“The Realme XT flaunts a quad-camera system at the rear with a 64MP Samsung Bright GW1 main sensor”

Realme has finally taken covers off its latest smartphone called the Realme XT. The phone has arrived as the world’s first smartphone to boast a 64-megapixel Samsung Bright GW1 primary sensor at the rear. The handset will be competing against the Redmi Note 8 Pro, which will be unveiled at an event tomorrow in China and will sport the same camera sensor. As of now, there’s no word as to when the Realme XT India launch is scheduled for, but we managed to get in our labs and here’s our unboxing and first impressions of the handset.

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The Realme XT comes bundled with a TPU cover case and a VOOC 3.0 charger

The Realme XT comes packed inside a neat-looking box with the phone’s photo on top. Inside the box, the phone has the SIM-ejector tool, a USB Type-C cable, and some documentation. Notably, the wall charger that comes bundled with the phone supports VOOC 3.0 fast charging. It’s worth mentioning that the handset will also ship with a TPU cover case.  

Talking about the Realme XT, it features a shiny blue back panel with a gradient finish, which looks very appealing due to the reflective surface. You can also opt for the white colourway of the handset. Notably, there’s a layer of Gorilla Glass 5 on both the front and rear for enhanced durability. The phone has rounded corners and curved back, which makes the handset quite ergonomic to hold.  The handset’s volume rocker is conveniently placed on the left side in the middle, while the power button is available on the right. As for the placement of the ports, there’s a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm headphone socket at the bottom, apart from the speaker grille. At the rear, you will find a vertically-placed quad-camera setup on the top-left corner, which juts slightly.

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The Realme XT has a waterdrop notch above the screen to house the selfie camera

Realme XT’s fingerprint sensor is placed under the display, which worked quite well during our brief usage. The handset has been equipped with a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED display with full HD+ resolution and waterdrop notch, which houses the selfie camera. The screen of the phone is bright enough to be used outdoors under the direct sunlight without any issues.

Under the hood, the Realme XT packs Qualcomm’s octa-core Snapdragon 712 processor, which offers a clock speed of 2.3GHz. The device we tested has 8GB of RAM and 128GB storage, but the phone also comes in two other variants – 4GB + 64GB and 6GB + 64GB. During our time with it, the handset performed smoothly and since the hardware combination is the same as the Realme 5 Pro (review), we expect it to offer lag-free gaming experience too. Software-wise, the Realme XT boots Android 9 Pie-based ColorOS 6 out of the box, which has some bloatware, but thankfully, you can uninstall most of these apps.

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The Realme XT is the world’s first phone with a 64MP primary quad-camera setup at the rear

Moving on to the USP of the Realme XT, the smartphone has a 64MP Samsung Bright GW1 primary sensor at the back, accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 2MP camera for portrait imaging, and a 2MP sensor for macro photography. For selfies, there’s a 16MP shooter on the front. In our initial tests, the photos were quite sharp, clear, and offered good colour production. However, we’d like to spend more time with the Realme XT camera before passing any verdict.

Talking about the other features, the Realme XT sports dual-SIM slots, 4G LTE, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.0, and A-GPS with GLONASS. The smartphone is fuelled by a beefy 4,000mAh battery, which is capable of juicing up quickly, thanks to the VOOC 3.0 20W fast charging support. 

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The Realme XT comes with a USB Type-C port for fast charging and a 3.5mm headphone socket

The Realme XT launch in India is expected to be by the end of September. Considering the Redmi Note 8 Pro could also arrive in the country around the same time, we’re in for interesting times ahead in the battle of best camera phones in the mid-range. 

Photos by Raj Rout