iQOO Z7 5G was launched as an India-exclusive smartphone last month and has been an instant hit in the country. The Z7 achieved the highest single-day sales on Amazon for any smartphone in its category. Available in two RAM variants (6GB and 8GB), prices for the iQOO Z7 start at Rs 18,999. The 8GB variant fetches Rs 19,999. After availing certain bank offers, the iQOO Z7 is available for as low as Rs 17,499. So, what does iQOO Z7 have in store for us? Is it going to uphold the value-for-money reputation that iQOO has got going for itself? Find out in our iQOO Z7 5G review.
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iQOO Z7 5G review: Design and Display
iQOO Z7 comes in the signature black iQOO box with slanted slits along the sides. Inside the box, you will find the smartphone, a clear plastic case, a 44W power adapter, a USB Type-C cable, a SIM ejector tool, a quick start guide, and a warranty card. The clear plastic case is good enough to protect the smartphone from minor bumps. Z7 is available in two colour options – Norway Blue and Pacific Night.
For a smartphone priced under Rs 20,000, iQOO Z7 has a surprisingly good form factor. The flat back panel along with the flat edges of the frame offer a good in-hand feel. The metallic finish keeps the device from feeling too plastic-y. With a thickness of just 7.8mm, the Z7 is one of the slimmest phones you can buy in this category. The back panel reflects different colours when light strikes it at different angles. While it is certainly unique, some may find it tacky.
On the top edge of the frame, you will find the hybrid SIM tray and the secondary microphone. The primary microphone, 3.5mm headphone jack, USB Type-C port, and speaker grille are positioned on the bottom edge of the frame. The volume rocker keys and power button make their way to the right side of the phone. The left edge has been left buttonless. The camera panel at the back flaunts a two-step design and exudes a whole lot of personality.
Impressive form factor aside, the star of the show is the brilliant 6.38-inch AMOLED display. This display is one of the major reasons behind Z7’s instant success in the market and we can totally see why. First up, you get HDR support, which makes watching content on this smartphone an absolute delight. The 1080 x 2400 resolution packs in a lot of detail. A peak brightness of 1,300 nits ensures you dont have to cover the display with your palm under direct sunlight. 90Hz refresh rate is optimum for a smartphone in this category. You also get an under-display finger sensor which performs very well but could’ve been placed slightly higher.
What we don’t like about the front panel is the waterdrop notch for the selfie camera and thick bezels around the chin of the smartphone. In 2023, a smartphone in this price segment should sport a punch-hole cutout and slim bezels. Other than that, there is not much to complain about the design. An IP57 rating is good enough for a smartphone priced at Rs 19,000, but certainly far from ideal. While the Z7 can handle minor water splashes but things may get dicey if the phone takes an accidental dip and isn’t recovered right away.
iQOO Z7 5G: Performance and Cameras
The iQOO Z7 comes with a fixed storage capacity of 128GB and variable RAM options of 6GB and 8GB. We used the latter for this review. You can expand the storage to 1TB using a micro SD card. Powering the smartphone is the 2.5GHz MediaTek Dimensity 920 Octa-core SoC. OS duties are handled by Android 13 which is skinned by Vivo’s Funtouch 13 OS.
MediaTek Dimensity 920 is a better processor than the Snapdragon 695 found on the Z6. iQOO’s Z series is favoured by gamers in this price range, mainly because the company doesn’t compromise on the chipset. When it comes to general usage, there is not much to complain about the Z7. During our time with the phone, we did not experience any major lags. Apps did not take much time to load and the phone was able to handle multiple power-consuming tasks at once. iQOO Z7 is able to extract an additional 8GB RAM from the internal storage if the situation demands it. On the Geekbench platform, the iQOO Z7 5G scored 1041 points in the single-core test and 2508 points in the multi-core test. This is a pretty good score in this segment.
