Yes it is a real manual... just automated sort of. It still is constructed like a manual, still has a clutch. But, all you do is let off the throttle (if you want your clutch to last) pull the lever to the right to upshift, and put your foot back down. From the driver's seat, yes, it does seem like just a tiptronic when you are looking at it. But, it's not. In a nutshell, a tiptronic is an automatic transmission shifted manually and an SMG is a manual transmission shifted semi-automatically or fully automatically if you put it in auto mode. But don't because it does a far worse job than you can. If you drive an SMG car, you can feel it let out the clutch off the line and it actually will roll if your foots not on the brake, at least in the early E46 SMG M3s. Those are the only ones I have driven yet.