Realme GT 7T review: Gaming powerhouse on a budget

The Realme GT series has always delivered some of the most desirable midrange Android smartphones in India. With these GT phones, Realme prioritises a higher-spec chipset coupled with a great display and a solid battery stamina to provide a killer gaming combo at accessible prices. In 2025, Realme went OnePlus-hunting with the GT 7, adding last year’s flagship chip into the mix. With the Realme GT 7T, the brand doesn’t want to let go of the more accessible sub-Rs 35,000 midrange space. 

It shares the same design as the Realme GT 7 and even retains its headline-grabbing 7,000mAh battery! That too with the 120W wired fast charging solution! Despite a slightly less capable MediaTek chipset, the Realme GT 7T comes across as a tempting deal for anyone seeking a phone for mobile gaming as well as mobile video editing on the go. 

But is it worth its asking price over the iQOO Neo 10 – a phone that offers the more stable and beefier Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset? On just the value-for-money front, the Realme loses out. However, phones these days are no longer about ‘who’s got the faster chipset’ and that’s why I decided to give this phone a fair chance. I used it for a couple of days and ended my journey with the GT 7T impressed.

Design and build

Realme excels in the design and finish of its phones more than anybody else consistently. The GT 7T is no exception, boasting a loud ‘gamer vibe’ design while retaining the premium feel. Although the black and blue colourways seem sedate, the Racing Yellow with its vegan leather finish does justice to this gaming phone. However, the black and blue colourways get a graphene coating for enhanced heat dissipation. Despite packing a massive battery, the phone maintains a reasonable weight and thickness, making it comfortable for one-handed use.

A thoughtful inclusion is the IR blaster, a feature increasingly rare in modern smartphones. It also carries an IP69 rating for dust and water resistance, thus adding peace of mind for those who care about durability.

Display

The Realme GT 7T features a large 6.8-inch AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1280×2800 pixels and a fast 120Hz refresh rate. What grabs attention though is the 6000 nits of claimed peak brightness, which we were unable to test due to a lack of adequate equipment. However, the display is incredibly legible even under direct sunlight, thus making for a great companion in India’s bright and hot summer days. While it lacks an LTPO panel found in more premium devices, it supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, ensuring a vibrant viewing experience. The display is protected by ArmorShell Glass and offers a high touch response rate of up to 2600Hz. Eye-care features like DC dimming and 2160Hz high-frequency PWM dimming further enhance comfort.

Performance

Under the hood, the Realme GT 7T houses the MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Max chipset – a chipset that offers equivalent performance of a two-year-old flagship chipset (on par with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3/Snapdragon 8 Gen 2). While not the absolute top-tier flagship processor, it delivers strong and reliable performance for daily tasks, multitasking and even demanding games. Although the daily mundane ‘phone tasks’ were dealt with smoothly, I was surprised to see the phone play the legendary ‘Need For Speed: Most Wanted’ from 2005 at 10-20 fps via the Winlator emulator. Regular Android games like BGMI, CarX Street, CarX Drift Racing 2, Wreckfest and Call of Duty: Mobile ran at high settings with consistently smooth gameplay.

Long sessions of gaming (1-2 hours) do warm up the phone, but the cooling measures, which include the large vapour chamber, do their job well in preventing any frame drops from the video games. 

The phone runs on Android 15-based Realme UI 6 – a feature-rich custom Android experience that’s pre-loaded with a bunch of AI features, including an AI Planner and AI Gaming Coach. You also get Google’s Gemini features onboard and in my usage, they work as advertised. Realme’s AI features, however, need a lot of polishing. The same goes for the user interface, which needs pleasant aesthetic updates and fewer junk apps. Realme promises four major OS updates and six years of security patches, which is something to consider while making the purchase decision.

Camera

The camera setup on the Realme GT 7T is a dual-rear configuration, featuring a 50MP Sony IMX896 primary sensor with OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) and an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens. On the front, there’s a 32MP selfie camera. 

The camera system is far from a professional-grade system you see on an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy S25. However, the setup here is ideal for casual photography in daylight and low light. The colour science is vibrant and may please only those who don’t pixel-peep. The ultra-wide camera’s performance is average, lacking both 4K video recording and autofocus. The phone can record 4K videos at 60fps from both front and rear cameras. The AI Travel Snap Camera, AI Eraser and the Street photography modes allow for fun sessions but none are anything to gawk at.

Battery and charging

Charging is arguably the Realme GT 7T’s strongest suit. For a phone that houses a massive 7000mAh battery, the 120W SUPERVOOC fast charging fills up the phone from 0-100 per cent in around 45 minutes. Sadly, the battery itself needs a lot of software optimisation to deliver on the promises. With regular ‘office-day’ usage, which includes music streaming on 5G, responding to emails, texting, phone calls, casual gaming, occasional photography and social media browsing, the GT 7T drops to approximately 30-35 per cent by the end of the day (on par with what I get from my iPhone 15 Plus and its much smaller battery). The idle drain is substantial too, thus defeating the purpose of stuffing such a large battery. For a phone with a 7,000mAh battery, the Realme GT 7T leaves a lot to be desired.   

Verdict

On its own, the Realme GT 7T ends up being a great performance phone for mobile gaming enthusiasts. The Dimensity 8400 Max can take care of every game and video editing task you throw at it with ease. The display scores brownie points, and so does the charging situation. The battery stamina is among the best in the class, but not the lofty standards that Realme promised. The Realme UI 6 experience is smooth and lag-free, but leaves a lot to be desired with aesthetic appeal and the collection of junk apps/bloatware. Factoring in the starting price of Rs 34,999, the Realme GT 7T is a solid phone on paper. 

However, the iQOO Neo 10 with its more powerful chipset poses strong competition, and we expect Realme to reconsider the starting price to enhance the value for money proposition.