We played Free Fire Max, Alto’s Odyssey, and Call of Duty Mobile on the iQOO Z7. The gaming experience across all three titles was very fluid. We did not experience any frame drops or unnecessary throttling. The phone manages heat dissipation quite well for the most part. We first noticed minor heating while playing Call of Duty for 20 minutes, but it did not hamper the performance in any way.
The software experience provided by Funtouch OS 13 is satisfactory, but the tremendous amount of bloatware on this phone is not a good sight. Apps like Byjus, Facebook, Netflix, Dailyhunt, PhonePe, and more come preinstalled on the phone. Luckily, they can be removed. On top of that, you’d also want to disable the ‘Hot games’ and ‘Hot apps’ folders which serve no purpose other than displaying ads for apps. And while you’re disabling stuff on the phone, you’d also want to turn off notifications for the browser and the Vivo app store. Once this has been taken care of, you can start using your phone without any pesky ads popping up every hour.
There are some things we like about the Funtouch OS. The gaming toolbar is seamlessly integrated into the gaming experience and offers helpful features like motion control, eSports mode, Monster mode, screen recording, and more. Funtouch is also one of the few OS to have a native music player app. Vivo’s native file-sharing app, EasyShare, is also a pretty handy tool on this device. We also liked the customisation options for the lock screen, Always On Display, and the fingerprint scanner. The dynamic effects and animations are also very fun to play around with.
The battery performance on iQOO Z7 5G is pretty standard. The 4,500mAh battery is smaller than the 5,000mAh found on the Z6, but the better processor on Z7 ensures that the battery backup remains unaffected. Upon regular usage, which included an hour of gaming, social media usage, watching content, and playing music, the phone easily lasted an entire day with about 20% battery left. With a screen on time of around 6 hours, this performance is up to the standard. With the 44W charger that comes in the box, the iQOO Z7 takes about 30 minutes to reach 50% battery level, and a little over an hour to fully charge.
Moving on, the rear camera array on the Z7 consists of a 64MP primary camera and a 2MP depth sensor. Up front, you get a 16MP selfie camera. There is no ultrawide lens on the Z7, which is a bit of a letdown. The main 64MP sensor does a great job in outdoor settings when there’s plenty of natural light. The images contain a good amount of detail. The colours produced in the images are vibrant but could have been a little deeper and rich. What we like is that the Z7 doesn’t overprocess the images, as the other smartphones in this category tend to do. The images have a natural vibe to them. The contrast and saturation are also on point.
We were pleasantly surprised by the camera’s performance under low light conditions. This is a good time to mention that the Z7 comes with OIS, which is unheard of in this price range. The result is the elevation in the quality of night shots. The colour composition of the images did not take a hit and the noise was kept to a minimum. In some cases, we preferred shooting without the Night Mode turned on. If there’s some artificial lighting during the night, the regular mode is optimum for taking decent images. However, in very limited lighting you will need to turn on the Night Mode. The artificial brightening of images when they’re being processed is a hit or miss. Overall, we liked how the camera performed at night.
The Portrait Mode works well for the rear camera as well as the selfie camera. The smartphone is able to easily separate the subject from the background. The camera app also contains some cool features like Double Exposure mode and Dual View – which allows you to shoot videos from the front and rear cameras at once.
The 16MP selfie camera takes decent pictures. We like that the camera doesn’t brighten up the skin tone and retains the natural colour and texture as much as possible. However, the image’s sharpness could’ve been a little better. The selfie camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps while the rear camera can shoot 4K videos at 30fps.
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Conclusion
The instant success of the iQOO Z7 5G in India speaks for itself. It may have the reputation for being a gaming smartphone, but the Z7 has something in it for everyone. People who use their smartphones primarily to watch content will enjoy the HDR AMOLED display. There’s OIS on board for photography enthusiasts. At Rs 18,999, the iQOO Z7 5G is a very easy phone to suggest to casual users and enthusiasts alike.
iQOO Z7 5G: Pros
- AMOLED display with HDR
- Great primary camera
- Good performance
iQOO Z7 5G: Cons
- Very prominent bezels around the chin
- No ultrawide lens
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