Realme GT Master Edition review: Good smartphone for a fair price

With the Realme gt The Chinese manufacturer launched a very good smartphone a few months ago for a very fair price of 450 euros. Overall, it was quite convincing, but had slight weaknesses for the offered price for the cameras and the battery life. Now, with the new Realme GT Master Edition, there is a slightly weaker and, above all, cheaper alternative that should be significantly more efficient thanks to the Snapdragon 778G from Qualcomm.

But it's not just the processor, but also the 120 Hertz OLED display, the 64 megapixel triple camera, the large 4.300 mAh battery and 65 watt fast charge that give us hope. The price for the smallest storage version with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB of internal storage is 349 euros, although it was even offered for just 12 euros until September 299th. In the following lines, you'll find out how the device fared in everyday life for this price, whether it's really as good as the data sheet suggests or whether it does have a few weaknesses.

Haptics, design and processing

When I picked up the Realme GT Master Edition for the first time, I was surprised how good and comfortable the smartphone is in my hand. The reasons for this are on the one hand the light weight of only 174 grams and the thickness of only 8 millimeters and on the other hand the perfectly rounded back, which flows almost seamlessly into the frame. Added to this are the dimensions of 159,2 mm in height and 73,5 mm in width, which are the absolute standard these days. The Master Edition is neither particularly large nor small and can therefore still be operated relatively well with one hand, which I really like.

However, I am a little disappointed with the materials used. Unfortunately, the frame is only made of plastic with a high-gloss finish, which leads to a number of fingerprints and on top of that it doesn't feel particularly high-quality. To be fair, however, it must also be said that nowadays almost all smartphones in this price range have a frame made of plastic. Still, I think it's a shame. The back is also made of plastic and is at least in the color I tested Cosmos Black high-gloss, which is why a lot of fingerprints are noticeable unless a protective cover is used. Fortunately, Realme has with Luna White and Voyager Gray There are two other colors on offer, which should be of a higher quality thanks to the matt surface. The latter was made by the designer Naoto Fukasawa designed and is characterized by a suitcase look. Yes, you read that correctly, the back should be reminiscent of a suitcase. Apart from the colors, the triple camera in the left corner is also noticeable. The camera bump protrudes a little from the housing, which means that the smartphone wobbles slightly when it is used on the table.

The front is rather unspectacular. The large panel is only interrupted by a small punch hole that accommodates the front camera, and the display bezels are pleasantly thin. Sure, the lower edge of the screen could be a bit thinner, but that's absolutely fine for a mid-range smartphone.

When it comes to processing, the Master Edition does a solid job. Despite the plastic, the smartphone looks well made and the back cannot be dented too much. The keys sit tight in the case, have an acceptable pressure point and are easy to reach with one hand.

Display - a very great strength

The screen has a diagonal of 6,43 inches, has a pleasantly sharp resolution of 2.400 x 1.080 pixels and supports a fluid refresh rate of 120 Hertz, which means that the image is updated up to 120 times within a second. Paired with the Snapdragon 778G, the GT Master Edition feels extremely smooth to use. For only 349 euros this is really strong.

The recess does not interfere at any time in everyday life. (Picture: TechnikNews)

Thanks to the OLED technology, the black level is extremely high and there is also excellent color reproduction, which can be adjusted to your own taste in the settings with just a few clicks. While the colors are reproduced beautifully realistically in the "Mild" color mode, they appear a little more saturated in the "Vivid" mode. The white value is also good, although it is a little too warm for my taste, but this can also be adjusted to your own taste in the settings under the "Screen color temperature" item. The maximum brightness is more than sufficient, so that you have no problems with the readability of the panel even in direct sunlight. Last but not least, I would like to mention the viewing angle stability. Even when tilted sideways, colors hardly change color. In conclusion, it can be said that the GT Master Edition for 349 euros is equipped with a very high-quality display.

Software - many personalizations thanks to the Realme UI

The in-house user interface Realme UI, based on Android 11, is used as software. It's quite colorful and, for my taste, a bit confusing in some places, especially the settings. But there are some things that can be adjusted to suit your own taste. For example, you can change the colors of the UI, the icon style of the apps or the animation when unlocking via the fingerprint sensor. In addition, Realme integrates the popular Google Discover feed on the left side of the home screen and of course there is also an app drawer.

As additional functions, the user can, for example, configure the icons of the apps, change the navigation and there are screen-off gestures (gestures for the switched-off display). Furthermore, the device can be woken up by tapping twice on the switched-off display and switched off again by tapping twice on a free space. How do I find a very useful and practical feature that I used very often in everyday life. However, I would like to see a quick start function for starting the camera in the future.

