prize fighter at heart

With the GT Neo 2, Realme has presented a new mid-range phone. It has a high-quality screen, a powerful fast charger and a promising chipset. On paper, the telephone has a lot to offer, but does it also show it in practice? This is the review.

Realme GT Neo 2

The GT series from Realme stands for powerful specifications, a striking design and an accessible price tag. The Realme GT 5G was the absolute top device, but the brand also released the Master Edition, which is a cheaper midrange phone with Snapdragon 778G and a powerful fast charger.

The new Realme GT Neo 2 presented in September feels like a variant of the GT 5G with slightly different accents. For example, it has a larger screen, but a slightly less powerful chipset. Not uninteresting: the suggested retail price is also lower and amounts to 429 euros. Robin, our young AW Beta tester uses a Xiaomi Mi 10 on a daily basis. He was able to test the phone and researched whether this variant can taste us more than the original Realme GT 5G.

Specifications

Comes with case, screen protector, earphones and charger

The back of Realme GT Neo 5G is made of plastic and it comes in three different colors: blue, green and black. In my review I used the blue version of the phone. The phone feels very nice in the hand. The edges of the phone are made of metal, which gives it a slightly higher quality feel than a phone made entirely of plastic. Realme deliberately opted for cheaper materials than with the regular GT to keep the price down. Although the phone does come with slightly curved screen edges, which help convey that premium feeling.

Unlike the Realme GT Master Edition, the Realme GT Neo 2 does not contain a 3.5 mm audio jack, so that you are dependent on USB-C or Bluetooth earphones for listening to music. It is nice that USB-C earphones are included and they are also of a good quality. I can say the same about the stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos sound. Those double speakers are really an added value.

Like the GT, this phone is not waterproof, but that is more acceptable with this smartphone given the price range. The GT Neo 2 does come with a protective case and a screen protector that is pre-installed. The screen is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 5, so the phone is well protected. However, I noticed that the aluminum frame is very scratch-sensitive, which is remarkable because I have always used the phone in combination with the case.

But let’s also consider something else: where else can you find a phone that comes with a case, a screen protector, a charger and a pair of earphones? You can call that a strong move from a price fighter like Realme, right? Or you can also label it as an attack on the environment, depending on how users will deal with those extras. Imagine that they will immediately buy a new case, use a different pair of earphones at home and replace the plastic screen protector with a tempered glass. It’s a double-edged sword.

Awesome screen

This phone has a 120Hz AMOLED screen that, unlike the panel of the GT 5G, does support the richer HDR10+ color contrasts. The colors of the screen are very beautiful, especially if you switch on the ‘O1 Ultravision Engine’, where regular video images are converted to HDR images.

The panel also has a high brightness of 1,300 nits, and you notice that in practice. In all lighting conditions it is a pleasure to use the screen of this phone. I was also very pleased with the auto-brightness feature as the phone never forced me to manually adjust the brightness.

I consider the display of the Realme GT Neo 2 to be one of the main selling points for the device given the price range it is in. This is the kind of screen that ticks all the boxes and for $429 you’ll be hard pressed to find better.

Powerful Performance

With this phone you can easily use different apps at the same time. The GT Neo 2, together with its 8 or 12 GB of RAM, ensures that your apps are not closed and can work in the background. And while this phone comes without the Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 870 is also a speed monster and it also comes with a 5G modem.

One of the games I’ve played on the phone is ‘Genshin Impact’. it is a game that requires a lot of graphics power and there are different graphics modes to use depending on the performance of your smartphone. The Realme GT Neo 2 handles the game fine with the highest graphics setting without experiencing frame drops. I also enjoyed using the GT game mode. With this feature you will not be disturbed by notifications and you will get a customized package of settings that are relevant while gaming.

Good battery life, eager charger

With the Realme GT Neo 2, I made it to the end of the day smoothly after using the phone extensively all day. You easily have some of the capacity left and it does better than the GT Master Edition that I was able to test earlier.

