Realme GT6 full review.
A worthy contender for the “GT” tag given the performance. The Realme GT6 fits the GT series’ image of performance centric, fast smartphones. Not only that, it also comes with a kickass display which is a bit of a hidden gem here.
Realme’s GT series is back in India and I recently reviewed the Realme GT 6T, which is the more toned-down version of the smartphone this review is for, the Realme GT6. Now, while the Realme GT6 is pretty much the same as the GT 6T in terms of how it looks and feels, it comes with meatier specifications that are closer to a flagship smartphone. But does that ensure a better, more refined experience? Let’s find out in my review of the Realme GT6.
Starting with the design, the Realme GT6 has an identical design to the smaller brother, the Realme GT 6T. From the design of the back panel, to the frame, to even the placement of things like the IR blaster or the microphones, everything is the same in terms of the design. The only difference in terms of the design between the two smartphones is the cameras – the Realme GT6 has a triple rear camera setup while the Realme GT 6T has two cameras. Even the shade of grey used on the smartphones is slightly different, but you can only see that when you’re really trying hard to figure out if there is a difference in the design.
As many must have read in my review of the Realme GT 6T, I’m not a big fan of this design. Realme is calling the silver strip that runs through the top of the back panel the “Nano Mirror Design” which doesn’t appeal to a user like myself who usually prefers dull, matte finish basic colours. But for someone who has a bit of bling in their style, the Realme GT6 will definitely appeal to them.
Up front also, things are the same as the younger sibling. There is a curved display with a hole-punch front camera implementation. Here too, the design remains identical to the Realme GT 6T. The curved display definitely adds a little bit of premiumness to the front look of the smartphone and achieve a higher screen-to-body ratio, it is also prone to mistouches.
Overall, the design is nothing great. It looks exactly the same as the Realme GT 6T, which was the first smartphone in the GT series that was launched in India after 2 years. I’m not a big fan of the shiny strip running across the back panel, or the camera placement of the back panel. But that’s just my opinion. It has a premium in-hand feel and comes with Corning Gorilla Glass protection so it’s not all that bad. We get two colours for the Relame GT6 – one is the silver you’re seeing in the images in this article and one is the Razor Green colour, which has a dark green finish.
With the Realme GT6, we are getting a curved 6.78-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and an FHD+ resolution. The display is also capable of up to 6000 nits of claimed peak brightness, but that isn’t what you see at all times. I tested the Realme GT6 display’s brightness to be at 1093 nits under harsh sunlight, which isn’t as outrageous as a 6,000 nits number.
The display is good. We are getting 120Hz refresh rate so there is no lack of responsiveness. We are also getting LTPO, so the refresh rate is being adjusted according to the content on display, further saving battery and giving a more streamlined experience. This also helps achieve a high FPS in games that support it.
The smartphone also supports HDR formats like HDR10+ and Dolby Vision so watching HDR content on platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, or even YouTube is a very immersive experience. During day-to-day usage also, the display is very sharp and crisp. I don’t have any issues with the picture quality and clarity on this smartphone.
In terms of colour accuracy also, this display is excellent. The smartphone comes with multiple colour profiles – vivid, natural, cinematic, and brilliant. There is also a “Pro Modes” setting that lets you individually control the hues on the display.
The ability of this display to accurately represent colours is amazing. It is on the same level as some of the most accurate displays on any smartphone in the market currently. In my colour checker test, the Realme GT6 showcased a DeltaE of 0.8, which is less than 1 point of error, meaning that the colours are extremely accurate on this display. Even in the greyscale test, the Realme GT6 showcased amazing balance as it tracked Gamma of 2.2 accurately.
So this is a great display. It is probably my favourite thing about the new Realme GT6 so far. We get a sharp display which also accurately represents colours, is super responsive and bright, and at the same time, supports all major HDR formats. So yes, there is nothing to complain about the Realme GT6’s display performance.
