Realme XT Review – Between Midrange and a Flagship

I can’t help but think Realme is preparing its boundaries to justify their future flagship killer with excellent build quality on a beautiful looking XT. Initially I felt bad for quick successive phones being launched in a short span of time but when the Realme X came out, it showed that a full display design language can be brought down to mid-range without many compromises. But for those who are not in favour of moving parts, like me, the XT takes it down a notch as a decent compromise. Now after using the phone for the past 21 days, the Realme XT has impressed me in many ways and in the meantime it also has a few areas of concern. Hence the review in which I will get all your doubts cleared, whether to go with the Realme XT or to wait for future devices from Realme.

I am very much concerned about SAR value so lets start from there. Realme XT got certified with maximum SAR value upto

                                HEAD SAR – 1.141 W/KG

                                BODY SAR – 0.473 W/KG

Looking at the head SAR value alone, I advise users to prefer using headphones either wireless or wired for lengthy calls.

Box content

• 20W Charger (5V-4A) and high quality Type-C cable
• TPU Case with raised corners
• Sim ejector pin
• Warranty card and manual

Considering the current market conditions, Realme XT has indeed came up with good in-box content like its predecessor.

Sensors:

Realme XT comes with a wide range of sensors as listed below

• GPS/Beidou/Galileo
• Light sensor
• Proximity sensor
• Magnetic induction sensor
• Gyro-meter
• Acceleration sensor
• Pedometer
• G-sensor
• In-Display Fingerprint

Build Quality and design

There is no compromise this time with the materials used around and the device. It is very well showcased to attract consumers. Device feels like a cloned OnePlus 6t or 7 in terms of looks, with a small chin. Front of the devices houses 6.4inch water drop SuperAMOLED display with in-display fingerprint sensor  and a 16MP front camera. Earpiece above the camera is promising and loud enough, To the left we have dedicated dual SIM plus MicroSD slot at the top followed by volume control keys, at the right we have power button with yellow stripe to add some visual details. At the bottom from left to right we have Speaker grill, Type-C port, Microphone and 3.5mm audio jack and Top is simple and clean with secondary microphone. Rear of the phone is the key area to consider this phone as it comes with corning Gorilla glass 5 protection and a quad camera setup. Realme XT measures as below

• Height: 158.7mm
• Width: 75.2mm
• Depth: 8.6mm
• Weight: ≈183g(with battery)

Both the Pearl Blue and Pearl White are equally attractive, Where as Pearl Blue alone comes with gradient frame around. This is the first phone in realme lineup to look and feel more premium by the way it comes equipped with glass and also the under the hood hardware.

Front and back of the phone being glass, attracts fingerprint smudges but not very bad compared to the competition. Pearl Blue does reveal more smudges than Pearl White. We must remember that the head of Realme tweeted and confirmed that phone is water resistant but as usual, conditions applied.

The pricing of the Realme priced XT challenges the midrange market. Base variant starts from Rs. 15,999 for 4GB RAM with 64GB ROM, Rs. 16,999 for 6GB RAM with 64GB ROM and Rs. 18,999 for 8GB RAM with 128GB ROM. Pricing felt aggressive considering the specification and overall build quality. For this price, we can say, Realme XT’s most unique features are – Excellent build quality, 64MP Samsung GW1 and Multimedia experience.

Display – Beautiful SuperAMOLED panel

Realme XT comes with a beautiful 6.4 inch SuperAMOLED panel which provides user rich multimedia or social media experience. Also the 91.9% Screen to body ratio with 2340-by-1080-pixel resolution at 402 ppi is awesome considering the price range and which reflects in immersive feel in getting lost into it. It is being protected by Corning Gorilla glass 5 and which adds a layer of fine protection from scratches and comfortable feel to use. But in my personal experience I got many airline scratches and few deeper one when I placed the phone along metal coins. Colours are punchy enough and we have additional settings to boost it further in the name OSIE Vision Effect.

