireless charging. Also, in case you get the variant that supports 150W charging, then you need to manually turn on the ultra-fast charging from the settings menu.

And by the way, the regular variant that ships with only 80W fast charging is also blazing fast and can charge your phone rapidly. It not only is slightly cheaper but also comes with a slightly bigger battery pack.

The phone is available at a discounted price for the initial few days – which makes it a bargain – however, at MRP, the competition is intense and you also have the OnePlus 10R which is identical to the Realme GT Neo 3 in terms of specifications and is not only priced almost similar but has a better brand value as well.

Price and Availability 

The phone is available in three colour variants (Blue, White and Black) and will start retailing in India from May 4 on Realme’s official website, Flipkart and other partner stores. 

As a launch offer, the phone will be available with an upfront discount of Rs. 7000 on SBI cards (Credit, debit and EMI transactions). The same discount is also available on Realme.com for ICICI bank cards. The pricing can be found below.

New Launch

Check out the RealmeGT Neo 3 on Flipkart

Price starts at: Rs. 36,999

Retails from: May 4

View Deal

Design and Display

Straight out of the box the phone is impressive. In a sea of phones that look replicas of each other, the Realme GT Neo 3 stands out. The matte-finished glass back, though slippery, with its two white stripes gives the phone a sporty look. Apart from the Nitro Blue variant we tested, the GT Neo 3 comes in Sprint White and Asphalt Black colour options as well, however, we’d pick the blue one any day.

The rear panel is curved ever so slightly on the sides offering a comfortable grip. While a lot of phones these days are coming with a flat back and flat sides, however, it takes some time to get used to the flat edge design.

And on the risk of being termed old school, we’d still prefer a comfortable grip on a phone that might slip out of your hands like a catch would from the hands of an inexperienced fielder.

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The rectangular camera module on the top left houses three camera sensors and a large dual-LED flash placed horizontally between the cameras to differentiate the more powerful primary sensor from the other two sensors.

The power button sits confidently on the right side while the volume rockers on the left. The USB Type C port is located at the bottom along with the sim tray and bottom-firing speakers. Like most other devices in this price range, you do not get the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The display on the Realme GT Neo 3 is a 6.7-inch AMOLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1000 Hz touch sampling rate. This panel offers FHD+ resolution and a whopping 94.2% screen to body ratio. The high screen to body ratio not only means that you have a large screen in a compact frame but also barely noticeable bezels on the sides of the display. This does make a massive difference as a large and ugly chin at the bottom of the display could easily be an eyesore.

Camera and battery

Talking about the optics on this phone, the Realme GT Neo 3 has a triple camera setup with the primary sensor being a 50MP primary Sony IMX766 snapper with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle snapper, and a 2MP macro snapper. At the front, the smartphone rocks a 16MP shooter housed in a hole punch cutout for selfies and video calls.

The camera application on the phone offers a lot of options including a night mode, street mode, ultra-macro, portrait, pro mode and more. The primary camera does offer high-resolution images and while we had a fun time playing with these modes, we would reserve the verdict on the camera performance for the full review. That being said, it would’ve been great if the brand had used a slightly more powerful macro sensor.

The USP of this phone is the charging tech. The Realme GT Neo 3 comes with a choice of 80W or 150W fast charging tech and our unit came with a 4500 mAh battery and 150W fast charging. This means that the phone can be fully charged by the time you take your morning shower or complete your breakfast.

During the time we used the phone we did notice that the phone would charge at an insanely fast speed. Though the ultra-fast charging toggle is turned off by default and you need to manually turn it on.

Thankfully, Realme is shipping the charging brick in the retail box. This charging brick is a massive unit – bigger and heavier than any other mobile charging brick that we’ve seen. In fact, it is bigger than even my laptop’s charging adapter. Also worth mentioning is the fact that this brick supports USB Type C to Type C cable (which is bundled with the retail box). It means that even if you have a Realme phone already, you might not be able to use that cable to charge this phone.

Performance, specs and software 

The Realme GT Neo 3 is the first phone with the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 SoC in India and is paired with either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128 GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Our review unit was the latter.

This is a very capable processor and can handle resource hungry tasks easily. We’ve tried playing a few games and browsed the internet while streaming songs in the background – the phone performed all the tasks thrown at it without breaking a drop of sweat. We did not notice any heating issues during the limited time we played games on the phone.

The phone runs on Android 12 powered Realme UI 3. It even got an update as we started using the phone. Though the biggest complaint that we have with any Realme device is the number of unwanted applications that come pre-installed on the phone.

When we set up the phone for the first time, apart from Google and Realme suite of applications, it had Byju’s, Finshell, Facebook, HeyFun, HotApps, Josh, LinkedIn, Moj, PhonePe, Realme Link, Realme Store, Snapchat, Soloop Cut and many more applications that we’d hardly use. While some of these apps can be uninstalled, the Realme Suite remains on the phone which means that you keep getting unwanted alerts.

Additionally, even if you turn off the Glance for the lock screen, it keeps appearing in case you swipe right. There are chances that you’d turn it on because the button to activate it is large and is almost placed where you’d normally swipe to interact with the phone. There is absolutely no way you can change this and it is our biggest issue with any Realme phone.

Early verdict 

The Realme GT Neo 3 is a snappy smartphone that can be charged fully before you even realize it. This is indeed one of the biggest conveniences and once you get used to this rapid charging, there is absolutely no going back.

Apart from the charging tech, the phone has a lot of highlights, which include its rear panel design, the gorgeous display and the powerful chipset at its core.

Overall, we’d give the phone a thumbs-up, however, we need to spend a bit more time to be able to judge its performance properly. And we will suggest you stay tuned for the same.