Realme GT5 Pro review: A true next-gen smartphone

Realme has been building great phones at a reasonable price under its GT line for some time now, but its most recent offering looks to take things to the next level. The new device offers an all-new design, exciting camera specs on paper, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor.

The Realme GT5 Pro won’t be available in the U.S., unfortunately, unless you somehow find a way to import it. But that doesn’t mean it won’t have an impact on the Chinese phone market — and future phones that might eventually make their way to the U.S.

Does the Realme GT5 Pro really represent the new generation of “flagship killer” devices, or devices that offer flagship specs at a much lower price?

Realme GT5 Pro specs

Realme GT5 Pro design

One of the most interesting things about the Realme GT5 Pro is its design. The device is the latest in the line of phones that do away with glass or plastic backs — in favor of a premium-feeling faux leather. The material really feels quite nice. It’s tactile and seems strong, making a case for itself as a material to use on more devices in the future.

The rest of the design is quite nice too. The device has a similar-size camera module to some Oppo-brand phones, including the OnePlus Open, but I don’t really mind it. It is huge, to be sure, but depending on the placement it can actually make holding the phone a little easier. Plus, if it produces excellent images, the trade-off is worth it.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

On the front, the device has a slightly curved display. I prefer a flat display, but the curve isn’t very drastic, and I didn’t find it to be a big deal. There’s a small cutout for the camera module towards the top of that display.

Everything else about the design of the phone is to be expected. There’s a USB-C port at the bottom, with a volume rocker and power button on the right side.

The phone comes in black and white, which both look fine — but I really like the look of the orange, which is the color of our review model.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The display on the Realme GT5 Pro is excellent. The screen is 6.78 inches and is an LTPO AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate. It’s super smooth and gets very bright. It’s a high resolution too, so text looks crisp, and images look very detailed. Generally, most users will look the look of the screen on this phone.

Realme GT5 Pro performance

The Realme GT5 Pro is one of the first devices to feature the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is Qualcomm’s latest and greatest smartphone processor.

The result? The phone is very quick. To be clear, in day-to-day use, you likely won’t notice a difference between a phone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and a device with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. You might notice games loading a little quicker, and fewer stutters and freezes, but don’t expect a radical improvement. That extra performance, of course, perhaps isn’t as important now as it may be down the line, towards the end of its lifespan.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

Benchmark results, as you would expect, are excellent. Here are the benchmark results we achieved with this phone:

• 3DMark Wild Life Extreme: 4,861
• AnTuTu: 1,942,508

These are excellent results, particularly when it comes to graphics performance, as shown through the 3DMark Wilde Life Extreme test.

Realme GT5 Pro battery and charging

The Realme GT5 Pro comes equipped with a relatively large 5,400mAh battery, and I found the device to offer excellent battery performance overall. The device will easily get you through a full day of use, and many will find that it can deliver a second day of use too. Anyone who charges their phone regularly will have no issue with the battery performance of the Realme GT5 Pro.

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

The charging specs are pretty good too. Unlike the Realme GT3, which supports 240W charging, the GT5 Pro can “only” charge at 100W — which means that you’ll be able to charge the device in around 30 minutes. It even supports fast wireless charging — users will be able to charge at 50W wirelessly with a compatible wireless charger. We didn’t have that charger, so we were unable to test this.

Realme GT5 Pro camera

Image source: Christian de Looper for BGR

One of the most important aspects of this phone is its camera. The device has a triple camera array, which includes a periscope telephoto camera. This camera can zoom optically to 2.7x — however Realme employs a sensor-crop technology to zoom further without any loss in detail.

Indeed, I did find that the camera on the Realme GT5 Pro was able to produce great images overall. Images were vibrant and colorful, with good detail, though you’ll want to remember to wipe the camera module regularly. That was mostly true in low-light environments too. I found I was able to push the camera a little too far with really low lighting, or at high levels of zoom — but in most reasonable scenarios, it performed excellently.

The telephoto lens in particular stood out as a helpful feature. Even in low-light environments, the telephoto camera was able to produce detailed and vibrant images, with little blur — thanks largely to the stabilization tech built into it.

Realme GT5 Pro software

The current version of the Realme GT5 Pro comes with Realme UI 5.0, which is based on Android 14. Unfortunately, our review model was not a global variant of the phone, and as such, did not come with Google Play Services installed.

Conclusions

The Realme GT5 Pro has a lot going for it. I really like the overall design, plus the phone has a great battery, charges quickly, and has an excellent camera. It’s not perfect — even with Google Play Services, I generally don’t love Realme UI, and the camera didn’t seem to be quite as well-tuned as a device like the OnePlus Open, for example. But, it’s a well-rounded phone overall.