Realme GT 6 Review: Amazing Display, Awesome Performance
Realme has been on a roll in 2024, launching smartphones in every segment possible. Naturally, after conquering the under-30K segment with the Realme GT 6T, the next target was the 40K segment, where the company has just unveiled the new Realme GT 6. Now, the question remains: is the Realme GT 6 the new flagship killer of 2024? The short answer is yes. For the long answer, let’s dive into the review of the all-new Realme GT 6.
Realme GT 6 Review: Design and Hardware
Starting with the unboxing experience, Realme has included all the bells and whistles. The box contains the phone, a soft-touch case, a 120W fast charger, and a USB-A to USB-C cable.
When I first took the phone out of the box, one thing struck me: the Realme GT 6 looks identical to its sibling, the Realme GT 6T. We received the silver variant, and its design is not the most fan-favorite, with many complaining about how shiny the back is. Additionally, the situation is made worse by the fact that the Realme GT 6 attracts a lot of fingerprints, so you’ll have to clean it every time you take it out of your pocket.
Moving over to the camera module, Realme has done a decent job making the device look unique. However, the individual camera lenses attract a lot of dust as well. Regarding the in-hand feel, the Realme GT 6 is a big, wide phone requiring both hands to reach the top corners.
Realme GT 6 Review: Display
Similar to the GT 6T, Realme has gone all-in on the display with the GT 6. The device features a 6.78-inch FHD+ AMOLED 120Hz LTPO display with a local peak brightness of 6000 nits. While we acknowledge that the local peak brightness only applies to HDR content, we measured over 1600 nits of brightness in direct sunlight, which is more than enough for people to see their screens. Moreover, the device supports the Widevine L1 standard out of the box, making the movie-watching experience spectacular.
However, there have always been significant debates about the refresh rate regarding Realme’s software, as it has struggled to switch refresh rates effectively. Thankfully, this problem is non-existent in the Realme GT 6 since it handles the switching seamlessly, with the display going as low as 1Hz. Moreover, the company has bundled several display color options, including Natural, Vivid, and Custom, allowing users to tailor the experience to their liking.
Furthermore, Realme has introduced a new “Color Vision Enhancement” feature for color-blind individuals, which tweaks specific colors to help such users see better.
Finally, regarding display protection, the Realme GT 6 comes with the latest Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, which fared very well in our testing, suffering only minimal scratches.
Realme GT 6 Review: Performance
Performance is one of the biggest differentiators between the Realme GT 6 and its smaller sibling. The GT 6 comes with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip, featuring one Cortex X4 core for the most demanding tasks, four high-performance cores, and four efficiency cores. Additionally, the device comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.
The phone breezes through the UI with negligible loading times and no lags or stutters in day-to-day usage. The software’s intelligent refresh rate switching further enhances the performance while conserving battery life.
Moving over to synthetic benchmarks, the 8s Gen 3 chip helped the device score a respectable 1,65,999 points in the AnTuTu benchmark. In Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests, it achieved 1,989 and 5,178, respectively. Moreover, in a 30-thread, 30-minute throttle test, the device maintained over 94% of its peak performance.
Regarding gaming, we tested the Realme GT 6 on games such as CODM and BGMI, and the results were impressive. The device maintained a solid frame rate without heating up, even at the maximum settings.
Battery Life
Considering the large 5,500mAh battery, we had high expectations for battery life and were not disappointed. The Realme GT 6 lasted throughout a day of heavy use, including taking camera samples, having long BGMI sessions, and watching movies.
Realme GT 6 Review: Cameras
The cameras are another major differentiator between the GT 6 and the GT 6T. The Realme GT 6 houses a triple-camera setup consisting of a 50MP Sony LYT-808 primary camera sensor, a 47mm 50MP Samsung JN5 telephoto lens, and an 8MP 112-degree Sony IMX355 ultra-wide sensor.
In daylight, the photos were bright, with natural colors, good depth of field, and ample HDR, ensuring the subject and background remained visible. Although the phone occasionally overexposed subjects in harsh sunlight, the overall performance is still more than adequate. Additionally, I noticed a bug where capturing a moving subject resulted in significant changes during post-processing, with the subject changing its position drastically. I have communicated this issue to the Realme team, which is working on a fix.
Moving to portrait mode, the telephoto lens comes into play. The results were amazing, with natural bokeh, excellent edge detection, and lighting. However, it’s important to note that the quality deteriorated slightly in low-light conditions.
Nighttime photos
With the new Sony sensor, expectations were high for the Realme GT 6’s nighttime performance, and it didn’t disappoint. It captured photos with adequate details, great colors, and minimal noise in artificial and low-light scenarios.
Zoom and UltraWide shots
The 47mm lens, which provides a little over 3x zoom, took good photos, allowing us to zoom in on distant subjects. However, we did notice some color discrepancies between the zoom and the primary camera.
The 8MP UltraWide lens isn’t the best on the market. The photos are only usable in daylight conditions. However, the quality becomes a significant concern at night, with most shots turning out muddy.
Realme GT 6 Review: Software
The Realme GT 6 runs on the latest Android 14, with Realme UI 5.0 on top. The company has promised three years of software updates and four years of security patches. Although competitors like the Xiaomi 14 Civi promise five years of software support, the longevity of the Realme GT 6 shouldn’t be an issue for most average users.
The software experience is amazing, with no loading times or lags, thanks to the 8s Gen 3 chip. However, similar to its sibling, Realme has bundled several pre-installed apps such as Finshell Pay, Amazon, and more.
Is the Realme GT 6 worth it?
At a starting price of Rs. 35,999, including offers, the Realme GT 6 competes in a segment that hasn’t seen much action. While the Xiaomi 14 Civi arguably has a better camera, it costs more due to its Leica partnership. Therefore, if you are shopping in this segment and want a solid all-around phone with good cameras, amazing performance, and an excellent display, check out the Realme GT 6.
Summary
The Realme GT 6 has finally brought some much-needed competition to the sub-40K segment by offering amazing performance, a great display, and more than capable cameras.
