Realme announces $725 GT2 Pro flagship with ‘bio-based polymer’ design

Realme has announced the GT2 Pro, its latest flagship phone and the followup to last year’s impressive GT. The former Oppo sub-brand describes it as “the most premium flagship ever by Realme,” and it’s difficult to disagree with that assessment.

The headline feature of the GT2 Pro is how it looks and feels. Continuing the company’s materials collaboration with legendary Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, the GT2 Pro is the first phone to be made with a “bio-based polymer,” which Realme claims reduces carbon emissions by 35.5 percent during manufacturing.

The “paper green” model I’ve been using has a unique matte finish that feels coarse to the touch and doesn’t pick up fingerprints. I can’t speak to Realme’s environmental claims, but this phone doesn’t feel cheap in the slightest — I think it looks great and feels better than glossy glass or plastic.

The camera system has quite a lot in common with last year’s flagship Oppo Find X3 Pro. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera with the same IMX766 sensor, and the ultrawide is also 50 megapixels but presumably uses a smaller sensor because Realme calls it the “world’s first 150-degree” ultrawide. The results are quite distorted, and Realme leans into this by exaggerating the distortion even further for a dedicated fisheye mode that captures circular images. The third lens in the camera array is a 40x “micro-lens” ultra-macro camera similar to the Find X3 Pro’s, though there’s no ring light. There’s no telephoto camera of any kind.

The GT2 Pro has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor alongside up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The screen is a 1-120Hz 1440p LTPO OLED panel with a much smaller chin than on the previous GT. There’s a 5.000mAh battery that can be fast-charged up to 65W, but unfortunately there’s still no wireless charging, which is something that would hold me back from ranking this alongside other flagship phones.

The Realme GT2 Pro starts at €649 (~$725) in Europe. Realme is also releasing a non-Pro version of the GT2 with a Snapdragon 888, a less extreme 119-degree ultrawide, and a more conventional macro lens, with pricing starting at €449 (~$500).