realme GT 7 Pro review – Next generation flagship with Snapdragon 8 Elite processor rules the roost

The new realme GT 7 Pro is an impressive sight as flagship phones go, not only because of its eye-catching Mars Orange finish but also because of the fact that it is the first phone in Malaysia to pack the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, currently the latest and most powerful chip from Qualcomm.

We managed to get a sample ahead of its official Malaysia launch for a field test and after taking it for a whirl around the block, here’s our realme GT 7 Pro review where we share if this spanking new flagship is worthy of a place in your pocket.

realme GT 7 Pro review – Build and Design

In terms of build and design, our realme GT 7 Pro review unit draws some faint inspiration from its predecessor the GT 6 Pro with its corner-oriented triple camera array on the backplate but elevates the concept to a new level. Available in either a plain Galaxy Grey finish or in Mars Orange in the case of our review sample, the realme GT 7 Pro has a raised triple camera housing completely sheathed in protective glass rimmed with a matching metallic orange aluminium frame protecting the glass. The Mars Orange finish itself isn’t one flat colour and instead has a subtle array of streaks to lend it some texture.

 

@hitechcentury We get a firsthand look and unbox the all new realme GT 7 Pro with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite processor and its new Mars Orange finish!#realmegt7pro #snapdragon8elite #tech #fyp #malaysia #darkhorse #marsorange #hitechcentury #learnontiktok #sembanggadget #unboxing @realme.my ♬ Vlog ・ Stylish city pop(1275391) – orino

Closer inspection of the finish reveals that it enjoys a significant degree of fingerprint resistance and is relatively grippy to the touch which bodes well for users with sweaty-palms. 

Ergonomics on our realme GT 7 Pro review unit are excellent and belying the size of the phone, is comfortable for one handed use with rounded corners and curved edges framing a large flagship-grade 6.78-inch RealWorld Eco² OLED display sourced from Samsung’s foundries which which is rated for an impressive 120% DCI-P3 colour gamut, meaning that it significantly exceeds the current standards expected for colour reproduction on a display while retaining FHD+ resolution and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Better yet, it also has 6,500 nits peak brightness, meaning that screen clarity will be excellent under Malaysia’s typical sunny weather conditions outdoors.

Perched up top in a corner is a single 16MP camera for selfies and video calls while a tiny slit hides an earpiece and speaker that pairs up with the bottom-firing speaker in the base of the form to form a stereo pair. The display also has an ultrasonic fingerprint reader in the lower quadrant for unlocking the phone.

The rest of the design of our realme GT 7 Pro review sample follows conventional design doctrine with a power button and volume rocker on the right, a USB-C port and a grill for the aforementioned speaker in the base of the phone.

When held, the realme GT 7 Pro looks and feels suitably high-end befitting its flagship status with the premium metal and glass finish elevating its design among its more affordable peers in realme’s line-up of phones. The phone chassis itself also has an improved IP69 rating – most competing phones top out at IP68 – offering enhanced waterproofing resistance too. At present, IP69 is the highest level of dust and waterproofing available.  Unfortunately, some corners had to be cut and the realme GT 7 Pro lacks wireless charging support but it’s not a deal breaker.

Unlike the competition, the realme GT 7 Pro also ships with a generous assortment of extra kit including a soft TPU casing, a 120W SuperVOOC fast charging using OPPO’s fast charging tech as well as the obligatory USB cable, SIM eject pin and warranty paperwork. All this represents exceptional value indeed, more so for the fact that it is likely that the GT 7 Pro will be priced competitively seeing the brand’s penchant for offering bang for the buck devices.

realme GT 7 Pro review – Performance and benchmarks

As it stands, the realme GT 7 Pro is Malaysia’s first flagship phone to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite flagship which features an octacore setup with two high performance 4.32GHz Prime cores and six 3.52GHz performance cores. On paper, the Snapdragon 8 Elite is rated to offer 45% faster single core and multi-core performance compared to the prior Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 flagship. 

Built on a 3nm process and based on Qualcomm’s new Oryon architecture, the Snapdragon 8 Elite also offers better energy efficiency with a quoted 44% more in power savings for the CPU and 40% more power savings on the Adreno 830 GPU.

