realme GT 7 Review – Awesome Flagship Power on a Midrange Budget?

We previously reviewed the higher-end realme GT 7 Pro a while back. This time around, we got the opportunity to review its more affordable sibling, the realme GT 7, which is priced at RM2,599 with a few tweaks to bring the price dow – but is it worth what you pay for? Delve into our realme GT 7 review for the details…

realme GT 7 review – Design and Specifications

In terms of build and design, our realme GT 7 review sample does bear somewhat of a resemblance to the realme GT 7 Pro earlier this year, down to its raised rectangular camera housing, but differs especially in regard to the hardware used.

Dubbed a ‘flagship killer’, the realme GT 7 Pro has quite an array of hardware to justify that claim. Up front, the phone has a flat 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display with 1,264 x 2,780 pixels resolution, up to an impressive 6,000 nits peak brightness, and a 120Hz refresh rate, framed by extremely slim bezels all around. It’s vibrant and bright enough for outdoors use and was more than adequate for Netflix binging and gaming.

It features a single 32MP selfie camera in a punch hole up top and a slit for an earpiece and speaker. Interestingly, its higher-priced sibling, the realme GT 7 Pro, has a smaller 16MP front camera, making the cheaper variant better suited—at least on paper—for selfies and video calls.

The sides and frame of the phone are finished in aluminium, with the right side hosting a power button and volume rocker, while the left and top are otherwise unremarkable. The base of the phone hosts a USB-C port, a grille for the speaker, and a SIM card tray. Combined, the bottom and top speakers form a stereo pair.

While the front and sides look suitably premium, the midrange nature of its design is especially apparent in its backplate, which is apparently infused with graphene to allow it to double as a heatsink under heavy loads.

Our realme GT 7 review sample, which came in IceSense Black – a matte black finish – easily attracts smudges and fingerprints. Though there’s a silver lining here: the integration of graphene into the backplate means it offers 6x more thermal conductivity than a normal glass-sheathed backplate and 24x more conductivity than a conventional plastic one.

There is, however, a trade-off – the backplate is somewhat slippery when held, which means you’ll need an especially firm grip when wielding it. There’s also no oleophobic coating on the camera housing, so it’s equally prone to fingerprints as the rest of the backplate.

Fortunately, the realme GT 7 is tougher than it looks and has an IP69 dust and water resistance rating, along with an internally reinforced chassis that acts like an airbag against drops, and ArmorShell glass protecting the display.

Overall build quality is sturdy, with the phone offering an even heft when held while retaining a modicum of premium design with its flat display and rounded corners. They’re also fairly generous with extras, shipping a 120W fast charger compatible with the realme GT 7, a USB-C cable, and a protective casing to keep it in one piece.

For midrange phones, our realme GT 7 review sample is surprisingly well-armed for what you pay for, with a solid MediaTek 9400e chipset paired with fast 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB of onboard non-expandable storage. Complementing this is a 7,700mm² Airflow Vapour Chamber that reportedly relies on air convection to ensure sustained cooling under heavy workloads. Here’s how it stacks up on paper:

 

Price	RM2,599
Display	6.78-inch, 2,780 x 1,264 pixels, 6,000 nits peak brightness, 120Hz refresh rate
Processor	Processor: Dimensity 9400e
OS	Android 15 w/ realme UI 6.0
Memory	12GB LPDDR5 RAM w/ 12GB Dynamic RAM / 512GB UFS 4.0 storage
Cameras	50MP f/1.8 w/ Sony IMX906 sensor and OIS + 50MP f/2.0 2x telephoto camera + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide angle camera [rear] / 32MP f/2.5 [front]
Battery	7,000mAh Titan battery w/ 120W Ultra Charge
Size/Weight	162.4 x 76.1 x 8.3mm / 206g

When subjected to benchmarks, our realme GT 7 review sample scored the following:

3D Mark Steel Nomad Light:	1,927
3D Mark Steel Nomad Light Unlimited	1,906
3D Mark Solar Bay	8,291
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	8,317
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	5,322
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	5,380
Geekbench 6 Single Core	2,249
Geekbench 6 Multi Core	7,387
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	15,314
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	15,925
PC Mark Work 3.0	12,922
PC Mark Battery Life:	25 hours 6 minutes

As expected, the Dimensity 9400e chipset is outpaced by the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the realme GT 7 Pro – save in one key aspect: battery life. In this regard, our realme GT 7 review unit, with its more efficient chipset and larger 7,000mAh battery, easily offered better endurance at 25 hours and 6 minutes – outpacing its higher-end sibling by 5 hours and 6 minutes.

Benchmarks aside, you’re comfortably looking at the better part of two days of average usage, and you’re likely to eke out more if you’re particularly frugal with usage and skip gaming and Netflix binging. Fortunately, charging is a fast affair—it was able to go from dead zero to full in about 55 minutes with the bundled charger.

As a gaming phone, it was able to tackle any title on the Google Play Store with default to high settings, including demanding games like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves. In practical field usage, the realme GT 7 is a highly capable workhorse for everyday productivity and was able to handle general usage without issue.

Performance aside, the realme GT 7 is chock full of bloatware, which initially requires quite a bit of housekeeping to clean up. Another quibble is that the phone only offers a modest 3 years of OS updates and 4 years of security updates, which falls short of some of the more popular incumbents in the market. Still, seeing its RM2,599 price tag, it’s a pretty decent deal.

realme GT 7 Review – Cameras

Our realme GT 7 review sample hosts a triple rear camera array with a primary 50MP main camera that uses the Sony IMX906 sensor and has optical image stabilisation, a secondary 50MP camera with 2x telephoto zoom, and an 8MP ultra-wide angle camera.

The cameras each have different video capabilities, though the main camera itself is capable of capturing 8K@30fps video and even 4K@120fps or 4K@60fps, with the other two maxing out at 1080p@60fps. When capturing stills, the camera supports up to 2x lossless zoom and up to 20x digital zoom. Up front, the phone has a single 32MP camera for selfies and videos at up to 4K@60fps.

When capturing shots, users can select between either Vibrant or Crisp colour modes. The latter prioritises sharper images and a more neutral colour profile, while Vibrant mode gets you more saturated colours, such as vivid blues and greens. Personal preference on my part leans toward Vibrant colour modes, which tend to look more pleasing on social media. For the following shots, the realme GT 7 was set to Vibrant mode.

Shots from the ultra-wide camera are underwhelming and lack detail in both daylight and low light, owing to the small 8MP sensor. You get better results from both the 50MP main and 50MP telephoto cameras, with fairly good detail, colour rendition, and balanced exposures – though you should stick to 2x zoom at most, as beyond that, shots start getting softer and lose detail. Stills from the front selfie camera are serviceable.

When capturing 4K@60fps videos, our realme GT 7 review sample delivers detailed and smooth footage out to 2x zoom. As with photography, going beyond that results in softer footage, though video up to 5x zoom is still usable to some degree.

If you keep your expectations modest and stick to the main and telephoto cameras, you’ll find that the realme GT 7 is capable of delivering good stills and videos for most of the usual scenarios – scenery, food, and the usual people and pet shots.

Should You Buy the realme GT 7?

As it stands, the realme GT 7 blends a bright display, excellent battery life, and decent performance, along with a good main and telephoto camera. Unfortunately, realme UI is still chock full of bloatware, and the ultra-wide angle camera is underwhelming, but these aren’t deal breakers for what is otherwise a solid workhorse that represents good value for what you pay for.

Realme GT 7 review sample courtesy of realme Malaysia. For more details and to purchase please visit https://www.realme.com/my/realme-gt-7-5g