The iQoo 12 was launched in India earlier this week because the nation’s first smartphone outfitted with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. The gamer-focused handset is more likely to set clients’ expectations for telephones arriving with Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line chip within the coming months. iQoo’s earlier flagship fashions have sometimes centered on efficiency, and whereas final 12 months’s iQoo 11 5G debuted with improved digital camera specs, it additionally had the next price ticket than each its predecessor and the brand new iQoo 12.
The mix of those high-end options and a comparatively low worth may make the iQoo 12 a compelling possibility — at the least on paper — if you happen to’re on the lookout for a cellphone with flagship-grade efficiency. Learn on for our evaluate of the cellphone to seek out out if you should purchase this cellphone or watch for different Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered flagship telephones to reach within the coming months.
iQoo 12 worth in India
Pricing for the iQoo 12 begins at Rs. 52,999 for the 12GB RAM + 256GB storage mannequin, and the cellphone can be accessible in a 16GB + 512GB RAM and storage variant that may set you again by Rs. 57,999. The smartphone ships with a clear TPU case, a USB Sort-C to USB Sort-C cable, and a 120W SuperVOOC charging brick.
The cellphone is accessible for buy through Amazon and is available in Alpha and Legend colourways with AG glass and porcelain enamel glass for the rear panels, respectively.
iQoo 12 Assessment: Design
We examined out the iQoo 12 ‘Legend’ evaluate unit with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, which is white in color and has flat metallic sides with curved corners. The rear panel is shiny and feels barely slippery, however the TPU cowl that ships with the cellphone helps you grip it extra successfully whereas stopping it from selecting up fingerprints and smudges.
The digital camera module situated on the left facet of the rear panel is within the form of a rounded sq. surrounded by a metallic ring with a ridged edge. Whereas it is on one facet, it doesn’t make the cellphone wobble when positioned on its again. The iQoo 12 weighs 203.9 grams, and it does not really feel notably heavy, even after holding it for some time.
The show has slim bezels on all sides, and a centre-aligned hole-punch cutout on the high of the display screen homes the selfie digital camera. The cellphone has the BMW Motorsport brand on the backside on the rear panel, but it surely’s very refined, not like the lengthy racing stripe on the iQoo 11 5G. The handset has an IP64 score for mud and splash resistance, which is a primary for this sequence. It means the cellphone ought to be nice if you happen to’re caught open air with some rain.
iQoo 12 Assessment: Specs and software program
The iQoo 12 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor together with the corporate’s in-house Q1 chip that’s used to optimise gaming efficiency. It has a 6.78-inch AMOLED display screen with an under-display fingerprint scanner and is provided with as much as 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and you’ll rise up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage.
The smartphone presents help for 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and NFC connectivity, together with a USB 2.0 Sort-C port for knowledge transfers and charging its 5,000mAh battery. The cellphone ships with a USB Sort-C to USB Sort-C cable and a 120W SuperVOOC charging brick.
The smartphone maker has promised three years of working system and safety updates, adopted by a further 12 months of safety updates for the iQoo 12. The cellphone runs on Google’s newest Android 14 working system, with Vivo’s Funtouch OS 14 operating on high. It is simple to make use of and has options from Android 14, together with lock display screen customisation and Vivo’s enhancements to multitasking, RAM utilization, and movement blur whereas opening and shutting apps.
You may see a couple of preinstalled apps like Netflix, Spotify, Snapchat, Fb, and PhonePe, however these may be uninstalled with a few faucets. Nonetheless, the built-in V-Appstore will repeatedly ship notifications each few hours, prompting you to check out new apps.
The V-Appstore may also ask you to obtain an inventory of apps occasionally — these are pre-selected, and the skip button is not the place you’d anticipate it to be. The shop additionally confirmed a popup to arrange Scorching Apps and Scorching Video games, after which the 2 promotional folders have been seen on the house display screen — each of those may be eliminated manually.
iQoo 12 Assessment: Efficiency
The iQoo 12 is at present probably the most highly effective Android smartphone you should purchase in India on the time of scripting this evaluate. The cellphone can deal with among the most demanding video games like Genshin Influence and Fortnite. Genshin Influence runs on the “Highest” graphics setting, whereas Fortnite runs on the Epic setting at 90fps with the high-resolution textures pack. There was no throttling, lag, or stuttering, even after round 50 minutes of gameplay.
