Realme GT 2 Pro: Dressed in paper, packed with power 

We may well associate the fast-growing Realme with budget smartphones. But having notched up astronomical sales figures in that segment, Realme is now doing a OnePlus and trying its hand at coming up with a flagship killer. And from the look of the new GT 2 Pro, it’s doing a pretty good job of it. 

The GT 2 Pro arrives in a large and chunky white box. It’s got all the basic essentials inside that are now typically missing with premium phones. The phone itself is in a design that is an instant draw. In fact, I would even say the design is one big reason to consider this smartphone. It’s slim and light, despite a big battery inside. It’s not a small phone, yet has a great in-hand feel.

The design is one big reason to consider this smartphone

But most of all, the back is in a papery leathery textured bio-polymer material that makes it look and feel totally unique and makes for such a change from the glass slabs everywhere. In Paper White and Paper Gree, it’s actually inspired by paper and amazingly, you can grab a pencil and actually write on it.

The back is in a papery leathery textured bio-polymer material

Fancy jotting down notes or a phone number on the back of the phone. You can even use an eraser to clean it up. That’s a bit of innovation one can really appreciate as it can actually be useful. Why didn’t someone do this before? Realme calls it Paper Tech and the same material is actually also on the box the phone comes in. The third colour in this series is a Steel Black.  

Noticeable on the back, apart from the camera square, is another slightly raised area that has the Realme logo and the signature of the designer. Good thought but slightly untidily executed. The sides are slightly curved in and framed in aluminium. Overall, the phone looks quite totally upper echelon.  

The sides are slightly curved in and framed in aluminium

The 6.7 inch display is a crisp high resolution AMOLED. This is a 2K (1440 x 3216 pixels) and uses LTPO 2.01 technology to vary from 1Hz refresh to 120Hz depending on the task or on whether the user sets it manually. The touch sampling rate, peaking at 1000Hz.

Bezels around this lovely screen are minimal and even and the front camera dot is all the way in the left corner, quite out of the way. The display peaks at 1400 nits of brightness. The screen is Gorilla Glass Victus protected. There are stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support but they’re just okay.  

The fingerprint sensor on this phone is in-display and works quite fast but also has a nice trick when combined with the software. Pressing down on the general fingerprint area after unlocking, in the same action, brings up a shortcuts menu of apps you can set up for quick access. This way you go straight to the camera, messaging, etc. 

The fingerprint sensor on this phone is in-display and works quite fast

The GT 2 Pro is actually the first phone to use the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. It’s known for heating up somewhat, but this device uses a stainless steel vapour cooling system that manages to control the heat better than most. You can feel the device warming ever so slightly if you push it a bit, but it’s negligible.  

The GT 2 Pro is actually the first phone to use the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor

The battery is a 5,000mAh with 65W charging and the charger bundled in. It lasts quite well. There’s no 3.5mm jack and no rating for water resistance. Pushing the speed and power even more is 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM with 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There is an 8GB/128GB variant too.

The battery is a 5,000mAh with 65W charging and the charger bundled in

Obviously, there’s no question of any stutters or slowing. In fact, the GT 2 Pro has startlingly high benchmark scores. It’s being compared with many other flagships including the OnePlus 10 Pro which has equivalent specs.  

If there’s anything it’s let down by, the GT 2 Pro really needs some work on the software front. Android 12 and Realme UI 3.0 are feature-filled with interesting options such as an easy mode that makes the phone more accessible, but it has an unpolished feel and has a ton of unwanted apps that cheapen the experience though thankfully you can uninstall many of them. There are also constant notifications from the Realme store. This is the sort of device you have to be very careful when setting up. 

The cameras include a 50MP main and a 50MP ultra-wide. The results from it are generally quite good, including in low light. But the most exciting bit of this camera is its 2MP Microscope mode. Trigger this off and you will need to get the phone to almost touching distance to an object.

The cameras include a 50MP main and a 50MP ultra-wide

That’s when you can see startling detail. It’s a nice novelty that will make for some creative photos to show off with. In fact, you can set up a guessing game with the results.  

This variant of the GT 2 Pro costs ₹57,999 but look for schemes shortly. The 8GB variant is ₹49,999.