Realme GT5 240W review

 Realme GT5 240W review

Introduction and specs

Realme's 2023 flagship, the Realme GT5, is once again a China-only smartphone following the footsteps of its predecessor, the GT3. It's rather disappointing to see Realme taking a step back from the premium and upper mid-range segment in Western markets. Its GT series is definitely competitive enough on European and Indian soil.

In any case, the GT5 is a feature-packed handset coming in two main versions - with 150W or 240W fast charging. The former has a bigger 5,240 mAh battery and caps at 512GB internal storage, while the 240W iteration goes a little overboard with memory. The only available configuration features 1TB of internal storage and 24GB of RAM. A bit of an overkill with the RAM, too. Battery, however, is 4,600 mAh, just like last year's GT3 with 240W.

Realme GT5 240W specs at a glance:

Body: 163.1x75.4x8.9mm, 205g; Glass front, aluminum frame, glass back.

Display: 6.74" AMOLED, 1B colors, 144Hz, HDR10+, 1400 nits (peak), 1240x2772px resolution, 20.12:9 aspect ratio, 451ppi.

Chipset: Qualcomm SM8550-AB Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (4 nm): Octa-core (1x3.2 GHz Cortex-X3 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A715 & 2x2.8 GHz Cortex-A710 & 3x2.0 GHz Cortex-A510); Adreno 740.

Memory: 1TB 24GB RAM; UFS 4.0.

OS/Software: Android 13, Realme UI 4.0.

Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.9, 24mm, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 16mm, 112˚, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.

Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.5, 25mm (wide), 1/3.09", 1.0µm.

Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, gyro-EIS; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS.

Battery: 4600mAh; 240W wired, PD, 20% in 80 sec (advertised).

Connectivity: 5G; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 5.3, aptX HD; NFC; Infrared port.

Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); stereo speakers.

Speaking of, while 240W still sounds like science fiction, it's not the first time Realme is breaking the 200W barrier. We tested the GT3 last year so we know what to expect - sub-15 minutes full charging cycles. That's pretty fast.

Aside from the slightly altered design, which is now a subtle mixture between Google Pixel's design for the past two generations and last year's GT3, the rest is business as usual. There are no significant changes to the hardware, except the chipset, of course. The device is now equipped with this year's top-shelf chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

Display, battery (as we mentioned) and cameras all stay the same. In fact, those haven't changed in a while, depending on which versions of the Realme GT series you compare.

That doesn't mean it's not a great phone, of course.

Unboxing the Realme GT5

The Realme GT5 240W comes in a standard retail box with all the usual user manuals inside along with the appropriate 240W charger and USB-C to USB-C cable. The charger itself isn't as big as expected, but it's quite heavy.

Realme includes a matte, soft-touch silicone case too.

Design and ergonomics

The Realme GT5 looks and feels the same as last year's GT3, for the most part. The new GT5 is also made of glass and aluminum, and the camera bulge is quite similar. However, it's as if Realme took some cues off the Pixel lineup and made the whole camera module span across the device's width. The glass piece doesn't have sharp edges, though, and everything about it feels smooth and well-made.

While we are on the camera island, it has the three cameras on the left, sitting inside metal camera rings and an RGB LED indicator surrounding the area where the chipset is supposed to be. There's a subtle Qualcomm logo on it too.

The Realme GT5 comes in just two colors, Flowing Silver and Starry Oasis, we have the former with us.

The whole glass piece on the back is pleasantly curved and meets the side frame without any protrusions or gaps. The whole device feels quite thin and nice in hand, but it's also pretty slippery.

The side frame is made of aluminum with a glossy finish and oval side edges, transitioning into flat ones at the top and bottom. The USB-C and the main speaker grille are at the bottom, while the top is home to an IR blaster and a second opening for the top speaker. The right side holds the power button and the volume rocker, both of which are easily reachable with your thumb.

The front side of the device features razor-thin bezels, subtly curved edges and a centered cutout for the selfie camera. In other words - nothing out of the ordinary.

Overall, the handset feels nice and shows excellent craftsmanship using premium materials. However, some sort of ingress protection would have been greatly appreciated.

Fast, bright and crisp OLED

The Realme GT5 recycles last year's GT3 display, which is hardly an issue here as the panel is flagship-level by all accounts. It's a big one, measuring 6.74" in diagonal, but has a bit higher resolution to match - 1,240 x 2,772px. The panel also supports 144Hz refresh rate, which is a bit higher than the industry standard of 120Hz, has 10-bit color depth and supports HDR10+ content.

