Fresh from the 2021 Snapdragon Summit and the announcement of Qualcomm’s latest flagship mobile platform, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, an announcement has come that the realme GT 2 Pro will be using it. Launching in China today, this latest smartphone is realme’s most premium flagship yet.
Part of realme’s rapid growth to the 6th largest global smartphone maker in just three short years is the founder of realme, Sky Li’s (Li Bingzhong) — a former Vice-President at OPPO — commitment to “bring young people great products where “Power meets Style,” and a joyful life featuring “technology” and “beauty.”
With the realme GT 2 Pro, the brand introduces three world firsts: a back cover made of bio-polymer material, a 150° ultra-wide camera (including 150º fish-eye mode when you want it), and realme’s Innovation Forward Communication.
Calling the realme GT 2 Pro their first ever premium flagship, Mark Wesley, the product communications manager for realme, said that the GT 2 Pro would offer top-of-the-line aspects, including the hardware parameters and software features.
When it comes to Gen Z, realme says that “mobile phones are no longer just communication tools, instead, they represent Gen Z’s attitude toward sustainability.” To that end, realme collaborated with SABIC, a leading global materials company, and selected a bio-polymer that they say is known “as the key to a green future.” The material is environmentally friendly, strong, and as durable as traditional materials.
Bio-based materials are second-generation biomaterials that do not compete with the food chain. These materials can effectively reduce carbon emissions from human production processes, and they are an excellent alternative to fossil raw materials that contribute to global warming and climate change.
Compared to traditional materials that come from fossil feedstocks, SABIC’s bio-based materials can reduce carbon emissions by up to 63% per kilogram while effectively reducing the materials industry’s consumption of petroleum, replacing up to 35% of potential fossil feedstock consumption. Bio-based materials are homologous to paper, derived from renewable sources like fallen leaves or paper pulp.
Through a series of complex processes, these materials are transformed into a reliable material that makes the back cover of the realme GT 2 Pro, making it the world’s first smartphone designed with bio-based materials. They’re calling the design Paper Tech Master Design, as it is inspired by paper with a premium, minimalist look overall.
Passing the standards of international sustainability and carbon certification by the ISCC, it has also passed other stringent environmental regulation standards by the likes of REACH, RoHS, and EPEAT; realme hopes will see widespread use on smartphones and other advanced tech products in the future.
Realme has also adopted a box design that brought the plastic ratio to an overall drop from 21.3% to 0.3% for this model; the printing ink used for the color box and manual is a low-toxicity and biodegradable ink made of soy, which further reduces petroleum product consumption, indirectly reducing carbon emissions with its more environmentally friendly ingredients.
With every 1,000,000 of the new realme GT 2 Pro with Paper Tech Master Design sold, less plastic (equal to 3.5 million plastic bottles) will be produced. Realme recognizes that environmental protection is a worldwide issue; as a young company, they can’t solve all the environmental problems in one initiative, but they are taking this opportunity to “rise up and take that first step.”
The realme GT 2 Pro will be equipped with their new Innovation Forward Communication, an antenna array matrix system that consists of a Wi-Fi enhancer with a symmetrical and omnidirectional design vs. the typical asymmetrical and non-omnidirectional design for better Wi-Fi signal strength as well as Wi-Fi 6. The realme GT 2 Pro also has advanced 360º NFC and the world’s first Ultra Wide-Band HyperSmart Antenna Switching technology.
The Ultra Wide-Band HyperSmart Antenna Switching technology supports 48 mainstream global bands in 150+ countries and regions around the world, meaning that you’ll be able to get a signal almost everywhere. By using 12-antennas in a wrap-around design versus using the more typical 4-antenna wrap-around design, the realme GT 2 Pro will get a consistent signal no matter how tightly you are gripping the top and bottom sides while gaming, for instance, which will keep your signal strength high and latency low while playing.
With realme’s free-switching technology, the GT 2 Pro will intelligently judge the signal strength of all of the 12 antennas, automatically selecting the one with the best signal, prioritizing it, and reducing lag in weak signal scenarios.
Regarding the appearance of their new GT 2 Pro, realme has once again teamed up with the world-renowned and award-winning industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa to create a phone with a premium look, feel, and appeal.
As realme’s most premium flagship yet, the realme GT 2 Pro will run the top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 mobile platform, and it will run Android 12 with the realme UI 3.0 overlay; it will also have a 5,000Mah Li-Po 5000 battery with 65W Super Dart fast-charge.
The realme GT 2 Pro features a very large heat dissipation area for up to 3º C of cooling to maximize the chip’s performance; it is constructed with a new 9-layer cooling structure with a 4129mm² Stainless Steel VC area for sustained peak performance.
It will have the world’s first 2K AMOLED Flat Display with LTPO 2.0 Technology; the 2K UHD display will have a resolution up to 525 PPI, and it will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Using advanced LPTO 2.0 technology, the realme GT 2 Pro will have a 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate with 1000Hz touch sampling to provide an exceptionally smooth picture with optimal energy efficiency performance. Stereo Dolby Atmos speakers will provide great sound.
The three rear-facing cameras will include a wide-angle IMX766 50-megapixel with all pixel Omni-directional PDAF and OIS features, an ultra-wide-angle JN1 50-megapixel lens with a 150ºultra-wide mode and the world’s first fish-eye mode, and a 2-megapixel 40X macro lens for extreme close-ups.
The realme GT 2 Pro will have a lovely flat 6.7″ AMOLED display (1080×2400 pixels) with thin bezels and a 32-megapixel hole-punch front-facing selfie camera on the upper left. It will be available with up to 12GB RAM and 512GB user memory.
The realme GT 2 Pro was unveiled today in Mainland China, and it should be available there in the first quarter of 2022, with early-bird pricing starting at $582 US; colors available will include Paper White, Paper Green, Steel Black, and Titanium Blue. It’s unknown at this time if there will be a global version.
You can learn more about realme and keep an eye out for the realme GT 2 Pro here.
The GT 2 Pro sounds really nice, and the bio-polymer back seems quite innovative. Since this has only been announced for Mainland China, what software does it have in place of Google services?