Low-Brightness Flicker-Free Eye Care is nothing but commonly known DC dimming feature which when turned on, it can reduce the visual fatigue caused by screen flickering at a low screen brightness level, Also it comes with a slight warning like Screen noise will increase slightly. Also enabling this is recommended as it takes brightness to the lowest possible nit, and which is really comfortable to use at dark. Overall, a great display for the price.

Fingerprint,Face and Password

Realme has made use of latest tech by bringing an in-display fingerprint sensor and also face unlock. The fingerprint sensor under the display is not something new for them as this is their second phone to house it. It works faster than many of its competitors with out any issue and also AI learning makes its ability to recognize better over the period of time. A backup lock screen password is supposed to be set to use either Fingerprint or Face data or even both can be used simultaneously. The user can add 5 set of Finger print data and can also be used for App Lock and Private safe.

In-display fingerprint animations are good and Animation style gives the user some customization options. If you are not OK with the fingerprint icon displayed after getting the screen locked like a always on display look, it can be turned off in settings. Face unlock is not a secure way to protect the phone but it is there in case you need it.

Notification and Sounds

In today’s world we use smartphone to not miss anything around and notification plays an important role in that. With Realme XT we won’t be missing any notification as both speaker and vibration motor are powerful enough to pull our concentration towards it. Downside can be lack of Always-on-display, Which is considered to be important among AMOLED smartphones, especially when there is no notification LED. There is a Screen-off clock inside the display settings which is a very basic form of this feature, so let’s hope Realme updates itself soon.

Regarding volume control and profile switching user can define role of volume rocker whether to control Media Volume or Ringtone Volume by default. Sound feedback is good with respect to dialpad tone to fingerprint animation sound. Also Volume Up + Power button works fine to put phone into vibration only profile

Connectivity

Smartphones can add tons and tons of new features and options over growing years but they are here for the basic role of communication over the air so how good is XT in this area?

First Dual SIM with Dual VoLTE option works fine without any issue and switching between network or SIM is not tough and everything is brought in easy with easy options. Also I did not experience any call drop or issue with network connectivity. Also switching between LTE/3G/2G went smooth when I was traveling. Also call connection time and everything related to it were put perfect as expected. I even tried Video calling users via VoLTE and Jio worked fine.

Phone supports following bandwidths as below

• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz
• WCDMA: 850/900/2100MHz
• FDD-LTE: Bands 1/3/5/8
• TD-LTE: Bands 38/40/41(2535-2655MHz)

Once we navigate into Dual SIM and Cellular Network in settings menu it brings us options like Dual Channel Network Acceleration. This option provides users with smoother internet experience by combining WiFi and mobile data, also this option comes with a data consumption warning stating, When this technology is used with a data-free phone card/data package for specific apps, there may be data consumption. Also it shows us those apps which supports this network acceleration from the list of apps we installed. In my device I had Helo, Instagram, Chrome, FB Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, Opera and PUBG Mobile as supported.

Also Phone comes with Dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and also Bluetooth 5.0 wireless technology. I did not experience any issue using dual band wifi and the smart connect worked well too. It automatically switches between known wifi networks based on signal strength and that happens seamlessly. Bluetooth 5 is perfect and works as it is supposed to be, tried transferring files through it and also paired accessories without any issue. Audio output through bluetooth was good and not extraordinary like flagships. Also range was good as bluetooth 5 is capable of transmitting long range. Again like all other midrangers this phone does not come with NFC. Also No IR blaster for remote control option.

Multimedia

The Realme XT really impressed me in this area with an awesome loudspeaker, a good AMOLED display and also something considered very important from the past decades, a 3.5mm audio jack. In spite of not being stereo speakers this mono unit was loud and powerful enough to enjoy multimedia content and listen to music. The 3.5mm jack delivered louder output, it was loud and clear with Stock Music player that came preinstalled on the phone.

A single click on equalizer icon will take us to a new tab where we can enable  Dolby Atmos and also Intelligent Equalizer can be enabled if Headphones stays connected. For superior control over audio output i personally preferred using Poweramp and also there are many other options available out in Play store.

