iQOO launched its iQOO 11 smartphone in India last month as the country’s first phone to be powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. This is the upgraded version of the iQOO 9T that has several upgrades right from display, SoC, battery, and what not. Is this the best phone in the market in the 60K price range? Let use dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO 11 16GB + 256GB version in Legend colour
- Clear Silicon case
- USB Type-C Cable
- 120W Super FlashCharge wall adapter
- SIM ejector tool
- Quick start guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The iQOO 11 sports a 6.78-inch (3200 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD+ 20:9 aspect ratio E6 AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate. The display is bright, thanks to, up to 1800 nits brightness and the colour output good as well since it has 1.07 billion colors, and the sunlight legibility is good as well.
You can select between 1080p and 2K display options. The 144Hz refresh rate, 300Hz touch sampling rate and 1200Hz instant touch sampling rate offer a smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming.
You can select from standard (default), professional and bright screen colour modes. You can select smart switch or force it to 60Hz or 144Hz. Visual enhancement optimizes the color and contrast of some pictures for more vivid display effects, says the company.
It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube and Netflix. The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule. It doesn’t consume a lot of power since this is an AMOLED screen, but the company says that it increases the power consumption. The screen has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus protection.
The phone has a 16MP front camera inside the notch. There is an earpiece on the top edge which also works as a secondary speaker.
You can also notice a small bezel below the screen. The haptic feedback is good as well, thanks to the Dual X-Axis Linear Motors.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left side, so you just see the antenna band. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom and the secondary microphone is present on the top along with the IR blaster. The phone doesn’t have an expandable storage. It has a metal frame with a matte finish. Since it weighs 208 grams, it is a bit heavy.
The Alpha version has a glass back with an all-black look. The Legend version that we have has a vegan leather finish with BMW stripes with the iQOO branding. It doesn’t officially have an IP rating.
Camera
- 50MP camera with 1/1.57″ Samsung GN5 sensor, f/1.88 aperture, OIS
- 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 13MP 2x telephoto camera with f/2.46 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI is the same as other phones running Funtouch OS. It includes several features such as AR stickers, Pro Sports mode, double exposure, dual view, 50MP mode and more. Even though the phone has a 50MP rear camera, the final output is 12.5MP in size after pixel binning, and the front camera output is 16MP. There is vivo’s self-developed V2 chip for Real-Time Extreme Night Vision
Coming to the camera quality, the daylight shots are good, and it is recommended to enable HDR option which automatically switches on HDR according to the shot, so that the dynamic range is good. The camera can focus quickly. The 8MP ultra-wide camera is just average compared to the 13MP camera in the iQOO 9T, and it also loses the macro option.
There is also a 13MP portrait camera that offers 2X zoom. You can adjust the aperture manually in the portrait mode for the best background blur. Low-light images are good. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization. There is also a new supermoon mode with up to 30x zoom, compared to 20x in the normal mode. It is decent for the price, but there are less details since it is digital zoom.
The 16MP camera is good in daylight, and the front camera portrait is decent as well, but it is not the best when it comes to low-light.
Check out some camera samples below
It can record videos at 4k resolution at up to 60 fps from the rear camera and the front camera supports 1080p 30 fps recording. There is also a night video mode option. It has standard and ultra stabilization, but the resolution is down to 1080p in ultra option since it crops the content. OIS does a good job in stabilization. Wish it had the gimbal stabilization. It also lacks HDR video recording.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 13 with Funtouch OS 13 on top. It has Android security patch for January 2023. Like the previous flagship, the iQOO 11 also gets 3 years of Android OS updates and 4 years of security updates.
Funtouch OS 13 brings new personalization options, privacy and security measures, and control functions for a smoother, uninterrupted experience.
Out of 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM about 14.92GB is usable, out of which 10GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 8GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage, 219GB is free out of the box. We got about 3533.56MBps sequential read speed on Android Bench.
Since the phone has an IR blaster, it comes with a Smart Remote apps. Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with a lot of apps such as Facebook, Spotify, Byjus, LinkedIn, Netflix, and Snapchat. These apps can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. There are different animation styles that display when you unlock, which you can disable. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music and Multimedia
The default Music Player also has equalizer and DeepField sound effects. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. There is audio super resolution, and super audio features. Audio through the stereo speakers is crisp and loud, and it is better than the 9T. The speaker quality is one of the best in the range. Audio through the headphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. It also supports HDR playback on Netflix and YouTube.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for (SA: n1/n3/n5/n8/n28/n40/n41/n77/n78) / (NSA: n28/n1/n3/n40/n41/n77/n78) bands, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.3, GPS + GLONASS and NFC support. It also has USB OTG support. The phone also has 4G+ carrier aggregation. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.
The iQOO 11’s body SAR is 0.97W/Kg and head SAR is at 1.23/Kg which is slightly high compared to some mid-range phones, but it well under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is one of the first phones to launch in India with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform. It has a new 1 + 4 + 3 microarchitecture that uses 1 x Kryo Prime Arm Cortex-X3-based CPU at up to 3.2GHz, 4 x Kryo Performance CPUs that has 2 x A710-based and 2 x A715-based CPUs at up to 2.8GHz and 4x Kryo Efficiency A510-based CPUs at up to 2GHz.
It is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. It promises 35% performance improvements and 40% improved power efficiency. The phone has 24768 mm² total heat dissipation area in which 4013 mm² is the VC cooling area.
There is self-developed intelligent temperature sensing algorithm combined with temperature sensors can detect and monitor the temperature in real time at different locations and at different times, says the company.
We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached maximum 41º in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, but this might vary outdoors in 5G.
For the gamers, it has In-Display Dual Monster Touch which, so the screen is divided into left and right areas with L and R keys, assisting in pressing any operating position, easily triggering the mapping in the game, and two fingers are better than four fingers while playing the heavy battle games Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) battery, which is slightly bigger than the 4700mAh battery in the predecessor. It can easily last for a day with heavy use and for 2 days with typical use with 4G enabled and multimedia, thanks to the optimization. However, it might drain slightly faster in 5G.
I got over 5 and half hours of screen on time with 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use in Full HD model with Smart refresh rate. Since the phone has support for 120W fast charging, it can charge from 0 to 50% in about 10 minutes and up to 100% in about 25 minutes.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 59,999, the iQOO 11 is good, but a premium price to pay even though it ticks almost all the boxes. Wish the company had launched a cheaper 128GB model. Even though there is an upgrade in the display, SoC, and the battery, the main camera remains the same, and there is a downgrade in the ultra-wide camera compared to the iQOO 9T.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO 11 is priced at Rs. 59,999 for the 8GB + 256GB model and the 16GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 64,999. It is available from iQOO.com and from Amazon.in. There is flat Rs.5000 Instant Discount on ICICI/HDFC Credit and Debit cards and EMI.
Alternatives
The latest OnePlus 11 5G is a direct competitor with a better camera, and a cheaper model. We can expect the upcoming moto X40 to be cheaper, and there will also be the Xiaomi 13 Pro that will launch later this month.
Pros
- 144Hz Quad HD+ E6 AMOLED HDR display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Loud Stereo speakers
- Good main camera
- Solid build with metal frame
- Good battery life with 120W fast charging
Cons
- 8MP ultra-wide camera
- No IP ratings
- A lot of preloaded apps