The mid-range segment is where the action lies in India’s smartphone market. Xiaomi has had a near monopoly here by leading sales for a solid eight quarters. However, it is Realme that is the one to watch out for. Through a consistent release schedule of well-performing, great-looking products, the company has managed to carve out a niche for itself and amassed 9% market share. 

A remarkable feat in a place where new smartphones are launched nearly every other day and every player wants a slice of the pie. The Realme XT is yet another smartphone from the brand, and it comes a with a whole new shtick. A whopping 64MP camera makes for great marketing, but the bigger question is, does it make a positive improvement to the user experience? 

Will the Realme XT bring enough to the table to fend off the competition and bolster Realme’s market share? Let’s find out in our review of the Realme XT.

Realme XT: Design

For these phones that aim to undercut the rest, one of the places where we usually see corners being cut is the design or the choice of materials, by going for plastic instead of glass for the back panel. It's usually an acceptable switch at this price point, but the Realme XT hit that expectation out of the park.

The entire back panel is made of Gorilla Glass 5 and has a subtle curve that helps with the handling. All colour variants shine with some curved lines, which Realme says has been inspired by a hyperbola, but are just concave lines. Nonetheless, they look cool. Our Pearl Blue variant has a slight gradient that goes from a deep blue to purple basis the angle of viewing.

It feels quite premium in the hand and isn't all that slippery either. My unit has had a couple of table-height drops and bounces and has managed to escape unhurt. 

Realme XT: Display

The day to day experience of the Realme XT isn't very different from the Realme 5 Pro (Review), and that's a good thing. The phone is a bit too tall for one-handed use, but you can enable one-handed mode for more convenience. The display is bright, with good sunlight legibility and colours are punchy. The pre-applied screen guard is useful, but the edges don't sit flush with the side of the display so it tends to rub against your fingers when performing gestures, which is annoying.

We used the 8GB RAM version of the Realme XT, which ran Android smoothly without any hiccups. Multitasking was speedy and app loading times were quick. Heavy games ran just fine too. PUBG Mobile ran at the ‘High' preset by default and gameplay was smooth. The back of the phone got a little warm after extended gameplay but not too hot. Battery drain was quite acceptable too, as even after a full 30 minute match, we noted about a five percent drop in battery level.

Realme XT: Performance

The Realme XT is the company's second phone to bring a Super AMOLED display, which is another rare sighting in this price segment. This is a 6.4-inch panel with a resolution of 2340 x 1080. Yes, it still has a notch up top, but this is one of the smaller notches I've seen recently. This tall aspect ratio makes scrolling through web pages or gaming more convenient and is the way to go for smartphones.

The bezels too are pretty slim, which adds to the viewing experience. Being an OLED panel, the colours are inherently very vibrant and punchy, and the 450 nits of max brightness makes it even better. Not just that, the minimum brightness levels are very comfortable too. There's a quick toggle to turn on Night Shield and cut down on the blue light emissions.  

Another small aspect that I came to love was the smooth texture of the glass, which made swipe typing and gaming really enjoyable and responsive.

The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and also has an in-display fingerprint scanner under it. This optical scanner is pretty fast and accurate. Realme states that this is the largest scanner available from Goodix and the differences in unlocking speeds are evident. If that isn't enough for you, the face unlocking option is even faster.

Realme XT: Battery

The Realme XT’s battery is pretty much the standard for this segment. A 20W VOOC 3.0 charger comes bundled in the box and I observed speedy charging times. A 30-minute charge brought the phone up to 51%. Full top-offs took just under 90 minutes.

Battery life was pretty good, though not the best. In both our video playback tests and browsing tests, the phone fell a bit short of the Realme 5 Pro and similarly-specced Xiaomi competition. Regardless, you won’t find it hard to get through a full day of use with ease. Additionally, stand-by times are fantastic and the Realme XT barely sips on battery when you are not using it.

Realme XT: Camera

A major selling point of the Realme XT is the presence of the 64 MP primary camera on it. This is the 64 MP Samsung GW1 sensor with a size of 1/1.72-inches with 0.8-micron pixel size where the pixels are isolated from each other to prevent any light spill-off. This is the first time a smartphone with a 64 MP primary camera (with f/1.8 aperture) ably supported by an 8 MP ultra-wide-angle camera (f/2.2), a 2 MP macro lens and a 2 MP depth camera has been launched in India. By default, the Realme XT uses pixel binning, which combines four pixels into one large pixel to give you a 16 MP image. To shoot a 64 MP image, you will have to select the Ultra 64 MP mode.

For a smartphone with such a headlining feature as a 64 MP camera, the Realme XT has one of the clunkiest camera user interfaces I have ever seen. On getting inside the camera app, you are presented with three options: Video, Photo and Portrait. To shoot the ultra-wide photo, you will have to tap on the ultra-wide icon on top, between the HDR and Chroma Boost icons. To shoot a 64 MP image, you will have to tap on the hamburger icon beside Video which brings up a list that has Ultra 64 MP. Want to shoot a macro? Scroll down on the same list to the bottom to the Ultra Macro mode. Suffice to say, the camera user interface needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

Images shot from the primary camera during daytime turn out quite well with sharpness on point. You do get the Chroma boost option, in case you want to pump up the colours, but I kept that mode off as I found the oversaturation a bit too high for my liking. But Instagram addicts will like this, as it almost acts like a filter. The ultra-wide-angle camera wasn’t as great in comparison and the distortion around the edges is quite noticeable. So, if you are taking group photos with the ultra-wide mode, just ensure no one is placed around the edge of the frame. In indoor photography, noise is noticeable under fluorescent lights when using the ultrawide mode.