Of note is that realme implemented significant measures to keep the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor cool with the integration of an Iceberg Vapour Chamber that is, to date, one of the largest dual vapour chamber designs with 11,480mm² of space to ensure consistent heat dispersion even under heavy loads. 

Ultimately, the realme GT 7 Pro is rated to outperform the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 by a comfortable margin and give even Apple’s hardware in the iPhone 16 Pro Max a run for its money. It also has fast WiFi 7, 5G, NFC and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity

Running under the hood, our realme GT 7 Pro review sample has the latest Android 15 overlaid with their one realme UI 6.0 firmware overlaying it. According to realme, the GT 7 Pro will have support for 3 years of Android updates all the way to Android 18 and four years of security updates.

While it doesn’t quite match the leading incumbents in the industry with seven years of OS and security updates, it’s still a fair period, added more so by the fact that it also runs the latest Android 15 out of the box, saving on at least one OS update in its life cycle. Another interesting addition to the realme GT 7 Pro is the ability to assign virtual RAM off its onboard storage in 4GB increments up to 12GB. Here’s how it stacks up on paper:

 

Price	RM3,699
Display	6.78-inch RealWorld Eco2 Display AMOLED 2,870 x 1,264 pixels, 120Hz refresh rate, 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, up to 6,500 nits peak brightness, 120% DCI-P3, HDR10+, Dolby Vision
Processor	Snapdragon 8 Elite
OS	Android 15 w/ realme UI 6.0
Memory	16GB LPDDR5X RAM w/ up to 12GB RAM expansion / 512GB UFS 4.0 storage
Cameras	50MP F/1.8 w/ Sony IMX906 sensor and OIS + 50MP F/2.65 w/ Sony IMX882 sensor and OIS + 8MP F/2.2 w/ Sony IMX355 sensor ultra wide angle [rear] / 16MP F/2.45 [front]
Battery	6,500mAh battery w/ 120W SuperVOOC charging
Size/Weight	162.45 x 76.89 x 8.55mm / 222.8g

Getting about the phone menus is a generally straightforward affair though it is chock full of bloatware that needs trimming on a fresh install. When subjected to synthetic benchmarks our realme GT 7 Pro review unit managed to score the following benchmarks with the stock 4GB of virtual RAM.

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light	2,390
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	2,253
3D Mark Solar Bay	9,813
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	9,284
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	5,269
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	4,827
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,948
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	9,063
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	19,034
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	24,624
PC Mark Work 3.0	22,502
PC Mark Battery Life	20 hours 12 mins

As expected, our realme GT 7 Pro review unit was able to handily outpace competing devices with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset from earlier this year, offering massively improved single and multicore performance as well as markedly enhanced graphics performance across the board. This is the absolute cutting edge of tech for a flagship phone at the time of writing and the benchmarks reflect it, with impressive scores in all but one aspect – heat.

While the provided vapour chamber certainly does the job, especially in regards to ensuring sustained performance, it tends to run rather hot. In the Steel Nomad Light Stress Test which runs a strenuous gauntlet of benchmarks test the limits of a phone, our realme GT 7 Pro review unit managed to score an impressive 80.6% stability score with a 2,059 best loop and 1,660 lowest loop score which is overall excellent.

It was also blazing hot, average temperature from 40°C-48°C during the benchmarks which resulted in the entire backplate of the phone being almost scalding hot to the touch.

Fortunately, these extremes of performance in benchmarks are typically not encountered or required  in day to day scenarios and the phone handled everyday tasks in a sterling fashion. Heavy multitasking, editing 4K videos on CapCut and even high-end gaming on High settings on Genshin Impact were handled smoothly.

On the gaming front, the phone also has an AI Super Gaming Resolution where selected games can be upscaled to 1.5K resolution while an AI Gaming Super Frame feature helps to ensure up to 120fps frame rates – these two features aren’t implemented universally across all games though and, at the time of writing, only Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail have the ability to be upscaled to 1.5K while only PUBG, Free Fire, Genshin Impact and Star Rail can enjoy 120fps frame rates.

