Forget the Galaxy S21 — The Realme GT Might be the best Android phone of the year

Forget the Galaxy S21 — The Realme GT Might be the best Android phone of the year

Android fans should keep an eye on the Realme GT. It seems to have what it takes to turn the entire Android smartphone market on its head.

Android flagships like Samsung's Galaxy S21 offer high-performance features, but they are also expensive, and based on what Realme itself has rumored and teased about the GT, a major shakeup in the Android smartphone world is about to happen when it launches next week. It could be.

The Realme GT will launch on March 4, and we now have a vague idea of its price. All of this comes from a machine-translated post on the official Weibo profile of Realme's chief marketing officer, Xu Qiqiai.

The GT's price in China has been revealed to be under RMB 2,999. This equates to $463, a surprisingly low price for the hardware Realme promises. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S21 with similar specs starts at 4,999 yuan, or $772.

Also, according to another message from Chase, there is no 6GB/128GB memory version of the GT, which he amusingly describes as a "beggarly version." In other words, the specs are either 8GB or 12GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage, so the existence of a significantly less capable model would not affect its low price.

It's been a while since we've seen the birth of a potential flagship killer. Once a niche served by OnePlus, the company has transitioned to a more premium handset maker in recent years. Now, a new legitimate rival to Samsung and Apple is about to emerge from Realme.

Realme is leaning hard that this is one of the least expensive phones using the Snapdragon 888 chipset, but there is more to the GT than silicon. It has a 6.8-inch QHD display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 5,000mAh battery with 125W charging support, and a triple rear camera with a 64MP main sensor and 13MP ultra-wide-angle and telephoto sensors. All of this is housed in a leather- or glass-covered design. Somehow, there is even space for a headphone jack, something most flagships have lacked for years.

Looking at the big picture from these specs, Realme does not appear to have cut corners to achieve a low price. In many cases, when one finds a model that promises to offer flagship-like specs at a low price, it often focuses on only a few features and targets a limited number of users. This is why many gaming smartphones are cheaper than other devices with similar chipsets, because manufacturers do not prioritize other aspects of the smartphone experience, such as photography.

There is a caveat, however: Realme does not yet sell the phone in the U.S., which means that unless you can make up your mind to import it, buying a Samsung is still cheaper and likely to be a better decision overall. It is also possible that by the time this phone reaches Europe and the UK, its low price will be much higher.

This phone could be huge for the android phone market, assuming no hidden catchphrases are revealed between now and launch The Realme GT could be one of our picks for the best android phone, and we'd like to see it become a big hit in the US and Europe. We'll reserve definite judgment until we try it out for ourselves.

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