And then there’s the excellent 65W fast charger. It changes the way you use your phone, because you never really have to worry about the capacity. After a little longer than half an hour, it is approximately fully charged and with fifteen minutes on the charger you can also sleep on your two ears. The phone comes without the wireless charging option, but neither can the more expensive GT flagship. You can’t call that a loss with a phone in the price range of this GT Neo 2.

Camera

The camera isn’t the best aspect of this phone, let’s face it. But it’s no fun ruiner either. As long as you don’t have unreasonable expectations of this 64 MP main camera and 8 MP wide-angle camera, you can’t be disappointed. These are all the camera sensors that Realme uses with the GT Neo 2:

• 64 MP main camera with f/1.8
• 8 MP wide-angle camera with f/2.3
• 2 MP macro camera with f/2.4
• 16 MP selfie camera with f/2.5

These cameras take excellent photos in good lighting conditions. In artificial light or in darkness you notice that the quality deteriorates. The main camera does not have optical image stabilization and that is one of the important reasons. With the wide-angle camera, that problem is even more apparent because it is already a smaller sensor that receives less light.

The macro camera is also not a great added value with its 2 MP sensor. What strikes me is that the camera performance is significantly better compared to the GT Master Edition, although the camera setup is almost the same. Presumably, Realme has taken steps forward in the field of image processing, and that may also have to do with the better chipset. The stronger results are also evident in portrait mode. Furthermore, the selfie camera is good to average, but it is certainly not a factor that distinguishes the camera setup.

I was also happy with the filming experience of the Realme GT Neo 2. The phone offers you useful tools such as a portrait film mode and a software stabilization function and the result is impressive. The GT Neo 2 can film in 4k at a maximum of 30 fps or in Full HD at a maximum of 60 fps. The camera app offers a variety of features to explore, but if you only want to focus on the essentials, it’s also easy to use. Below is a gallery of photos I took with the different cameras.

– Read more below the images –

Software

Customizability is one of the greatest strengths of Realme UI 2.0. You can make the software look very similar to a bare-bones Android experience with Google Discover, but on the other hand there are plenty of options to adjust the home screen to your liking. Realme mainly uses the app from Google and only adds things like its own weather forecast and calculator app. I never had to deal with noticeable software errors and notifications came in without any problems.

We are used to Realme that the same makes big statements about the software of its phones, but the phones from the GT series can count on a nice update policy of three version updates and three years of security updates.

Conclusion

The Realme GT Neo 2 performed better than expected as this phone is a real price fighter at heart. It has a fantastic screen for its price and comes with a lot of accessories. Furthermore, it performs smoothly and the battery is an absolute plus in combination with the charger. If you’re looking for a smartphone with a battery that won’t let you down, then the GT Neo 2 is the right choice.

Those are the most important aspects, but if you look a little further you will discover even more beautiful things with this smartphone. The GT Neo 2 gives value for money. Take the excellent speakers, the fine fingerprint scanner on the side or the customizable launcher.

With this phone you can’t really talk about weaknesses, but only about fewer points. The camera is such a less strong point, although it doesn’t really underperform given the price range. Although I can safely imagine that the biggest fans of photography will be looking for a slightly more versatile arrangement of camera lenses.

After the review, I considered buying the phone myself for a while and I finally did. For me personally, this phone meets all the features I’m looking for in a phone.

Alternatives to the Realme GT Neo 2 are: the OnePlus Nord 2 (379 euros), the Samsung Galaxy A52s (389 euros), the OPPO Reno 6 (449 euros) and the Xiaomi 11T (478 euros).

Buy Realme GT Neo 2

The GT Neo 2 is now on sale from 429 euros for the model with 8 GB of RAM. For the version with 12 GB you pay 529 euros. You can get the 8 GB model in a blue and black shade and the other version comes in a green and black color.

• Buy Realme GT Neo 2 (8 GB/128 GB) – Belly simple – 429 euros
• Buy Realme GT Neo 2 (12 GB/256 GB) – Bell Simple – 529 euros