Funtouch OS is optimised for the iQoo 12 and runs easily with none glitches whereas scrolling via the interface. Switching between apps and a number of other apps is feasible with out the OS reloading them. I may leap again into Genshin Influence with out reloading the sport on multiple event — this was after a couple of hours of utilizing different apps and capturing some pictures with the digital camera.
In our benchmark exams, the cellphone scored 1,983,471 factors on AnTuTu v10. That is increased than most different smartphones accessible as we speak — the OnePlus 11 scored 1,189,556 factors on AnTuTu v10 after we reviewed the handset earlier this 12 months. Nonetheless, you do should remember the fact that OnePlus 11 has a QHD+ show whereas the iQoo 12 settles for a full-HD+ panel.
Within the Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core exams, the handset scored 2,225 factors and 6,726 factors, respectively. As soon as once more, these are a lot increased than different telephones accessible as we speak however are decrease than the iPhone 15 Professional with Apple’s A17 Professional chip that scores 2,903 factors within the single-core take a look at and seven,223 factors within the multi-core take a look at.
The cellphone was capable of show content material at 143fps within the GFXBench T-Rex and Manhattan 3.1 exams — it managed 127fps within the GFXBench Automobile Chase benchmark. The iQoo 12 additionally “Maxed Out” 3DMark’s Slingshot, Slingshot Excessive (OpenGL), Wild Life, and Wild Life Limitless benchmarks.
The iQoo 12 sports activities a sizeable 6.78-inch quad-HD (1,260 x 2,800 pixels) LTPO AMOLED show with a 144Hz refresh fee and a 1,200Hz prompt contact sampling fee. The show — with a claimed peak brightness of 1,400 nits (3,000 nits in excessive brightness mode) — is evident, and hues are displayed precisely if you happen to allow the pure show mode.
The show will get fairly shiny in auto brightness mode, particularly whenever you’re open air in shiny daylight. When it is darkish, the cellphone will get fairly dim with 2,160Hz pulse width modulation (PWM) dimming help. Contact response is superb, and you will not have points whereas enjoying video games like Name of Obligation: Cellular or Battlegrounds Cellular India. The cellphone is provided with stereo audio system that get fairly loud, with minimal distortion.
The iQoo 12 is provided with a 5,000mAh battery that may be charged at 120W, and we have been capable of cost the cellphone from 0 to 100 in beneath half-hour (28 minutes on common). In our HD video loop take a look at, the cellphone managed 19 hours and 25 minutes on a single cost, which is common for a cellphone on this phase. Regardless of the highly effective processor on the cellphone, it lasts for a bit of greater than a day with a mixture of gaming, shopping the net and social media, and recording images and movies.
iQoo 12 Assessment: Cameras
There are three rear cameras on the iQoo 12 — a 50-megapixel main digital camera with a 1/1.3-inch sensor with optical picture stabilisation (OIS), a 64-megapixel (OIS) periscope telephoto digital camera with 3x optical zoom and a 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle digital camera with a 120-degree field-of-view. There is a 16-megapixel selfie digital camera on the entrance with an f/2.5 aperture.
The digital camera interface on the iQoo 12 with Funtouch OS 14 is straightforward to make use of, and a lot of the settings and choices are simply accessible with a couple of faucets. Some options are tucked away into the interface, however the app will robotically recommend completely different digital camera modes relying on the scene. You may as well use a slider to maneuver between digital camera modes. Photographs shot with the first digital camera are clear, and hues are principally correct, and the digital camera performs greatest in conditions with ample lighting.
The portrait mode on the first digital camera tends to default to f/1.4, so that you may need to set it to f/4.5 or a bit of increased for higher outcomes.
The 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle digital camera is the least succesful among the many trio on the iQoo 12. Whereas it’s able to capturing a number of element, it could possibly’t seize colors as precisely as the first digital camera. It additionally tends to overexpose the sky throughout the day. There aren’t any points with warping across the edges.
I discovered myself stepping backwards and taking pictures with the first digital camera as an alternative of counting on the ultra-wide-angle digital camera on multiple event. This digital camera doesn’t let in sufficient gentle in low gentle situations, and pictures captured are fairly darkish — another excuse to make use of the extra succesful main digital camera as an alternative.
However, the telephoto digital camera is sort of spectacular when capturing pictures at as much as 10x — even 30, if in case you have regular arms. The digital camera app has a horizontal slider that permits you to choose customized zoom values, and you’ll start to see stabilisation points as you zoom previous 30x.
