240W fast charging will charge this smartphone fully in under 10 minutes

In practical terms, we’re really hitting the point of diminishing returns with fast charging wattage this high on smartphones. Realme advertises that the GT Neo 5’s 4,600mAh battery can be charged to 100 percent in nine and a half minutes thanks to its 240W charging. That’s super fast, but it’s also basically the same as what Redmi was claiming the 210W charging on the Note 12 Discovery Edition could achieve last year (although admittedly it has a slightly smaller 4,300mAh battery). If you’re after a partial charge, Realme’s new phone can hit 20 percent in 80 seconds, and 50 percent in four minutes.

Here’s an onstage demo of the RealMe GT Neo 5’s fast-charging in action:

Realme is owned by BBK Electronics, the same company that owns Oppo and OnePlus. Oppo actually showed off a 240W fast-charging solution at Mobile World Congress 2022, which this new Realme phone is presumably using. 240W fast charging is yet to appear in a commercialized Oppo or OnePlus phone.

The Realme GT Neo 5 has only been announced for the Chinese market for now, where it’ll actually be sold in a couple of different charging configurations. The 240W version is, as you’d expect, the more expensive of the two. Prices start at 3,199 yuan (around $472) for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. There’s also a version with “slower” 150W charging, though interestingly it has a slightly larger 5,000mAh battery. The 150W model starts at 2,599 yuan (around $383) with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. 

Beyond its fast charging, the GT Neo 5 is also notable for having interesting RGB lighting on its rear. It doesn’t cover the whole of the backside like the Nothing Phone 1’s glyph interface, but the small square to the right of its cameras serves a similar purpose as a notification light, and can also turn red to warn you when the phone’s battery is low. 

Otherwise, the GT Neo 5 is a fairly standard Android device. It has a 6.74-inch 1240p 144Hz OLED display, and runs last year’s flagship Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1. There are three rear cameras, but while the main sensor is 50 megapixels, the ultrawide is only 8 megapixels in resolution, and the macro sensor is limited to just 2 megapixels. It’s available in white, black, or purple.

There’s no word yet on international availability and pricing, but with Mobile World Congress set to take place in just a couple of week’s time in Barcelona, I wouldn’t be surprised if we heard more then. Based on Realme’s previous releases, however, I’m not expecting the phone to get an official release in North America.