It's been a while since realme introduced the GT line in the Philippines. The launch of the realme GT 6 brought joy to many fans, continuing the company's tradition of delivering flagship-quality smartphones at a more affordable price. Dubbed the "Flagship Killer," the realme GT 6 impresses with its powerful hardware, AI-enhanced software, and competitive pricing.
I've been using the realme GT 6 as my main Android phone for weeks now, and while it has many strong points, there are also a few downsides worth noting. In this review, I'll share my experience with you, and by the end, I'll answer who it's best suited for.
Pros
- Flagship-level performance with Snapdragon 8s Gen 3
- Useful AI software features
- Exceptional display for its price
- Great overall camera performance
- Long battery life
Cons
- Fingerprint magnet
- Aging 8MP ultrawide sensor
- Limited storage option
Design
The design of the realme GT 6 is nothing new - "Glasstic" back panel adorned with a shiny finish and a frame made of high-grade plastic material. There's a metal plate covering a portion where the camera module is located; however, it's layered below the glass to make a seamless finish. realme calls this the "Nano Mirror Glass" design which has up to 80% reflectivity.
Flashy as it may sound, this makes the back panel prone to fingerprints, and I find myself constantly wiping them away to keep my Razor Green model looking sparkling new. But don't get me wrong, the phone is beautiful. It has this upscaled level of craftsmanship you'd only see in flagship phones.
As mentioned, the frame is made of high quality plastic which has the same green tone as the back. It is durable enough to withstand bumps but I would not dare using the whole device without a case. Talking about the ports and buttons, we still have the same no-nonsense placements.
The power button and the volume rocker are situated on the right side; while the secondary microphone, IR Blaster and a speaker slit are on the top side. The bottom side is busier with the SIM tray, USB-C port, primary microphone, and the speaker grille.
The overall design is quite functional and premium-looking. I love every aspect of the design except its ability to attract fingerprints. Still, I'd love to carry this around, especially the Razor Green variant. It's very exquisite and pleasing to the eyes.
Display
The realme GT 6 frames a 6.78-inch FHD+ curved glass display with 1.5K resolution (2780x1264) and 450 ppi pixel density. This is an LTPO panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 94.2% screen-to-body ratio. What makes this phone standout is its capability to crank its display brightness up to a whopping 6000-nits.
The display has a handful of certifications including the TUV Rheinland Flicker Free, SGS Sun Glare, SGS Five Star eSports Display and Dolby Vision Playback & Capture, to name a few. In real-time use, the screen is just as what you'd expect for a flagship phone - it's bright with lots of contrast, as well as good color accuracy and saturation. Its Dynamic Range is also on point; additionally, the details and clarity are commendable.
AI display features like the Nature Tone Display and Eye Comfort prove to be useful. The former adapts the screen tone based on your environment. The AI Eye Comfort can detect the user's eye fatigue and monitor playtime; in turn, it automatically adjusts the display’s color temperature in real time. One feature I love to use the most is the Paper Texture function under the Eye Comfort feature. It mimics paper-like visuals so it’s ideal in reading eBooks and documents, especially at night.
There’s an in-display fingerprint sensor that quickly detects the user’s enrolled fingerprints. The same location is also used for heart rate monitoring.
Hardware + Performance
Powering the realme GT 6 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. It’s a Generative AI-centric chipset developed under 4-nanometer technology. This 5G chip clocks up to 3.4 GHz speed, but the GT 6 settles with 3.0 GHz tops with the Qualcomm Kryo CPU.
The chip is coupled with 12GB of RAM, which can virtually expand up to another 12GB (24GB max) utilizing the device’s storage. Speaking of storage, we have a non-expandable 256GB capacity. I was a bit stunned to know that realme is only offering this configuration. I mean, branding it as a “Flagship Killer” would require a few more rooms in the storage department, don’t you think?
Other than that, I have no complaints about the performance. The realme GT 6 is as speedy as a race car in handling all my daily tasks, multimedia activities, and mobile gaming. The hardware is more than enough to consider this phone as one of my daily drivers. Fusing it with realme UI’s feature set, I'm quite amazed at how many productivity tasks I could finish with this device.
Of course, we go to the fun part - gaming. I play a lot of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) with this phone. I always take advantage of Ultra High Frame Rate and Ultra Graphics without worrying about heating issues. Heavy-graphics games are also very playable with this handset. My Genshin Impact sessions default to Medium in Graphics, Visual Effects and Render Resolution. Cranking it up to the maximum settings isn't an issue.
The overall gameplay is quite fluid. This is because the hardware system intelligently allocates resources to running the game, maintaining its high frame rate and graphics quality, while pushing the system temperature on low bars. This is reflected in our benchmark scores.
In our AnTuTu testing, the device scored a whopping 1,510,784. On the other hand, the device tallied 4999 multi-core and 1968 single-core scores in Geekbench CPU test. In our graphics test, the device tallied 9807 in Vulkan and 9130 in OpenCL.
