If you regularly find your phone’s battery indicator is showing red just as you’re about to leave the house, Realme may have just unveiled the handset of your dreams.
The Chinese manufacturer has just taken the wraps off the GT Neo 5, a new smartphone which Realme claims has the fastest charging rate on the market. According to GSM Arena (opens in new tab), the smartphone is able to fully replenish from zero juice in just nine and a half minutes, thanks to its support for 240W fast charging.
If you’re in need of a quick blast before rushing to get that morning train, the GT Neo 5 can hit 20 percent in a mere 80 seconds, with the 4,600mAh battery reaching half capacity in a minuscule four minutes.
The 240W fast charging tech appears to be the same as what was shown off by Realme’s sister brand Oppo at last year’s Mobile World Congress expo, but which has so far failed to appear on any of the latter brand’s smartphones.
Featuring an eye-catching design with a glowing rectangle on the back, the new phone isn’t short on other features either, with an equally speedy Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 CPU and a tasty 6.74-inch 10-bit, 2772 x 1240 resolution AMOLED screen which boasts a 144Hz refresh rate.
The main camera on the back has a 50MP 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX890 sensor, while the punch-hole selfie camera has a 16MP Samsung sensor, with the device running on Android 13 with Realme’s UI 4.0 overlay on top.
The bad news is that the Realme GT Neo 5 is currently only scheduled to be available in China for now, with no confirmed road map for a worldwide release.
The device is set to come in two configurations, with a “slower” 150W charging option with a larger 5,000mAh battery set to be priced at 2,599 yuan (around $383 / £315 ) with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
The lightning-quick 240W version is unsurprisingly the more premium offering of the two, with prices starting at 3,199 yuan (around $472 / £390) for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
Analysis: A glimpse into a fast-charging future
Disregarding the fact that the GT Neo 5 is likely to have a wall wart that’s certain to take up more space in your rucksack than that conveniently dinky 2.5V charger you’re currently using, the advent of 240W fast charging has us massively excited.
Juicing up at these speeds is of course, only meaningful when actual battery life is solid, so we’re fascinated to see how that 4,600mAh pack manages to hold up with what looks like a power hungry processor and screen.
If the phone can pair energy efficiency with those hugely impressive charging times, the Realme GT Neo 5 is likely to rank among the best phones out there. We’ll bring you all the details when the phone is released later this year.