Let us come to current generation way of multimedia experience, Watching movie and streaming shows are not like before and it requires basic security as well as certifications like Widevine L1. As I tested Realme XT comes with L1 certification and also I have verified it by playing content in Amazon Prime Video at 1080p. And finally, to anyone likes enjoying the completely offline FM radio, like me, you’ll be happy to see it there. Overall, a great multimedia experience on this phone.

Haptic feedback and Keyboard:

I personally look into this area with focus as it is important for a touchscreen based phone to come with good Haptic feedback for better typing experience. Current generation smartphones are made with all screen design. Whatever the brand or budget of the phone is going to be, We keep interacting with it via touch and all our inputs are through the on screen keyboard. GBoard is the default on screen keyboard on XT. GBoard comes with wide range of options including swipe input.

In Realme XT haptic feedback is long and deep which makes it unpleasant. To get it better navigate to GBoard settings and navigate to preferences and change vibration strength on keypress to 30ms. Also we have many options to get better on screen keyboard experience. Like enabling Number row, Altering Layout and Keyboard height. Even GBoard comes with a wide range of themes to make it more attractive.

Camera

Realme XT comes with 64MP AI Quad Camera with Ultra Wide-angle and Macro Lens and Sony 16MP Front Camera. 64MP main camera is Samsung GW1 Sensor with f/1.8 and aperture 1/1.72 sensor size with 6P lens. Ultra wide camera comes with 8MP wide-angle lens at 119°±1.5° angle and  f/2.25 aperture with 5P lens and Support super nightscape. 2MP Portrait lens with Six portrait style and Finally 2MP Macro sensor with 4cm shooting distance.

Once we open the camera app, we will feel that it is clean and simple to use. Primary or mostly used modes and options were put on the screen for easy access and all other least used modes are kept hidden at left corner with additional options. Camera app comes with options like

• Photo
• Video
• Portrait
• Ultra 64 MP
• Nightscape
• Panorama
• Expert / Pro mode
• Time-Lapse
• Slow Motion
• Ultra Macro

Now regarding Photos Realme XT comes with a Ultra-High resolution sensor in the market. Its Tetracell and 3D HDR technology lets users take crystal clear photos under any circumstances is what claimed by the company and for me it did not fail the hype. Also don’t forget that the primary camera comes with EIS and no OIS. The 64MP Primary sensor is not just going to produce full resolution image always and it is going to stick with pixel binning and the output will be around 16MP constantly and this 16MP output is really good. Images produced from the primary sensors has more details and also when we enable HDR and also chromaboost, results were really rich in colours and also details in shadowed regions were very well preserved compared to competition out there. When I closely examined the outputs in different circumstances, it kept producing the best possible output from the situation around and also it had no issue with focus. The primary sensor kept me impressed compared to competition even in low-light situations with the bigger sensor it came with. One can digitally zoom from 2X to 10X. 2X results are not bad and more digital zoom produces, not surprisingly, poorer results.

Video is also one of those stronger areas for Realme XT considering the outputs it produced also it had no issues with stabilization and also the quality and frames. To the maximum it can record upto 4K at 30fps and 4K outputs are good considering the budget it comes with the compromise of stabilisation. Frame drops were well handled and we all are aware of working mechanism of EIS. Stabilization with software is very well done in 1080p and 720p outputs in rear as well as front camera. In this price segment XT put up a good show compared to other devices. Downside in video mode is, user can’t shoot videos with wide angle camera. Only way to record videos is through Primary 64MP sensor. Digital zoom is not only for photos, it is also very well available for video recording. Just sliding over the 1X button in the camera interface will help in Zooming out and in. This zooming effect works flawless and smooth, No distortion or shakes can be spotted while performing this action from a static location. On the move when we zoom out more introduces more shakes and poor output. Video mode also comes with more options like filters. Filters helps us take different looking videos like cinematic to black and white.