Realme GT Neo 2 Review: The Best Premium Mid-Range Phone?

Realme recently launched its premium mid-range Realme GT Neo 2 in Nepal. The phone packs a lot of standout features, such as a powerful chipset and an excellent display.

Realme GT Neo 2 price in Nepal is Rs. 54,199 for 8GB+128GB variant. The phone is available to buy from authorized Realme stores across Nepal.

With its powerful specs, this phone is undoubtedly a top performer—at least on paper. But how does it hold up in real life? Will this phone also appeal to other buyers whose priorities are not performance, such as non-gamers or those who want the best camera?

If you have the same concerns, don’t worry; we’ll address them in our comprehensive review of the Realme GT Neo 2.

Realme GT Neo 2 Review

Heavy Yet Comfortable Design

• 162.9 x 75.8 x 9 mm
• 199.8g
• Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

I am using the Neo Black variant, which has a frosted glass finish that helps hide fingerprint smudges well.

The Neo Green option is also available if you want to stand out. It’s a vibrant green colour with two glossy stripes on the back of different sizes, one of which has the slogan ‘Dare to Leap” written all over it.

At almost 200 g of weight, the phone has some weight to it, however, the curved back and the good placement of the power and volume buttons makes it comfortable to use.

Moving on, the rear camera module looks a lot like the one seen on the OnePlus 9 series at first glance, with its two huge camera lenses. However, if you look closely, you can see the third lens, which is smaller than the other two, in the middle of the two dual-tone flashes next to the two main lenses.

On the right, there is a power button, and there are volume buttons on the left, which I found to be quite convenient to use. It sports a stereo speaker, one is in the earpiece, and the other on the bottom along with a USB Type-C and a dual SIM card tray.

It does not support a microSD card for memory expansion. And, as with other phones in this price range, this phone also, sadly, has no headphone jack.

Excellent Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G
• Octa-core (1×3.2 GHz Kryo 585 Prime & 3×2.42 GHz Kryo 585 Gold & 4×1.80 GHz Kryo 585 Silver)
• Adreno 650
• 8GB RAM 128GB Storage

The Realme GT Neo 2 is powered by the Snapdragon 870 chipset. It’s basically the same chipset design as the last year’s flagship Snapdragon 865+ with the same Kryo 585 CPU and Adreno 650 GPU. However, the Prime Core CPU and the GPU of the 870 are slightly clocked higher than the 865+.

The Prime core and the three Gold cores, both of which are based on Arm Cortex-A77 cores, are clocked at 3.2GHz and 2.42GHz, respectively. And, the Arm Cortex-A55 based four Silver cores are clocked at 1.8GHz. For the GPU, it has Adreno 650 clocked at 675MHz.

To note, currently, only the 8GB RAM variant of the Realme GT Neo 2 with 128GB of storage is available in Nepal. However, the review unit I got had 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage.

Talking about the actual performance of the phone in real life, the performance of this phone is phenomenal, as one would expect from a phone with such a powerful CPU.

I don’t think I need to go into detail about how easily it handled everyday tasks. Not only that, but it handled even the most demanding tasks, such as gaming, with ease.

ALSO READ: Poco F3 GT Review: An Impressive Gaming Phone

BENCHMARK SCORES

Before we get into the gaming side, let’s look at some benchmark scores to see where this chipset stands in comparison to other chipsets in terms of performance. While this may not be practical in real life, it will give us an idea.

On Geekbench 5, which is for measuring CPU power, it scored above 1000 in the single-core test and close to 3000 in the multi-core test. To measure graphic performance, the test was conducted on 3DMark WildLife, where it scored around 4200.

The Realme GT Neo 2 easily outperformed the MediaTek Dimensity 1200, which is found in the Poco F3 GT, in terms of CPU and GPU performance. The multi-core CPU score and graphics performance did not differ significantly, but the single-core score was higher by more than 25%, thanks to the 3.2GHz Kryo 585 Prime core.

PHENOMENAL GAMING PERFORMANCE

When playing PUBG Mobile, the phone delivered a stable 60fps with Graphics set to HDR and Frame Rate set to Extreme. However, when Graphics is set to Ultra HD, the Frame Rate can only go up to Ultra, which delivers a steady 40fps, which is still impressive.

Talking about the Call of Duty Mobile, it also delivered consistent 60fps even when both the Graphics Quality and Frame Rate were set to maximum, i.e., Graphic Quality set to Very High and Frame Rate set to Max.

The only complaint we have with this phone is that it maxes out at only 60fps no matter what game you play on it, ignoring the fact that the chipset is clearly capable of more.

For this reason, even high-frame-rate games are limited to 60 fps. One such game is Mortal Kombat, which also maxes out at 60 fps. This should not have been the case, as even a less powerful chipset like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G found in the Samsung Galaxy M52 and the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G, is capable of delivering 110+ fps.

Awesome Display

• 6.62-inch AMOLED
• FullHD+
• 120Hz Refresh Rate
• Corning Gorilla Glass 5
• HDR10+

The 6.62-inch AMOLED FullHD+ display featured in the Realme GT Neo 2 has everything you could ask for. It’s a 120Hz dynamic refresh rate screen with HDR10+ support that has 1300 nits of peak brightness, a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and offers 100% DCI-P3 colour space.

