3 days ago
Realme GT 7 Goes Premium With Aston Martin Partnership
Realme GT 7 Dream Edition
Ben Sin
I've been covering the mobile brand Realme since the company first got its start in 2018. At the time a sub-brand spun off from Chinese tech giant Oppo, Realme focused on manufacturing very affordable handsets that performed far better than the price tag would suggest.
In the last few years, Realme has slowly moved into the flagship handset space, and at a launch event in Paris on Tuesday, Realme has gone full premium with a special edition phone made in collaboration with British luxury sports car maker Aston Martin.
The GT 7 Dream Edition
Realme
Named the GT 7 Dream Edition, the €900 (about $1,019) phone features the largest battery in a conventional smartphone yet — 7,000 mAh — and is powered by the just-announced MediaTek Dimensity 9400e, a 4nm silicon that sits second in the pecking order of the Taiwan silicon maker's chipset collection.
Despite the gigantic 7,000 mAh battery, the phone measures only 8.3mm and weighs 206g, that's the same thickness as the best iPhone, and 20g lighter. The best iPhone (Pro Max), by the way, only packs a 4,685 mAh battery.
Realme GT 7 6.8-inch OLED display
Ben Sin
How did Realme manage to cram such a large battery in a thin body? It is using new silicon-carbon battery tech that is more energy dense than conventional lithium-ion battery. This battery tech has already made its debut in devices from Realme's former parent brand, Oppo.
The phone also has a back plate crafted out of a combination of glass and graphene, the latter material helps keep the phone lighter and cooler.
This back plate is also where most of the Aston Martin design comes into play: there's the silver wing logo, of course, but also a two-tone design with lines painted on the side to resemble aerodynamic wings.
The device also comes a premium packaging with customized phone case and SIM ejection tool.
The SIM Ejection tool
Realme
The display is also top notch, a 6.8-inch OLED panel with refresh rate up to 120Hz, and a triple camera system rounds out the rest of the hardware.
If you don't care about the Aston Martin branding but find the phone's hardware intriguing, there's a standard Realme GT 7 that retails for about $700 that has the same internal components including the new silicon and large battery.
Chinese phone brands teaming up with iconic luxury European brands for special edition phones are nothing new, but previously, these partnerships came from huge brands like Huawei and Xiaomi. Realme, jumping into the fray shows it is looking to level up and not be seen as a budget phone maker anymore.
