iQOO launched its iQOO 12 smartphone in India last week as the country’s first phone to be powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. This has several upgrades from the iQOO 11, and the price has also been reduced from the last year’s flagship. Is this the best flagship phone in the market in the 50K price range? Let use dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO 12 16GB + 512GB 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 12 sports a 6.78-inch (2800 × 1260 pixels) 1.5K 20:9 aspect ratio LTPO AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate. The screen has up to 1400 nits brightness in HBM mode, up to 3000 nits peak brightness, so the sunlight legibility is good. The colour output good as well since it has 1.07 billion colors.
You can select between 1080p and 1.5K 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. There is also MEMC and super resolution for improved frame rate and resolution in some apps like YouTube, Netflix and Prime video.
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 phone has a 16MP front camera inside the notch, same as the iQOO 11. 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.
It has a metal frame with a bit of glossy finish, so it attracts fingerprints. It weighs 203.9 grams, which is a bit heavy since it packs a 5000mAh battery, but it is about 4 grams lighter than the iQOO 11 that has the same size of display and battery. The weight distribution is good.
The Legend version that we have has BMW’s tricolor patterns that embody the ultimate pursuit of performance and control, according to the company.
The Alpha version in Black has a finish of dust sparkling under the sunlight, says the company. This time there is no vegan leather version, which is available only in the Red edition that is not available in India for now. It has IP64 ratings for dust and splash resistance, which is a good addition, even though it lacks IP68 ratings.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with Omnivision OV50H sensor, f/1.68 aperture, OIS
- 50MP 150° ultra-wide-angle camera with Samsung JN1 sensor, f/2.0 aperture
- 64MP 3x telephoto camera with f/2.57 aperture, Omnivision OV64B sensor, OIS, up to 100x digital zoom
- 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, long exposure, 50MP mode, supermoon, astro, fisheye 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.
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 50MP ultra-wide camera is a major improvement compared to 8MP in the iQOO 11, and there is also a macro option. This offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning.
There is also a new 64MP portrait camera that offers 3X zoom, again a major improvement compared to 13MP 2x telephoto in the iQOO 11. You can adjust the aperture manually in the portrait mode for the best background blur. Low-light images has also improved, but there is noise when you zoom in. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization. There is also supermoon mode with up to 100x zoom, same as the normal mode, and the astro mode uses GPS to location constellations around you.
The same old 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 8k resolution at up to 30 fps, and 4k resolution at up to 60 fps from the rear camera and the front camera supports 1080p 30 fps recording. This doesn’t have a night video mode option since it lacks V2 chip, which was present in the iQOO 11. 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. It lacks HDR video recording.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 14 with Funtouch OS 14 on top. It has Android security patch for November 2023. Like the previous flagship, the iQOO 12 also gets 3 years of Android OS updates and 4 years of security updates.
Funtouch OS 14 brings Smooth Experience, Visual Smoothness, Enhanced Multitasking, improved Personalization, including custom Kinetic wallpapers, custom lock screen clock style with three layout styles and eight font styles.
Out of 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM about 14.91GB is usable, out of which 10GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 16GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage, 460GB is free out of the box.
Since the phone has an IR blaster, it comes with a Smart Remote app. Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with a lot of apps such as Facebook, Spotify, PhonePe, 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. 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/n7/n8/n28A/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78) / (NSA: n1/n3/n7/n8/n28A/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78) bands, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7 802.11be (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, GPS + GLONASS and NFC support. It also has USB OTG support. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.
The iQOO 12’s body SAR is 0.806W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.994/Kg which is less than the iQOO 11, and is way under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone to launch in India with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform. It has a new 1-5-2 microarchitecture that uses 1 x Kryo Prime CPU (Arm Cortex-X4 based) at up to 3.3GHz, 5 x Kryo Performance CPUs (3 x Arm Cortex-A720 at up to 3.2GHz and 3 x Arm Cortex-A720 based at up to 3GHz), 2x Kryo Efficiency CPUs (Arm Cortex-A520 based) at up to 2.3GHz.
It is fabricated using the TSMC 4nm Process Technology, same as Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It promises 30% performance improvements and 20% improved power efficiency. The phone has the largest, 6010 mm² ultra-large VC vapor chamber in iQOO’s history, 40% more than the iQOO 11 and has 11 temperature sensors to monitor the temperature changes of the entire device in real time.
The phone has Q1 Self-developed chip that offers frame sensing technology, real-time monitoring of load, precise scheduling and distribution, and matching large, medium and small cores for game threads with different load requirements, 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 42º in our testing indoors in 5G, but this might vary outdoors.
For the gamers, it has Super-resolution brings increased contrast, higher overall clarity, and improved sharpness of edges of people. It helps to achieve resolution at 900P in some games, says the company. The game frame interpolation of 144FPS in games. Super Computing chip helps to achieve ultra low latency even with the high frame rate games.
The Motion control is added in the Ultra Game Mode, together with 6 motion control options (left hand lifting, right hand lifting, left leaning, right leaning, horizontal forward pressing and horizontal backward pressing) and corresponding illustrations.
As you can see, it is on the top of the benchmark charts. A17 Pro-powered iPhone 15 Pro Max is slightly better when it comes to CPU benchmarks.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) battery, which is same as the iQOO 11. It can easily last for a day with heavy use, thanks to the optimization. This time, you can also see the battery capacity.
I got about 4 and half hours of screen on time with 1 and half days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use with Smart refresh rate. This is less compared to iQOO 11 which lasted for 2 days and one more hour of screen on time.
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. You will have to enable fast charging option if you want to reduce the charging time, but the phone get a bit hot. It doesn’t have wireless charging support.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 52,999, the iQOO 12 is a perfect all-rounder that ticks almost all the boxes. Even though the display resolution is down from 2K to 1.5K, this is still good, and the camera sees a huge improvement. Wish the front camera had also been improved, and the battery capacity could have been increased.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO 12 is priced at Rs. 53,999 for the 12GB + 256GB model and the 16GB + 512GB model costs Rs. 57,999. It is available from Amazon.in and iQOO.com. There is flat Rs. 2000 Instant Discount on ICICI/HDFC Credit and Debit cards and EMI.
Alternatives
The OnePlus 12 that is launching in India next month should be a good competitor, but is expected to be priced more. We can expect the upcoming realme GT5 Pro to be cheaper, and there will also be the Xiaomi 14 series.
Pros
- 144Hz 1.5K AMOLED HDR display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Good cameras
- Solid build with IP64 ratings
- Decent battery life with 120W fast charging
Cons
- Same old 16MP front camera with 1080p video recording
- A lot of preloaded apps
- No vegan leather option