In our brightness test, the screen peaked at 1,100 nits in auto mode and reached 483 nits in manual mode - almost identical to last year's results, suggesting that Realme used the same panel for this year's GT5. We don't consider this an issue, though, because it's an excellent screen to begin with.

When it comes to color accuracy, the default color mode isn't the best option, as the whites and grays are quite blue-ish. Opting for the so-called Normal mode improves color accuracy significantly and lowers the average dE2000 down to 0.9.

HRR control

The HRR control is a bit of a mess. There are three modes - Auto, Standard and High refresh rate settings. They are pretty self-explanatory, but in Auto, most system and third-party apps were locked at 60Hz or 120Hz at best. Only Google Chrome was able to saturate the full 144Hz. In fact, the refresh rate didn't go beyond 120Hz, even in system menus. The good news is that the software is extremely quick to switch between 60 and 120Hz when leaving the display idle.

Switching over to High refresh rate mode will lock pretty much everything in 120Hz. The software won't dial down to 60Hz, either. There's even a sub-menu allowing you to select between 60, 120 and 144Hz on per app basis. Interestingly enough, only a handful of apps were "clocked" at 144Hz by default. Either way, this isn't a good solution to the issue, as a constant 120Hz (or 144Hz) refresh rate will drain the battery faster.

Battery life

This year's GT5 240W comes with the same 4,600 mAh battery capacity as last year, but the 150W option gets a bigger 5,000 mAh unit. And while we expected similar battery endurance to last year's model, we got slightly worse results in all tests. The screen-on and screen-off tests show a noticeable decline in battery endurance, so the overall score is 108 hours. This isn't a bad result on its own, but it's less than what we expected.

The reason for this is unknown, but it could be due to the chipset, as it's the only notable change in the setup. Still, the software could play a big role in it too.

Charging speed

The Realme GT5 comes in two versions - a standard Realme GT5 with 150W fast charging and a 240W variant. Expectedly, the 4,600 mAh battery takes the same time to charge as last year's GT3. The handset completed a full 0-100% charging cycle in just 12 minutes, which is just a minute more than the Realme GT3. Well within the margin of a statistical error.

Keep in mind, however, that the room temperature is of great importance. The system seems way too sensitive to ambient temperature and could throttle. Still, even if it's slower than 12 minutes, the GT5 is capable of completing the cycle within 20 minutes, which is extremely fast anyway.

Speakers

The Realme GT5 features a standard speaker setup - one placed behind the earpiece grille as it acts as an earpiece, too, while the other is a bottom-firing one. This means that the bottom speaker is a bit louder than the other one, but that's expected.

Loudness has improved over last year's GT3 with a "Very Good" loudness score of -25.7 LUFS. Tuning and overall quality haven't changed, though. It provides clean enough sound with distinctive vocals, nice bass and little distortion at higher levels.

Verdict

Sadly, the global market will once again miss Realme's top-end smartphone. The company has confirmed with us it has no plans on launching the GT5 outside of China, and that's unfortunate because the handset is a pretty solid all-rounder. However, it does seem to be a marginal upgrade over its predecessor, and aside from a couple of cosmetic changes and a more powerful, the GT5 is almost identical to its predecessor, the GT3.

In a sense, the Realme GT5 240W is a tech showcase more than anything else. It seems like the charging tech is the centerpiece feature, and the phone is an afterthought. But the 240W charging was introduced with last year's GT3, so it's not really all that new. The regular GT5 with 150W fast charging may pose a better value as it's cheaper and has a bigger battery.

One could make a case for the GT5 being a good all-rounder with flagship-worthy hardware (display, chipset, charging and main camera), but the feature set from other competitors is much more enticing. We would have wished for a dedicated zoom camera, a better ultrawide and improved battery life. While last year's GT3 was a missed opportunity for users outside of China, this year's GT5 probably won't be missed all that much. There's plenty of fish in the sea with more meat on it.

Pros

Big and bright 144Hz OLED panel.

Good main camera performance.

Unrivaled fast charging.

Good sustained performance and low outer temperatures.

Realme UI 4.0 is highly customizable

Cons

No ingress protection of any kind; more premium materials could have been used.

No telephoto cam, lackluster ultrawide and selfie performance.

The 240W version is expensive at launch.

Battery life is lower than before.