Coming to performance, we are getting the latest and the already-popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset with the Realme GT6. The smartphone also comes with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal storage. The performance of the Realme GT6 is at-par with many competitors.
Comparing it with other similar-priced devices, the Realme GT6 comes ahead of the likes of the OnePlus 12R, the Xiaomi 14 CIVI, and the Vivo V30 Pro in terms of performance. The smartphone consistently scored higher points in CPU-based benchmarks, only coming behind the Xiaomi 14 CIVI in a few benchmarks. Apart from that, the Realme GT6 outperforms all its rivals in synthetic benchmark tests.
In GPU-based tests, the story remains similar. While the Realme GT6 is ahead of most of the competition, the smartphone falls just short of numbers as compared to the Xiaomi 14 CIVI in a few tests.
The thermal management on the smartphone is also pretty decent. While it does heat up often (of course, any device would if we use them in Delhi heat), it’s not as bad as I have experienced on many other newly-launched smartphones. It also doesn’t throttle much. I ran the CPU throttling test on the Realme GT6 and the smartphone throttled to 83 percent of its peak CPU performance.
So yes, performance-wise also the smartphone performs well. The Realme GT6 is definitely in-line with the GT series’ performance-centric DNA, offering a very good mix of performance and thermal management.
But how is the software? Well, Realme UI is quite clean this time around. I highly appreciate the brand’s move to reduce the number of bloatware apps on the more premium GT series. Further, we also get some cool features with Realme UI like the ability to clone apps in order to be able to use two different versions on one single device. We also get a heart rate monitor which uses the fingerprint sensor to measure the heart rate.
Further, Realme UI now looks pretty clean and simple. There aren’t a lot of UI notifications and the options to turn off things like Glance and news on lock screen are very prominent options in the setup menu. So overall, while it is quite similar to ColorOS and OxygenOS, Realme UI has improved quite a bit in the recently-launched Realme GT6 series of smartphones.
Coming to cameras, we get a triple rear camera setup with the Realme GT6. There is a 50-megapixel primary shooter, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle shooter, and a 50-megapixel telephoto for portraits.
While the camera performance is just above average. The photos are nice and sharp, but seem to be a tad bit overprocessed. The colours are a bit too vibrant and in many cases look un-natural, but some people prefer it to be that way.
The portraits are good. We get a very good depth-of-field and edge detection. The one thing I didn’t like with the portraits is the smoothing of skin. Makes the subject look un-natural. At times, the portraits also miss the edges by a margin, but nothing too bad and very much usable for social media.
Coming to low light performance, this is an area where the Realme GT6 confused me a bit. While the camera hardly loses any details in low light, the colours seem to be absolutely off. In night mode, the colours look too washed out, while without the night mode, the results are much closer to what you see with your eyes.
The wide angle shooter here also struggles to maintain quality in low light. In proper lighting, the wide angle shots are nicely detailed and represent colours pretty well.
One thing that confused me the most is that the Realme GT6 comes with up to 4x in-sensor zoom, which is great for perspective shots if you want to capture a subject in detail. However, the telephoto lens doesn’t get activated for that. This is happening in the main sensor only. The telephoto, however, only gets activated when using portrait mode on the Realme GT6. Which is why, I believe that the portraits are good in detail.
While making a single conclusion based on my personal experience won’t be fair since photos are a subjective matter, I found this camera to be above average. Yes, if you want, you can click some exceptional photos with this camera, but if you don’t know your optics too well, this will confuse you more often than not.
So that was the Realme GT6 for all of you. A worthy contender for the “GT” tag given the performance. The Realme GT6 fits the GT series’ image of performance centric, fast smartphones. Not only that, it also comes with a kickass display which is a bit of a hidden gem here.
The only thing that can potentially turn buyers away is probably the average camera performance or the design, which I’m sure will not go with people who have a rather minimalistic taste in things. Overall, the Realme GT6 is a great performance smartphone.
