The megapixel camera race has truly made a comeback for smartphones. But this time, it’s nice to see mid-range phones leading the pack rather than the high-end ones while putting better cameras in the hands of the masses.

On October 26, 2019, Realme fans and media gathered at the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club in Lahore for the launch party of Realme XT #64MPQuadCameraXpert. Celebrities in attendance included Rawalpindi Express Shoaib Akhtar, superstars Ahsan Khan and Nimra Khan among others.

Realme has decided to be first-past-the-post this time around, bringing a whopping 64 MP lens to its quad-camera set on the new Realme XT. The quad-camera set was just seen on the Realme 5 and 5 Pro. That’s quite a slew of devices and lenses from the Chinese brand that has stepped out from under the Oppo umbrella.

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While XT’s nomenclature is like Realme’s ‘flagship’ X, it is much closer in look, feel, specs and operation to the Realme 5 Pro, with the big difference being a 64 MP lens instead of a 48 MP. The drop notch, quad-camera strip on the back, lovely patterns and gradients, are very similar to the 5 Pro.

The Pearl White review unit was a thing of beauty, with light bouncing off and also giving shape to gorgeous patterns on the phone’s back. The way it looks belies its price point and to the uninitiated, this could well look like a phone that is at flagship-level prices. The camera assembly juts out, but there’s a case in the box to do away with that awkwardness. However, the case robs the back of some of its sheen, which is a pity. If you are not butter-fingers, try doing without one if you want to flaunt it.

A remarkable feat in a place where new smartphones are launched nearly every other day and every player wants a slice of the pie, the Realme XT is yet another smartphone from the brand and it comes with a whole new shtick.

A whopping 64MP camera makes it a great buy. The Realme XT is an easy recommendation. Between competent internals, fetching design and the all-new camera, it is one of the best high-end mid-rangers in the market right now. Realme has been pretty good with pushing out quality-of-life updates to hardware, and if the company sticks to it, you can expect image quality and design to improve further.

The smartphone has a quad-camera setup featuring an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, 2MP depth sensor and 2MP macro lens. For selfies, it offers a 16MP Sony IMX 471 sensor up front.

Under the hood runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 712 processor. The phone is powered by a 4,000mAh battery with support for 20W VOOC 3.0 flash charge. Its storage stands at 128GB with an 8GB RAM.

On the software front, it will ship with ColorOS 6 based on Android Pie. Realme has added system-wide dark mode, new fonts, and Android Pie’s ‘Digital Wellbeing’ on the XT.

As it stands, the Realme XT is definitely one to consider if you’re in the market for one of the best high-end smartphones under Rs55,000.