Making its debut in late 2021, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Mobile Platform currently sits on the throne as the world’s fastest Android processor. Compared to its predecessor the Snapdragon 888 (Plus), this CPU boasts a 20% performance boost, while also offering 30% in power savings.
Now you must be asking, as an average consumer, what does this all mean? Ultimately, a powerful and energy-efficient CPU translates to a better overall user experience as apps will run much smoother for much longer.
For the audiophiles, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is among the first to adopt Qualcomm’s latest audio platform – Snapdragon Sound. The built-in Qualcomm aptX lossless technology supports 16-bit 44.1kHz CD-quality lossless wireless music streaming. This means that with a pair of good headphones or earphones, your music is going to sound better than ever before. Streaming platform Tidal already offers lossless music you can take advantage of right away, while Spotify is promising to follow suit with Spotify HiFi down the line.
So to harness all this power, do you really have to pay top ringgit? The short answer is no.
For as long as there have been smartphones, we as consumers have been conditioned into believing that the only way to own the best smartphone money can buy involves taking out a personal loan or maybe even selling that kidney. That could not be further from the truth of course, as advancement in technology and economies of scale mean that having a powerhouse in your pocket need not see a hole burn through it.
The Disruptor?
Enter realme, which has up to recently, been known for only churning out budget and mid-range devices. With the arrival of the realme GT 2 Pro (touted as its most premium flagship ever), one can surmise that the small brand’s ascension to a major player is just about complete.
As you might have guessed, their new premium flagship device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, the same processor that powers Samsung’s Galaxy S22 smartphones.
To ensure sustained peak performance, realme has fitted what it claims to be the industry’s biggest heat dissipation area in the form of its patented Stainless Steel Vapour Cooling Max technology. The thick slab of Diamond Thermal Gel which realme has generously slathered over the key hotspots ensures that everything stays as chilly as possible too.
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We’ll try not to bore you with deep technical details here, but essentially, this means that the latest Snapdragon processor is one of the fastest smartphone processors in all aspects to date, allowing you to push the limits when it comes to heavy applications such as gaming, photography, cinematography and so on. Its improved cooling means that the processor can manage the heat better (modern processors slow itself down when hot to make sure it doesn’t burn itself), a very important feature, especially in warmer climates like Malaysia.
The Design
Of course, a smartphone must also look as good as it performs, which is why the realme Design Studio team has partnered with Japanese industrial designer Fukasawa Naoto to design the industry’s first bio-based polymer shell device. If that name does not sound familiar, just know that Mr Fukasawa has worked with the likes of brands such as MUJI and Herman Miller, and his design philosophy will become very apparent on the realme GT 2 Pro.
Following 63 prototypes and a year’s worth of revisions, realme settled on what we see before us today. So much effort went into just the design that the product is acknowledged today with several world-leading certifications. Some include the TCO certification for overall compliance and the International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) for its use of bio-based feedstocks and renewables.
Borrowing design elements from its sister brands, the company still managed to come up with something that is uniquely its own. While taste is subjective at the end of the day, one would be inclined to agree that nobody is going to mistake the GT 2 Pro for any other device on the market right now, especially with Mr Fukasawa’s signature being its rather prominent aspect.
The aforementioned bio-based polymer gives off a paper-like texture that feels leathery and premium to the touch which you would not expect, coming from something that is derived from recycled material. realme is very proud of the fact that its adoption of the Paper Tech Master Design for the new flagship device translates to 3.5 million fewer plastic bottles being produced for every 1 million GT 2 Pros manufactured, resulting in 35.5% less in carbon emissions.
It is nice to see a brand like realme adopt a more conscientious approach towards the design of its products at such a large scale.
The Display
Moving on to the display, the realme GT 2 Pro is fitted with a 6.7-inch 2K Super Reality AMOLED flat display panel, which also makes it the biggest in its current portfolio of devices. The panel supports 10-bit colour and boasts a peak brightness of 1,400 nits, making it perfect for outdoor viewing even under the most extreme brightness conditions.
Its WQHD+ resolution (1,440 x 3,216 pixels, 525.9ppi) delivers impressive sharpness and colour reproduction. As with some other flagships out on the market right now, the screen is fitted with the LTPO 2.0 technology which ensures that the refresh rate adjusts dynamically between 1Hz and 120Hz. What this means is that when you are playing games, for example, the screen adjusts itself to display to 60Hz, and when you do something simple such as browsing photos, it knows to scale itself down to 1Hz.