The 6.8-inch AMOLED 120Hz display on our realme GT 7 Pro review unit is among the best seen in 2024, with exceptional brightness and brimming with detail and rich hues while the smooth refresh rate ensures gaming and fast-moving action shows look fabulous on screen. The display was also able to offer deep, rich blacks and brilliant whites too while the impressive 6,500 nits peak brightness ensured superb clarity even under direct sunlight.

The stereo speakers flanking the display do a decent job with good volume and a modest level of detail comparable to flagships but still fall short of dedicated gaming models which have far larger speakers. Even so, it does a great job at tackling a casual Spotify playlist playthrough or binging Netflix.

Where our realme GT 7 Pro truly knocks the ball out of the park is in battery life with an impressive two full days of performance with moderate use for phone calls, web browsing and emails on its 6,500mAh silicon anode battery and a whopping 20 hours 12 minutes of battery life in the PC Mark battery life test which is easily the best yet seen for the past few years including dedicated models designed for endurance. 

With the bundled charger, our realme GT 7 Pro review unit was able to get a comfortable 50% from dead zero in about 15 minutes and a full charge in about 40 minutes which is very respectable. From a performance perspective, the realme GT 7 Pro is easily ahead of the pack.

realme GT 7 Pro Review – Cameras

For imaging duties, the realme GT 7 Pro is impressive equipped with a triple camera array that consists of a primary 50MP F/1.8 camera that uses a Sony IMX906 sensor with OIS as well as a secondary 50MP F/2.65 telephoto camera with 3x zoom paired with OIS and a Sony IMX882 sensor. Rounding things off is an 8MP F/2.2 ultra wide angle camera. 

This setup offers lossless zoom at up to 3x and a digital zoom distance of 120x for stills. In terms of video capture capabilities, the rear triple camera array is capable of capturing up to 8K@24fps without zoom and up to 18x digital zoom by cropping the feed for 4K@60fps with the notable ability to tweak the depth of field via a digital slider from F/1.4 all the way to F16 as desired. Up front, you get a single 16MP camera for selfies.

In daylight, our realme GT 7 Pro review sample’s rear cameras are able to give higher end flagships a run for their money with excellent detail, good dynamic range and lifelike colour rendition out to 3X zoom though the phone’s ISP and NPU help keep to shots surprisingly decent out to 6X and are still fairly viewable at 120x zoom. In low light, the ultrawide camera is a step behind with lower detail and dynamic range which is apparent in test shots.

The 50MP primary and 50MP telephoto cameras do an otherwise solid job all the way out to 6x zoom when taking snaps of the KLCC Twin Towers at night. Beyond that, shots were certainly shareworthy though some softness creeps in especially beyond 6x zoom when pixel peeping but it’s otherwise an excellent performer especially for what you pay for. The front selfie camera does the job but isn’t much to write home about.

In terms of videos, the main and telephoto cameras on the rear offer the best results with OIS offering steady, judder free footage both in daylight and modestly dim light conditions such as around KLCC at night.

In keeping with many other flagship phones, the realme GT 7 Pro also integrates a bevy of AI enhancements, especially in regards to image generation and editing as well as for gaming. You get an AI Sketch to Image where doodles onscreen can be used to create realistic art in captured images and AI Motion Deblur that helps to remove motion blur to create sharper looking images especially during action shots which offers a modicum of creative options. 

Of note with the realme GT 7 Pro is the inclusion of an underwater mode that works in freshwater for capturing stills though we were unable to test this feature as we weren’t near any body of water let alone a swimming pool during our review period. Oddly enough, the ultrasonic fingerprint reader also works underwater too though it’s more practical use is for unlocking the phone even with wet hands which is a small but helpful touch.

Should you buy the realme GT 7 Pro?

The realme GT 7 Pro is a flagship dark horse, featuring the cutting edge Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, an excellent AMOLED Display, superb battery life and a rear main camera. There are some concessions to cost, namely the lack of wireless charging, a middling ultrawide rear camera and a shorter 3 years of OS and 4 years security updates that’s somewhat shorter than the leading incumbent but these are minor gripes for a flagship phone that offers superb value for what you pay for. At RM3,699, you’re getting one of the most powerful phones even at the tail end of 2024.

 

realme GT 7 Pro review unit courtesy of realme Malaysia. For more details please visit https://www.realme.com/my/