Unfortunately, Realme pre-installs some bloatware with Facebook, TikTok, PUBG Mobile, Amazon, Amazon Music, Booking.com, Twitter, LinkedIn and Netflix. Fortunately, all apps can probe uninstalled without problems.

Performance - fast and fluid

Under the hood, the Snapdragon 778G from Qualcomm works with 6 or 8 GB of RAM and 128 or 256 GB of internal storage. Unfortunately, the memory cannot be expanded using a microSD card.

The everyday performance of the Master Edition is very good, especially for a mid-range smartphone, so that you can hardly tell the difference to more expensive smartphones. Apps start and close quite quickly and what I like so much about the Realme UI are the smooth animations, which are displayed even more smoothly thanks to the 120 Hertz refresh rate. Games also run without any major problems. Only with extremely complex tasks do you experience the occasional stutter, but that's completely normal. The RAM management is completely satisfactory in the version I tested with 8 GB RAM.

At first I was a little skeptical about the heat development of the Snapdragon 778G, since the similar Snapdragon 780G is in the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G became noticeably warm, but luckily I didn't notice anything negative about the GT Master Edition. If you use it more intensely, it naturally gets a little warmer, but in no way worrying.

Battery - decent runtimes, terrific charging times

Realme gives the smartphone a 4.300 mAh battery, which is fully charged in about 65 minutes with the 30 watt power supply included. No other smartphone can currently compete here for less than 350 euros. Such impressive values ​​are actually only known from current flagships. Big compliments to Realme.

I am quite satisfied with the battery life of the Master Edition, even though it is by no means a long-term runner. With 120 Hertz activated, I always got through a day and every now and then I even managed 1,5 days. At the end of the day, with a screen-on time of 4,5 to 5,5 hours, I usually had 15 to 35 percent of battery left. Overall, the battery life is a good bit better than the normal Realme GT with the Snapdragon 888, despite the smaller battery.

Camera - rock solid

A rather unspectacular camera setup is used on the back, which is also used on the more expensive GT. The main sensor is the IMX 682, which has a resolution of 64 megapixels and is 1 / 1.73 inches in size. The ultra-wide-angle camera with a sensor size of only 1/4 inch has a resolution of 8 megapixels and there is also a 2 megapixel macro camera, which is slightly larger at 1/3 inch. The front camera differs from that of the Realme GT, however, because the Master Edition uses a 32 instead of 16 megapixel front camera.

The triple camera of the GT Master Edition. (Image: TechnikNews)

Starting with the main camera, which for 350 euros delivers rock-solid results with decent sharpness, solid dynamic range and meanwhile really good color rendering. It feels like Realme has always improved the color rendering slightly from model to model over the past few months. A OnePlus North or Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G are still slightly ahead in some situations, but the differences are limited. As soon as it gets darker, night mode is used, which exposes the images for a few seconds. The results are perfectly reasonable for the price. I am quite satisfied here, but you should definitely not expect miracles.

The ultra-wide-angle camera is also rock solid. In good lighting conditions, it certainly provides added value, whereby you have to accept noticeable quality losses compared to the main camera, which is mainly visible at the edge areas, but for currently 330 euros this is completely okay in my opinion, especially since it is in this price range there is hardly anything better.

The manufacturer could have done without the macro camera. she proproduces blurred and much too pale photos. Samsung and Xiaomi deliver significantly better results here. For macro shots, I recommend using the main camera and then cropping into the image. Overall, I really liked the selfies, especially the sharpness of the images. Only with the face colors there is still a little room for improvement, because faces are reproduced a little too softly for my taste.

Test photos

Let's take a look at a few test photos. As always, the following images are absolutely unprocessed, but compressed without loss in order to keep loading times and memory consumption of the website low.

Comparison with the OnePlus Nord & Nord CE

In good lighting conditions, the differences between all three devices are actually very limited. The normal North has a slight edge in terms of sharpness, while the GT Master Edition in turn has a slight edge in terms of colors. I like the ultra-wide-angle camera best with Realme, because colors are usually displayed in a more attractive and natural way and because most of the details are retained, even if the difference is only very small here. As soon as the lighting conditions get worse, there are hardly any significant differences between the Nord CE and the Master Edition. Here you can tell that the same sensor was installed, whereby Realme gets a little more out of the software in terms of color reproduction and sharpness.