Everything on this display, from basic tasks to scrolling through social media, felt buttery smooth when the 120Hz refresh rate option was enabled. When playing games, however, the display drops to 60Hz from 120Hz, which I find disappointing, especially given the phone’s gaming capability.

Other than that, the display feels solid. I enjoyed watching movies and editing photos on this phone.

The display looks sharp and produces beautiful colours with deep blacks. The display also gets really bright; I had no problem using it in broad daylight.

In addition, the display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and features an optical fingerprint sensor. The sensor is fast and reliable.

Good Camera

• Rear Camera: 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.73″, 0.8µm, PDAF
  • 8 MP, f/2.3, 16mm, 119˚ (ultrawide), 1/4.0″, 1.12µm
  • 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
  • Video: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS
• Front Camera: 16 MP, f/2.5, 26mm (wide), 1/3.09″, 1.0µm
  • Video: 1080p@30fps, gyro-EIS

The Realme GT Neo 2 has three cameras consisting of a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide camera, and a 2MP macro camera.

NORMAL PHOTOS

The photos captured with the primary camera are great. The photos also have a lot of detail. The dynamic range is also good.

The colours aren’t overly saturated and appear to be natural.

However, occasionally, I noticed a slight variation in the red colour’s saturation level, which is not a major issue.

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ALSO READ: Samsung Galaxy M52 5G Review: A Significant and Meaningful Upgrade

ULTRAWIDE ANGLE PHOTOS

The ultrawide shots are decent but not as good or consistent as those taken with the primary camera. In comparison to the primary camera, the ultrawide angle camera appears to boost the red and orange colours a little.

The details and the clarity is also less, as well as some noise is there. There is also a distortion in the image taken from the ultrawide angle camera, notably on the top and the bottom edges.

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MACRO CAMERA

Realme has given a 2 MP macro camera. It does not take a good photo; the macro shots come out dull with fewer details and sharpness, and a bad contrast ratio.

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NIGHT MODE

The camera on this phone performs wonderfully in low-light conditions. The Night mode takes around 2-3 seconds to capture a photo and it outputs really good photos.

In that photo, the details, highlights, and shadows are well preserved, and the colours are vibrant. The image appears bright and clear.

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PORTRAIT MODE

The portrait mode does a good job at detecting the subject’s edge and producing an overall good photo. However, the skin tone is found to be slightly inconsistent as it sometimes shifts towards red.

The AI retouching option was turned on by default. With the option, the skin appears to be soft and the chin also looks a bit sharp. I found that a little unnatural and therefore turned off the option.

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SELFIE

The front camera takes good photos. It has good detail, sharpness, and dynamic range.

However, the photos might sometimes come out washed out, making the skin appear pale.

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VIDEO

It can shoot video up to 2160p at 60 fps, however, the footage is shaky in that resolution. It also has a feature called ‘Ultra Steady,’ which should help steady the video, but it’s only accessible in 1080p, so it’s not available for 4K resolution.

When shooting at 1080p, the footage comes out steadier. Talking about the video quality, the colours, details, and dynamic ranges are good but the sharpness is just average.

Battery

• Non-removable Li-Po 5000mAh battery
• Fast charging 65 W
• USB Type-C

The phone comes with a 5000mAh battery. With that, I got roughly 7-8 hours of screen-on-time with my light usage and around 6-7 hours of screen-on-time with my heavy usage.

It can easily last a full day if you leave your house with a full charge. However, if you continuously play games, you may need to charge the device once before the end of the day.

But there’s no need to worry, as this smartphone comes with a 65W SuperDart charger. The provided charger can charge the battery to 100% from less than 5% in around 30-40 minutes. Therefore, if somehow the battery dies before the end of the day, you can just charge the phone for 10-15 minutes and it will last for the rest of the day.

Software

• Android 11
• Realme UI 2.0

The Realme GT Neo 2 runs on Realme UI 2.0 on top of Android 11. And it’s loaded with bloatware. The bloatware that comes with it makes the experience a bit unpleasant. Thankfully, much of the bloatware can be uninstalled.

The software can be heavily customized as well. Some of the customization features include changing icon styles, app layout, fingerprint animation, colours, notification, drawer, watch pattern on the always-on display and more. Overall, the Realme UI feels clean and easy to use.

Speaker

It sports a stereo speaker, which adds to the enjoyment of watching movies and playing games. One of the speakers is a bottom-firing one, while the other is an earpiece behind the top bezel.

The sound produced by the left and right speakers is well-balanced and has decent bass.

The speaker of the Realme GT Neo 2 is loud and clear, and I liked it overall.

Should You Buy Realme GT Neo 2?

Yes! This is the best phone you can have right now in this price range. It boasts the best performance, an excellent display, and a good camera. Furthermore, the 65 W fast charging support and good stereo speakers add to the appeal.

However, if you want the best camera over the best performance, then there are other better options in this price range, such as the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G.

ALSO READ: Realme Mobiles Price in Nepal: Features and Specs

What do you think of the Realme GT Neo 2? Let us know in the comments!

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Also, watch our review video of the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G in Nepali.