Levelling up the mid-range game! 

If there’s one thing Realme knows how to do, it’s stir up the mid-range market — and with the latest GT 7T, it’s back to doing just that. Clad in a familiar yet stylish shell and packing in a 7,000mAh battery, a crisp AMOLED display, and some gaming muscle, this phone means business. But beneath the chrome edges and big numbers, is the GT 7T all performance or just posturing? We put it to the test — bingeing, battling, and back-to-back bingeing again — to find out if this is the everyday powerhouse Realme claims it to be.

Design

The smartphone sticks to the familiar Realme GT design language, featuring a plastic back with a graphene-textured finish and chrome edges. I reviewed the Icesense Black variant — it comes with bronze accents around the camera bump and power button, which add some contrast.

Realme GT 7T
| Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH

It measures 162.42 x 75.97 x 8.25 mm and weighs 202 grams. While not exactly light, it feels well-balanced in hand. The plastic back may not feel premium, but it provides a good grip and doesn’t feel slippery during everyday use, especially when using two hands for typing or gaming.

Display

The screen was nearly bezel-less, with a screen-to-body ratio of 94.7 per cent. This made it great for watching movies like HIT 3: The Third Case on Netflix, especially the climax fight in the abandoned villa, where the AMOLED panel brought out its true deep blacks. The colours looked rich and life-like.

The stereo speakers got loud enough, and vocals from artists like Blaaze, Benny Dayal, and Tanvi Shah in Dilli-6 came through clearly. However, there was little separation between percussion and other instruments, and without advanced audio tuning, beyond the Hi-Res Audio certification, the overall sound experience felt somewhat flat for multimedia use.

Camera

The rear setup includes a 50 MP Sony IMX896 sensor with a 1/1.56-inch size and an f/1.8 aperture. In daylight and indoor conditions, the rear camera captured decent images with good detail. Early on, there was a colour cast issue in mixed lighting, but a firmware update improved colour accuracy and overall image quality.

Realme GT 7T
| Photo Credit: BIJOY GHOSH

It supports video recording at 4K resolution at both 60 and 30 fps, as well as 1080p at 60 and 30 fps. The ultra-wide camera has an 8MP sensor, a ¼-inch size, and an f/2.2 aperture, limited to 1080p video at 30 fps.

The front camera uses a 32 MP Sony IMX615 sensor capable of 4K video at 60 and 30 fps, and 1080p at the same frame rates. Selfies were sharp, with consistent skin tones across shots, including profile pictures.

Performance 

The smartphone runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Max chipset, built on a 4nm process. In GeekBench 6 benchmarks, it scored 1,680 in single-core performance, which is behind the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 with its Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. Its multi-core score of 6,545 puts it roughly in the same range as the Samsung Galaxy S24+ running the Exynos 2400.

The review unit had 12 GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. In games like Battleground Mobile, it handled up to 90 FPS smoothly, without any stutters or noticeable lag. There is the famed GT mode, which is an on-screen display that can be pulled up from the side screen to see FPS, clock speed, and other system parameters. 

The device runs Android 15 with Realme UI 6.0. The floating island feature around the camera notch remains useful, showing what track is playing and quick notifications.

There’s some bloatware pre-installed, including Realme’s versions of Photos, Store, Community, Games, Game Center, Theme Store, Videos, and Phone Clone. These apps can’t be uninstalled, but thankfully don’t push intrusive notifications.

Realme also includes AI features within some apps, like the photo editor. It offers tools such as AI Eraser, AI Ultra Clarity for upscaling images, Unblur to reduce post-shooting blur, and Reflection Remover. While the AI Eraser worked well on simple reflections on the ground, it struggled with more complex reflections like neon signs on puddles after rain, making the results hit-or-miss. AI planner, after being turned on, can be used to create events by double-tapping the back of the phone while in an app or notes, and it will analyse and create an event based on what is available on screen.

Battery

The GT 7T packs a hefty 7,000mAh battery. In my usage, which included gaming, typing emails, watching videos, and some photo and video capture, I got around 7 to 8 hours of screen-on time.

It comes with a 120 W SuperVOOC charger that refilled the battery from 0 to 50 per cent in under 20 minutes and reached full charge in about 45 minutes, close to Realme’s claimed times of 15 and 42 minutes, respectively.

Verdict

The Realme GT 7T is great value for money. With competitors such as the OnePlus 13R and Nothing Phone 3a Pro in the same price range, the GT 7T stands out as a solid mid-range option for users prioritising battery life, display quality, and performance.

Published on June 4, 2025