Realme GT7 Pro: 3599 yuan, the ultimate cost-effectiveness of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship phone

Realme GT7 Pro: 3599 yuan, the ultimate cost-effectiveness of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship phoneAmong all the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 powered Android flagship phones this year, Realme GT7 Pro is undoubtedly the most cost-effective one. This phone boasts flagship-level specs, while being priced at only 3599 yuan, making one wonder just how far Realme's cost control can go

Realme GT7 Pro: 3599 yuan, the ultimate cost-effectiveness of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 flagship phone

Among all the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 powered Android flagship phones this year, Realme GT7 Pro is undoubtedly the most cost-effective one. This phone boasts flagship-level specs, while being priced at only 3599 yuan, making one wonder just how far Realme's cost control can go. As the annual flagship of the Realme series, Realme GT7 Pro exhibits distinctive charm in both design and hardware. Although its specs cannot match mainstream flagships like Xiaomi 15 and vivo X200, in actual experience, Realme GT7 Pro delivers remarkable performance.

Mars Exploration Edition, unique design language

The design of the back cover of Realme GT7 Pro's Mars Exploration Edition is undoubtedly one of its most eye-catching highlights. The unique red hue is impossible to ignore. Without any fancy craftsmanship, simply the clever use of design and color makes this phone seem like it comes from the Mars of the future.

Realme GT7 Pro adopts the new Red Star Quicksand AG process, achieving a texture and unique color similar to the flow of Martian canals through multiple layers of coating. At different angles and under different lighting conditions, the color and texture details of the back cover will undergo subtle changes, appearing particularly charming.

The feel of the back cover is also pleasing. It's not a smooth material or one that intentionally creates texture, but a leather-like textured frosted glass, offering a very comfortable gripping experience. The only regret is that the connection between the frame and the back cover is not well-handled, and one can still feel the transition with the palm.

To match the design of the back cover, the image Deco of Realme GT7 Pro also adopts design elements similar to the porthole of a spaceship. The Deco is connected to the back cover with a micro-arc metal transition, creating a stellar staircase design, enhancing the phone's recognizability and allowing the pure black camera Deco to blend perfectly with the "fiery red" of the back cover.

Full-frame gaming, peak performance unleashed

The gaming performance of Realme GT7 Pro has always been one of its key promotional points. In today's era of increasingly sophisticated mobile game effects, it's not easy to achieve stable operation at high effects with 60 frames, while Realme GT7 Pro's goal is to push the frame rate to 120fps.

Realme GT7 Pro is equipped with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform, built using TSMC's second-generation 3nm process, with Qualcomm's newly developed Oryon CPU architecture, two super-large cores with a maximum frequency of up to 4.32GHz, and is equipped with Realme's largest dual-layer VC ever, with a total area of 11480mm.

In AnTuTu benchmark testing, Realme GT7 Pro achieved a score of over 2.83 million in the first round after enabling performance mode, with a temperature of only 40 degrees. Although some manufacturers claim scores exceeding 3 million, in actual tests, without deliberately controlling ambient temperature, 2.8-2.9 million is a more common score range. Compared to its predecessor, the performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has indeed improved significantly, and heat control is even better. Realme GT7 Pro's performance is already at the leading level of Android flagships.

However, benchmark scores are one aspect, while actual experience is more important. In gaming tests, can Realme GT7 Pro deliver on its full-frame promise?

First, we tested "Honkai: Star Rail". As one of the most demanding mobile games currently available, "Honkai: Star Rail" was set to "Very High" for graphics settings, and we turned on "Performance Mode" and "High Frame & Graphics Mode" in Realme GT7 Pro's game toolbox.

The test results show that except for loading scenes, entering/exiting battles, the frame rate performance during normal map exploration and battle processes is very stable. While we can't say it's completely locked at 120FPS, the fluctuations are very minor. During the entire 15-minute test, the phone's temperature didn't change significantly. It's foreseeable that even for ultra-long gaming sessions of half an hour or even two to three hours, Realme GT7 Pro's performance unleashing and heat dissipation tuning are sufficient to handle it easily.

Next, we tested the recently released popular game "Delta Force". As a game released for both PC and mobile, "Delta Force" has excellent graphics and effects, making it a top contender among current FPS mobile games.

To our surprise, with both graphics and frame rate set to maximum, "Delta Force" maintained a frame rate of 90FPS most of the time, with very small fluctuations, except for a drop to 24 FPS during the intro animation. Throughout the game, whether it be throwing smoke grenades, engaging in gunfights, or rapid movement, the visuals were very smooth, and the smooth frame rate experience allowed us to become more immersed in the game world.

In recent years, the advancement in mobile phone gaming performance has been rapid. Previously, 60 frames for "Genshin Impact" was already considered "super powerful", but now Realme GT7 Pro can easily run "Honkai: Star Rail" at 120 frames. The speed of technological development is astonishing. Of course, the improvement in gaming performance is not solely attributed to the upgrade in processor performance, AI also plays a significant role. Realme GT7 Pro's 120-frame mode is achieved through AI frame interpolation, and the interpolation effect and smoothness surpass previous generations, showcasing the powerful AI performance of the new flagship platform.

Flagship-level imaging system

As a flagship phone, the imaging system cannot be neglected. Even though Realme GT7 Pro is positioned as a performance flagship, its imaging performance is not inferior, and it even has a decent improvement in telephoto capabilities.

Specific parameters are as follows:

• Main camera: IMX906, 50 million pixels, 1/1.56", f/1.8

• Telephoto: IMX882, 50 million pixels, 1/2", f/2.65

• Ultra-wide: IMX355, 112 8 million pixels, f/2.2

The telephoto lens uses periscope design, and it's a triple-refraction periscope module, enabling 3x optical zoom and 6x lossless zoom, with a maximum zoom magnification of 120x, which is rare at this price point.

Actual performance in use is also satisfying. Even at high zoom magnifications, the details of the image are still well-preserved. Even the subtle roots between the wall and the sky can be clearly identified.

However, we can't say there are absolutely no issues. After switching from the main camera to the telephoto lens, the color changes of buildings are more obvious, and some details in the sky are lost, but this doesn't affect the overall performance and still remains at the leading level within the same price range.

In daily shooting, Realme GT7 Pro does well in handling reflections and textures, the color processing is also natural, and it effectively utilizes the hardware performance of the main camera. However, some detail loss caused by the weaker dynamic range can also be observed.

In photos with many buildings and plants, Realme GT7 Pro handles details in dark areas and plant details very well, and the resolution of the main camera is impressive.

However, Realme GT7 Pro still has room for improvement in sky processing. The slight overexposure makes the sky's layers less natural. Ultimately, it comes down to the issue of dynamic range.

Another regret with Realme GT7 Pro is that it doesn't support telephoto macro, so when shooting close-up objects, one can only rely on the resolution of the main camera to compensate, but fortunately, the overall performance is not bad. It's considered "usable" in the absence of a macro lens.

In conclusion, as a flagship phone with a starting price of only 3599 yuan for the 12GB+256GB version, Realme GT7 Pro has exceeded expectations. Although there are many phones better than Realme GT7 Pro on the market, considering the price factor, Realme GT7 Pro remains one of the most competitive flagship phones on the market.