Realme’s latest phone comes with bizarrely fast 240W charging, and a Nothing-inspired light interface – Yanko Design
The Realme GT3 240W can juice your entire phone from 0% to 100% in under 10 minutes… and just 30 seconds of charging could give you enough battery life for a 2-hour call on a 5G network. It’s so fast that wireless charging suddenly doesn’t seem convenient anymore.
While most of Realme’s presentation at MWC was just stats, there was a nifty 80-second demo of the GT3, charged at 240W and going from 0 to a staggering 23 percent in just 1 minute and 20 seconds. In fact, the battery consumed most of the phone’s keynote, with a little time devoted to a “new” detail that Realme calls the Pulse Interface. Housed right next to the camera module, this interface borrows heavily from the back design of the Nothing phone (1) and features a transparent window with a LED rectangle inside. The LED rectangle glows in 25 different colors and can be customized for a variety of notifications, although the main ones are letting you know when the battery is low, when you get a call/notification, and when your phone actually does is charged. In addition, you can let the lights shine in the area while playing games or listening to music, or count down the timer when you click on a photo.
Designer: Rich
With more than 15 full minutes of the keynote being spent on the GT3’s battery alone, that’s probably the phone’s most notable feature. The 240W charging capability gives you 20% in less than a minute and a half, 50% in four minutes and a full 100% in less than ten minutes. That makes the GT3 the fastest-charging phone in the world right now, making the red battery icon in the top right a thing of the past. The quick charge feature also works while the phone is in use, with Realme boasting an o-100 in just 17 minutes if you’re playing a game.
You would think that this type of fast charging would cause an absolute number for the battery, but Realme leads us to believe that their battery and phone architecture is designed to optimize and preserve battery health over time. First off, the phone features three strategically placed chipsets inside the phone that are dedicated to charging only, and a new stainless steel vapor cooling system to cool the GT3’s ultra-thin 4600mAh battery. The battery is engineered to charge optimally in both high heat and sub-zero temperatures, with a lifespan twice that of the average phone – 1600 charge cycles before the battery degrades to 80%. To facilitate this 240W charging capability, the GT3 also comes with its own GaN charging adapter and heavy-duty 12A charging cable.
Turn the phone over and you’ll see its second standout feature – the Pulse Interface. Similar to the Nothing phone’s glyph interface (1), but with a noticeable lack of glyphs… the Pulse interface is right next to the camera, under a transparent window. The LED rectangle has the words “Dare To Leap”, Realme’s slogan, and right in the middle is a nameplate with the Snapdragon logo. You wouldn’t be the only one wondering if that’s actually the phone’s chipset… although I hate to pop your bubble, it’s not. The chipset sits well in the phone surrounded by the vapor cooling system. This is just a nameplate that serves a branding purpose more than anything else. However, there’s an NFC reader just below the Pulse Interface… right where it says “NFC.”
A closeup of the Snapdragon nameplate and Pulse interface
The UI lights up to show a variety of notifications, with up to 25 colors to choose from. You can also customize the color and blink pattern of the Pulse interface to match different notifications, with even the ability to color-code specific contacts so you know when they’re calling, even when your phone is face down. In addition, the LED ring glows red when the battery is empty, blue when charging and green when 100% charged, so you know when to unplug the charger. Alternatively, you could just wait 10 minutes and unplug your charger anyway!
The GT3 240W also comes with a 6.74-inch 144Hz Ultra AMOLED display, featuring an in-display fingerprint reader, three main cameras (50MP wide, 8MP ultra-wide, 2MP macro) and a 16MP wide-angle Selfie camera features. The GT3 comes in 3 colors (black, white, and purple) and has five tiers to choose from, including a lower tier of 8GB RAM + 128GB storage that starts at $649 and goes up to an absolutely insane tier of 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage, the price of which was not disclosed at the time of the announcement. Hey Realme… is the 240w charger included?