There is a useful preview that reveals you which ones a part of the scene you are zooming in on. Pushing the digital camera as much as 100x digital zoom requires using a tripod, and the ultimate shot seems to be a bit of overprocessed and smoothened, however you may clearly establish the topic.
The portrait mode within the digital camera app has 1x, 2x, and 3x modes. The primary two use the first digital camera, whereas the third one makes use of the telephoto digital camera. The latter offers glorious portrait pictures of individuals and pets, with simply the correct amount of bokeh — though you may as well alter this for portrait pictures clicked with the first digital camera utilizing the inbuilt gallery app.
In low gentle eventualities, the smartphone makes use of the first digital camera for each 1x and 3x pictures (digitally cropped), whereas throughout the day, it switches to the telephoto for the latter. The digital camera prompts you to change to the built-in evening mode, however solely pictures captured utilizing the first digital camera (1x zoom) are price utilizing. Zooming in additional produces blurry images with little or no element — we took these pictures with a tripod.
The telephoto digital camera additionally permits a helpful Tremendous Macro mode that takes extraordinarily detailed pictures. Selfies clicked with the iQoo 12 are fairly clear, and pores and skin tones are principally correct, however you must manually disable the pores and skin smoothening possibility that was enabled by default. You are in all probability higher off counting on the rear digital camera and a tripod if you wish to document a video of your self, because it had some points with focus and publicity when transferring from brightly centered areas to dim areas and vice versa.
The first digital camera can document as much as 4K at 60fps with OIS, whereas 8K recording is capped at 30fps, and there is no OIS on this mode. Movies shot in daylight with the iQoo 12 are clean and do not need any tearing or artefacts, and stabilisation works as anticipated when recording at as much as 4K at 60fps. In low-light conditions, it is best to document at 1x with the built-in Evening Mode — it helps digital zoom as much as 3x utilizing the identical main sensor.
The digital camera app features a movement autofocus function that may be set to auto or guide — the auto mode labored nicely in my expertise. You’ll be able to’t swap between entrance and rear cameras when you begin recording. There’s additionally a useful microphone selector device tucked away within the settings part that lets you select among the many cellphone’s microphone, an exterior microphone related utilizing the USB Sort-C port, or one related through Bluetooth.
iQoo 12 Assessment: Verdict
On the time of scripting this evaluate, the iQoo 12 is the one smartphone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip you could purchase in India. It at present competes with the OnePlus 11, the Samsung Galaxy S23 FE, and the iPhone 13. All 4 smartphones are outfitted with completely different processors and provide various quantities of software program help.
After we reviewed the iQoo 11 5G, we really useful that its predecessor (the iQoo 9 Professional — Assessment) supplied a greater digital camera setup at a cheaper price, because the iQoo 11 5G was launched at Rs. 59,999. Earlier this week, the iQoo 11 5G worth was lowered to Rs. 51,999, whereas a financial institution low cost brings the worth right down to Rs. 49,999.
Nonetheless, that is the identical worth you could purchase the brand new iQoo 12 in India, if you happen to avail of eligible financial institution card presents. Even at its MRP of Rs. 52,999, it presents significantly better worth than its predecessor, contemplating it’ll have an extended software program help window.
When you’re trying to purchase a smartphone with a robust processor in addition to a dependable digital camera, then the iQoo 12 is a good possibility to think about at its present worth level. The Samsung Galaxy S23 FE (Assessment) is provided with an Exynos 2200 chip, so it will not be capable to match the iQoo 12 in efficiency — but it surely does not show promotional content material — whereas the iPhone 13 (Assessment) does not have a telephoto digital camera, however presents higher ultra-wide-angle digital camera images and low gentle pictures.
You may as well take into account the OnePlus 11, which has a triple rear digital camera setup, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, which also needs to be able to dealing with high-end video games and heavy duties. It is also price contemplating that whereas the OnePlus 11 (Assessment) does not have a periscope telephoto digital camera just like the iQoo 11, the low gentle pictures beats iQoo’s flagship cellphone — which is sort of subpar on this regard — by a substantial extent.
Must you purchase the iQoo 12 as we speak? It is determined by whether or not you merely need to buy a cellphone with the newest chipset. If that is the case, you may watch for a couple of weeks earlier than new telephones with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — just like the OnePlus 12 — make their debut in India, however going by the worth of their predecessors, the pricing for these telephones is unlikely to match the iQoo 12 when they’re launched within the nation.