iQOO Neo 7 Pro Review: A Powerhouse

At a starting price of Rs 34,999, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is the first phone from the company to carry a “Pro” moniker in India. It’s a successor to the previously launched iQOO Neo 7, which was an excellent option for gaming purists, but lacked some additional camera capabilities. The Neo 7 Pro also runs on the same ideology but brings a few advancements. While the phone is great for performance enthusiasts, does it provide a balanced package at its asking price? Read our review to find out more.

iQOO Neo 7 Pro Review: Performance and software

• The Neo 7 Pro gave us consistent 60fps in BGMI
• You get two years of OS upgrades and three years of security patches

This price segment has seen the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 more often lately, and the Neo 7 Pro is also part of the bandwagon. With this chipset at the helm, the phone lives up to expectations. The 4nm-based processor is paired with up to 12GB of LPPDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. You can find gimmicks such as RAM expansion here too. On the connectivity front, the phone supports 5G, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.2 but misses out on NFC.

Since the phone is aimed at gamers, let’s start by looking at the gaming figures. iQOO stresses that it uses a dedicated gaming chip that lets you enable game frame interpolation — this feature lets you achieve frame rates up to 120fps.

The phone can go up to Ultra HD graphics quality and Ultra frame rates in BGMI. This setting gave us consistent 40fps without a single hint of lag. Switching things to HDR graphics preset and Extreme framerates, we got consistent 60fps throughout the match. Farlight 84, on the other hand, dipped to around 50fps in Extreme settings. New State Mobile has the 90fps option available, and we got consistent frame rates, but the aforementioned 120fps could not be achieved.

After two hours of continuous gameplay, the battery dropped to 54 per cent, with the back panel temperature meandering around 40 degrees. Despite the phone reaching these numbers, we did not notice thermal throttling. This is the vapour chamber cooling inside, playing a part.

In day-to-day usage, the phone has no issues dealing with multiple apps or switching between them. In AnTuTu v10, the phone returned a score of 1290468 with “Monster Mode” enabled. It’s safe to say the Neo 7 Pro outperforms every other phone in the sub-Rs 40,000 price segment.

Geekbench 6 returned a score of 1728 and 4504 in single-core and multi-core scores, respectively. 3DMark’s Sling Shot Extreme tests are a piece of cake for the phone. It gets a stability score of 72 per cent in the Wild Life Extreme Stress test. Overall, the Neo 7 Pro lives up to the “performance focussed” tagline very well.

The phone runs on FunTouchOS 13, based on Android 13, with two years of OS upgrades and three years of security patches. The UI is pretty smooth, with an array of customisation options. The bloatware conundrum plagues the Neo 7 Pro, too, with Hot apps and Hot games making an appearance.

iQOO Neo 7 Pro: Design and display

• The faux-leather finish gives it a premium feel
• The 120Hz display aids gamers

Since the Neo 7 Pro focuses heavily on its internals, so the external does not get much limelight. The phone comes in the same old polaroid back panel design as the iQOO 11, Neo 7, and Neo 6. However, this time the approach is for a more premium offering. The Neo 7 Pro is available in two colour variants: Fearless Flame and Dark Storm. The former gets a faux-leather finish on the back panel, which curves at the edges, aiding better grip.

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The camera module does not protrude much, so table wobbles are at a minimum. The button and port placements are similar to that of the Neo 7. But the elder sibling gets an IR blaster at the top. The Neo 7 Pro is on the thicker side, measuring 8.5mm with a weight of 200 grams. It’s well-balanced, so your wrists won’t complain much.

The front is graced by a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with 1080 x 2400 pixels resolution. The display refreshes at 120Hz with an option to go to 60Hz for longer battery life. iQOO hasn’t revealed official numbers for the brightness yet, but our Lux metre returned 710 nits of peak brightness.

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The display produces neutral colours with crisp content. If you prefer vibrant colours, you can switch the colour modes. The Neo 7 Pro supports the Widevine L1 certification with HDR10 support on Netflix. You also get an in-display fingerprint sensor which works flawlessly. The stereo speaker setup is good, with decent clarity and bass, but we would’ve preferred it if it was a bit louder.

iQOO Neo 7 Pro Review: Cameras

• It uses a Samsung GN5 sensor
• You can shoot videos at up to 4K 60fps

The Neo 7 Pro gets a much-needed upgrade in this department. It sports a triple-camera setup at the rear with a 50-megapixel primary camera that uses the Samsung GN5 sensor.

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This is followed by an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera which was skipped on the predecessor. The ever-so-useless 2-megapixel macro camera is still intact. A 16-megapixel selfie camera sits at the front.

In daylight, images clicked on the Neo 7 Pro were bright, crisp and detailed. The colour profile from these images was surprisingly neutral, instead of boosted greens or reds, like we experienced on the Neo 7. There’s a stark difference between the image seen in the viewfinder and the final output, so the post-processing seems to be working overtime with this one.

Daylight Samples

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The HDR performance in most cases was good, but in challenging situations, it struggles to deal with the shadows properly. While the overall camera performance of the primary sensor was palatable, it struggled with human skin tones. Images tend to be on the warmer side with a hint of red hue and oversharpened details. Portrait mode works well with neat edge detection.

Low light samples

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The 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera gives you a wider perspective. However, the loss of details, especially around the corners, is quite evident. Additionally, the colour science between the two is a bit off. We did not find much use for the lower-resolution macro camera.

Photos taken from the selfie camera were decent. Despite turning off the beauty filters, we noticed some skin smoothening. The selfie camera is a bit inconsistent when it comes to the dynamic range. Photos taken against the light resulted in a halo effect, which has plagued a bunch of phones in the recent past.

But, overall, these photos have balanced skin tones with neutral colours, which makes them social media-ready. As for videos, it can shoot footage at up to 4K 60fps with good stabilisation, as the primary sensor comes with OIS.

iQOO Neo 7 Pro Review: Battery and charging

• It packs in a 5,000mAh battery, the same as its predecessor
• You get a 120W fast charger in the box

It uses the same combination as the Neo 7 with a 5,000mAh battery and a 120W fast charger. The phone, on average, lasted between six and a half and seven hours a day. Our usage consisted of a mix of gaming in the dedicated “Monster Mode” and watching content on Netflix. This screen-on-time is in line with the predecessor. As for the 120W charger, it’s just insane. It’s a lifesaver in situations where you have to leave the house quickly. You can refer to our Neo 7 review here, to find out the charging times and other settings that need to be enabled.

iQOO Neo 7 Pro Review: Verdict

The iQOO Neo 7 Pro is a gaming-centric smartphone, and if you are an avid gamer, look no further. While it does not focus much on the design aspect, we like the faux-leather approach. The display is fantastic for gamers and content creators alike. The software is still decent, but a few bloatware apps can be annoying. However, the annoyance is triumphed by a great battery and charging duo. The camera output is decent, better than what its predecessor could do. But, if cameras are your primary focus, we suggest looking at the Nothing Phone (1) (Review), OnePlus 11R (Review), or the OnePlus Nord 3 (Review).