This is all done seamlessly and helps with lowering overall power consumption, thanks to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1’s advanced 4nm manufacturing process (Trivia: the processors used in Apple processors are using a 5nm process). Under the display, we get a convenient combination of a fingerprint reader and heart rate reader. To ensure that it stands up to the abuse of falls (of up to 2 metres), the display is reinforced with Victus Glass, which is Corning’s toughest iteration of the Gorilla Glass to date.
We’ll have to say, however, that the world is still not ready for an indestructible glass display. Drop it at your own risk.
The Camera
The realme GT 2 Pro’s triple camera setup is also one of its highlights, and headlining it is the 50-megapixel primary f/18 camera unit with OIS using the Sony IMX766 sensor. 50-megapixel may seem weak in a flagship, but you should check out our recent article that explores how the sensor outperforms cameras twice the megapixel count.
Complementing it is a 50-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera, the first of its kind with a 150˚ field of view, according to realme. Both shooters are capable of taking 8K videos. Then comes the 2.0-megapixel micro-lens camera with 40x magnification. It is worth noting that the camera optics only offers 20x magnification, although this number can be increased to 40x digitally. Once you look past all the camera’s specifications, what makes it stand out is the variety of modes (apart from staples such as expert mode, portrait mode and night mode) on offer here to make taking pictures or recording videos a fun experience.
For all you aspiring filmmakers, know that by shooting in movie mode, you will be doing so with a cinematic aspect ratio. The street photography mode, meanwhile, is a rather interesting gimmick where it gives out real-time information such as the distance the camera is from the target. We are not sure why that would be useful but it’s there if you need it. As you would have been able to infer from the name, the microscopic mode lets you zoom in up to 40x onto any object of your desire.
Of course, it does help when the phone is also equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, ensuring that realme can add advanced processing capabilities to its camera software without slowing down the time it takes to process your works of art.
Operating System
The Android 12 operating system which comes preinstalled on the realme GT 2 Pro serves as the base for the new and improved realme UI 3.0, and with it comes an assortment of usability options and tweaks. You will be able to personalise several aspects of your device, from colour schemes to icon styles.
The realme Sidebar app launcher has been developed with one-handed use in mind and can be populated with your most used or favourite apps. For the gamers, the phone also comes with a dedicated gaming mode that provides options such as balanced mode and game mode, with the latter consuming more battery power in exchange for smoother graphics and stable frame rates. The company has also promised at least three years of software updates, so you can expect things to improve along the way.
Battery and Connectivity
The 5,000mAh battery fitted on the realme GT 2 Pro should provide you with enough juice to last throughout the day, and with an included 65W SuperDart charger, you will be able to get it up to full again in a jiffy even if you somehow manage to drain it before hitting the sack. While we wait for our telcos to dilly dally over the implementation of 5G networks in the country, you will be glad to know that the device comes with Dual 5G SIM card support as a future-proofing feature.
Both these are amplified by the fact that the realme GT 2 Pro is powered using a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. A smaller manufacturing process (4nm) is more power-efficient, enabling it to output more processing power with significantly reduced battery consumption. In layman's terms, that means it can run faster and use less battery.
Benchmark
With all that said, how does the realme GT 2 Pro stack up against the competition? Before we get to that, and if you are a stickler for numbers, realme’s latest flagship currently has a Geekbench test score of 1227 (single-core score) and 4219 (multi-core score), which just about puts it at the top of the Android benchmark score table.
Best Value Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 To Date
For comparison, the Xiaomi 12 of similar specifications had also obtained roughly the same score. But, when you consider the fact that it costs RM 3,788 upwards for the 12GB RAM, 256GB ROM variant versus the realme GT 2 Pro’s starting RRP of RM 2,999, the value proposition shifts. In case you are curious, when compared against the Samsung Galaxy S22 (8GB RAM, 256GB RAM), you are looking to pay upwards of RM 3,699.
Of course, all the competitors have their pros and cons, but if all you want is the best value smartphone that comes with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, the realme would sit right at the top of our recommendation.
To sweeten the deal even further, realme is introducing an early bird pricing of RM 2,599 for the GT 2 Pro between 25 March 2022 and 26 March 2022, where they will also throw in a free pair of the buds 2 Neo (RRP: RM169) while stocks last. If you somehow have to miss out on the latter deal, know that the early bird pricing runs between 25 March 2022 and 4 April 2022 anyway for RM 2,599, though of course, no free earbuds.
In conclusion, realme has most definitely done the unthinkable, not only in striking a balance between price and performance but also in surpassing expectations of what an affordable flagship device should be. It is truly greater than what you see.
Here's our realme GT 2 Pro review!
[This post is made in collaboration with realme Malaysia.]