iQOO smartphones are steadily becoming the hot favourites for the gaming community. The iQOO Neo 9 Pro, the newest flagship killer smartphone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 CPU, was sent to us for review. It retails for Rs 37,999. We were astounded by this phone’s performance considering its price. An LTPO AMOLED screen with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz is included on the smartphone. The phone has two rear cameras, one of which is a 50-megapixel main lens attached to a Sony sensor. We will discuss everything in detail, both the positive and the negative, so let’s check out this device’s experience. This is our in-depth iQOO Neo 9 Pro review.
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iQOO Neo 9 Pro Review: Design and Display
After more than two weeks of use, we can tell with certainty that the design immediately draws your attention. It has a dual-tone vegan leather finish, and lovely stitching along the length of the device from top to bottom. The mobile is made even more beautiful by the vibrant red colour used on the frame’s sides.
Despite it being incredibly thin and lighter, its build quality and finish are superb. Also, the distribution of weight is extremely balanced. The device is fairly comfortable to carry around and its faux leather surface provides a nice overall grip. Because of this we are glad there won’t be any fingerprints or smudges on the phone makes us happy. Two colours are available: the Fiery Red colour variant and the Conqueror Black version with AG glass protection. Over that, the gadget is splash and dust-resistant with an IP54 rating.
The phone’s two vertically arranged camera sensors are mounted separately, together with an LED flashlight. On the left side of the frame are power sensors and volume rockers. A SIM tray, USB-C port, speaker, and microphone are located at the bottom. One nano SIM card and one Micro SD card or two nano SIM cards can fit in the SIM tray.
The 6.78-inch 1.5K LTPO AMOLED display of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has a resolution of 1,260×2,800 pixels. The refresh rate of the panel rises to 144Hz during gaming, from 120Hz during regular use. The screen also features iQOO’s Wet Touch technology, which lets users perform certain tasks with moist fingertips.
A 16-megapixel selfie camera is situated just above the screen. Additionally, the side bezels are minimal, which enhances the whole experience.
Keep in mind that while the 120Hz refresh rate is excellent for everyday use, the 144Hz refresh rate is available for gaming. Additionally, the phone supports HDR10+. The colour reproduction is sharp, colourful, and vivid. The UI also has the desperately needed smoothness thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate. It is effortless and much more enjoyable while browsing through your preferred social media platform, such as Instagram.
When we tested the IQOO phone outdoors, it appeared incredibly clear, bright, and crisp, living up to its 3,000 nits of peak brightness claim. Then, we also have an excellent in-display fingerprint scanner that does a great job.
It’s a lot of pleasure to watch shows and movies since the content is visually stunning. The content appears much better because HDR support is there. You may stream full-resolution videos from apps like Netflix and Amazon Prime by having Widevine L1 certification. Additionally, we played YouTube HDR videos, and they streamed well at 4K quality without any lag. Additionally, MMC support allows for incredibly smooth video playback, which is also quite amazing.
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Unfortunately, though, Dolby Vision support is not available; we would have appreciated this feature. But other than that, the display quality of the device is pretty good.
There are two stereo speakers on the phone. The earpiece functions as a secondary speaker in addition to the single bottom-firing speaker. We therefore initially believed that, because we have one down-firing speaker and one front-firing speaker, the audio would not be very well balanced. However, iQOO has produced a level of sound quality that is truly remarkable. The speakers are clear, loud and provide an immersive experience, particularly while viewing an action movie.
iQOO Neo 9 Pro Review: Performance and Cameras
Performance-wise, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile processor powers the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. With its powerful processing prowess, the chipset can quickly manage all of your daily chores, including using apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and other common ones.
Our device has 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage, allowing for an expansion of up to 8GB of virtual RAM, for a total of 20GB RAM. The application launches almost instantly and greatly improves the speed of multitasking. The best thing is that most recently used apps continue to run faster because they are still stored in memory.
After that, we even played BGMI, proving how much we enjoy using iQOO devices’ Ultra Game Mode for gaming. Overall, the gaming experience was quite fluid, and the unit hardly heated up even after an hour of gameplay. There were no lags or dropped frames that we noticed. A 144Hz refresh rate makes for an excellent gaming experience. For those who enjoy gaming, this is undoubtedly one of the better sub-Rs 40,000 machines.
Regarding the user interface (UI), it comes pre-installed with FuntouchOS 14 and the most recent version of Android 14. The programme is incredibly well-optimized; we had no app crashes or lags. Sure, some apps come pre-installed, but the good news is that you can uninstall them via the settings. The majority of the undesirable third-party programmes are also removable. Three years of software upgrades and four years of security patches are what the company guarantees.
The iQOO Neo 9 Pro has two rear cameras: an 8-megapixel OmniVision OV08D10 ultrawide-angle camera with an f/2.2 aperture and a 50-megapixel 1/1.49-inch Sony IMX920 sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS) and an f/1.88 aperture. A 16-megapixel Samsung S5K3P9SP04-FGX9 sensor with an f/2.5 aperture is available for taking selfies.
The camera system is excellent, especially for taking pictures in the daytime. The colour and picture quality for a phone under 30K is remarkable. The sensor is amazing at capturing details, offering good dynamic range, sharpness, and detail. You can share any of these photos straight to your social media accounts because they haven’t been edited.
The colours are more vibrant since we selected the vivid mode, but you may also use the natural mode to make it look more realistic. A normal photograph gains the much-needed punch from the Vivid mode. However, as you can see, iQOO excels in portrait photography, producing stunning bokeh with flawless edge detection. This equipment captures incredibly detailed and sharp close-ups.
The nighttime photos show a lot of details which are still visible despite the extreme darkness, without noise and blurriness. We were taken aback by the ultra wide-angle camera’s quality, which was almost identical to that of the main camera. We were rather pleased with the results of the selfie camera, which also performed fairly well. We can’t complain because the skin tone is so excellent and clear.
At this price range, 4K at 60 frames per second video recording is also acceptable with OIS support. Because of OIS, handheld videos have an excellent level of clarity and stability. Overall, then, we would conclude that the iQOO Neo 9 Pro’s cameras are good.
When it comes to the battery, it boasts the 5,160mAh industry standard battery that will easily get you through a full day, even with heavy usage. For light use, you can extend it up to two days. For a phone at this price, the 120W SuperVOOC charging brick that comes in the box is quite impressive.
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Verdict
The build quality and design are unquestionably very high-end, and pleasant to hold in the hand. We find the iQOO Neo 9 Pro’s design to be rather satisfactory. The device’s performance is excellent, particularly for those seeking the best value within the Rs 37,999 price range.
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In terms of game performance, it excelled. You won’t be disappointed with the iQOO Neo 9 Pro’s gaming capabilities. Get the iQOO Neo 9 Pro if you enjoy taking portraits; you won’t be sorry. This iQOO device has an amazing camera system that takes great pictures at any moment and excels at taking portraits. Right now, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is arguably the easiest phone to suggest thanks to its excellent performance, remarkable battery life, and price under Rs 37,999.