The realme GT 6 is also a winner when it comes to content consumption. Complementing its superb display are the high-quality dual stereo speakers. This makes the device very ideal for streaming videos on YouTube or binge watching via your favorite apps. Likewise, the phone also employs the Antenna Array Matrix which technically preserves the quality of signal no matter how the device is being held.
Camera
The realme GT 6 sports a triple camera setup which is top billed by the 50MP Sony LYT-808 sensor. This camera has an f/1.7 aperture; and supports optical image stabilization and PDAF. realme also employs the usual 8MP Ultrawide Sony IMX355 camera, and a 50MP Samsung ISOCELL JN5 telephoto sensor. On the front, we have the 32MP selfie camera.
This hardware is backed by an improved software algorithm for holistic image quality improvement in different lighting environments, color reproduction and accuracy. The best image quality can be seen with shots taken in optimum lighting condition. For example, the 50MP main sensor produces photos with brilliant consistency in both indoor and outdoor settings.
Photos possess great color accuracy and capture a great amount of detail. I also noticed that the noise is suppressed, giving the image enough clarity and contrast. The Dynamic Range is okay; however, there are a few instances where it overexposes some highlights.
The camera app is capable of producing 2x and 4x zoom photos. The 2x zoom camera is exceptionally good with its clean and almost noiseless photos. Photo quality, color accuracy, dynamic range and contrast are somewhat similar to the 1x mode. As someone who often utilizes 2x zoom mode, this consistency is a very welcome treat. However, the quality degraded when I took a 4x zoom image; also, the noise started to build up. But it’s still better than other cameras with 4x digital zoom settings.
Surprisingly, the 8MP ultrawide camera performs above average. Sure, there is some loss of details and sharpness, but the camera software makes sure they’re not that obvious. Still, it’s fun to use this mode when taking wide-angle shots or landscapes.
In lowlight, the realme GT 6’s main camera also delivers great results. The phone defaults to using the Night Mode which recovers shadows and keeps the noise at bay. The colors and contrast are also preserved, making this phone a good companion at night.
Using the 2x mode at night produces decent shots with good colors and details. However, it tends to crank up the sharpness, which may turn off some users. Meanwhile, ultrawide angle shots are quite passable but lack sharpness, contrast, and dynamic range.
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| Left to right: 2x night, 1x lowlight |
As a selfie lover, I love using the realme GT 6’s 32MP front camera. It offers a bunch of customization options in terms of beautification, filters, and more. It also supports wide-angle selfies at 0.8x zoom. The phone supports up to 4K video recording at up to 60 fps in all cameras except the 8MP ultrawide.
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| Low-light selfie, normal selfie, portrait |
There’s an Ultra Steady Mode which mimics the videos of an action camera in a slightly low resolution of 1080p. Additionally, the phone also employs a handy AI Night Vision mode in the camera which you can use in lowlight or at night.
Software
Running the whole show is the realme UI 5.0, which is based on Android 14. The realme GT 6 is marketed as an AI-centric phone; thus, it is quite fitting to find lots of AI features embedded in the software.
One major highlight is the AI Screen Recognition feature, which identifies text and images on your screen. By long-pressing a screenshot and dragging it to the edge of the display, you activate the AI Smart Loop. This overlay of preselected apps allows you to easily use the recognized text or images within those apps.
The AI Screen Recognition and AI Smart Loop also work with images in your gallery. An example is long pressing the image and sending it via File Dock in the AI Smart Loop. One of my favorites is the AI Eraser which you can easily use in the Edit mode of the Photos app. It intelligently erases unwanted elements in your photos via Smart Lasso or Paint Over selection tool.
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| Before AI Eraser |
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| After using AI Eraser |
This feature works very well with simple photos, but it may stutter with more complex images or when dealing with a large number of elements you want to erase.
The overall user interface of realme UI 5.0 is clean, simple, and easy to use. First-time users will find helpful tips when using a feature for the first time. There’s still a number of unwanted apps but you can just delete them.
Battery
The realme GT 6 is powered by a 5500 mAh battery. Actually, this is a dual 2750-mAh pack and is 10% larger than the most realme smartphone batteries. The phone also supports 120-watt SuperVOOC tech which takes advantage of the GaN power adapter and the dual-cell technology for faster and safer charging.
In our charging test, the realme GT 6 took 41 minutes to recharge from 0% to 100%. It’s also worth noting that it tallied 30% in the first 10 minutes of charging. The combination of larger battery capacity and fast charging makes this phone very ideal to those who are always on the go.
Should You Buy the realme GT 6?
Comparing the handset to some of today's flagships, I would say it’s definitely a "flagship killer." This is due to the harmonious blend of outstanding specifications, stunning design, great camera, highly efficient software, and generally lower price. I personally believe that to be considered a flagship killer, a device must excel in all these areas—and the realme GT 6 has delivered.
The realme GT 6 is available for Php 34,999. It comes with an introductory price of Php 29,999. If you managed to get it at the introductory price, it's indeed a great value. Overall, this smartphone is very easy to recommend for professionals looking for a well-balanced flagship-grade smartphone. It's also great for content creators and smartphone photography enthusiasts.
