iQOO 11 review

If you’re wondering where are the Pro and non-Pro versions then I hate to be the bearer of bad news. There’s only one in the lineup this year at the time of writing and it's this iQOO 11. The overall quality of the iQOO 11 isn’t a departure from the iQOO 9 Pro we tested a few years ago. Only this time you get a leatherette textured back but no curved display.

Everything else is standard stuff but premium nonetheless. It feels grippy, comfortable and premium when it touches your hand.

We do miss the curved display which added a more premium appeal to the previous generation iQOO smartphones. Albeit, the previous iterations had a green tint due to the curve so this is pretty much a no-nonsense work from iQOO.

And if you’re cramming a 144Hz refresh rate display on a smartphone, it doesn’t matter if it's curved or not, the numbers speak for themselves. Yes, there’s a blazing-fast 144Hz refresh rate on this smartphone and everything about it yearns for gaming.

The colour and contrast are not too shabby either. Colours pop and like most smartphones, this is calibrated to look vibrant and rich. Content looks sharp and punchy on this 2K 144Hz E6 AMOLED display.

It's not lacking in the performance department either. There’s a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor inside which does all the heavy lifting. It’s smooth and responsive every step of the way. Compared to the OnePlus 11 5G, the performance is pretty much the same. Both have the same processor and performance metrics on Geekbench as well.

The iQOO 11 also has some other performance-centric internals like LPDDR5X RAM and UFS4.0 storage which make this a true powerhouse for geeks and gamers.

Sadly, the iQOO Gamepad doesn’t let you remap the controls on the iQOO 11. It would’ve been a fantastic addition to anyone who wants to game on the iQOO 11 using the brand’s controller.

The smartphone charges up to 50% in 10mins so battery life shouldn’t be an issue if you’re a hardcore gamer. Just carry around the 120W bundled charger. When you’re not around a power plug, the iQOO 11 can easily last a full day of use delivering 5-6 hours of screen-on time with our use. Your mileage may vary.

The iQOO brings all but great cameras. It does have Vivo’s dedicated V2 chip for camera processing but that hardly brings quality to its 8MP ultra-wide camera. The 50MP telephoto and 13MP portrait does a much better job of redeeming the camera’s shortcomings. Lowlight photos are good. You won’t find much to complain about here unless you peep over and find that OnePlus 11 is absolutely stellar with the photos.

Lowlight and even tricky sunset shots come out just fine. There’s minimal noise and the camera focuses a lot better on objects and faces than an average mid-range smartphone. Albeit, it’s still not enough to be a true flagship camera. OnePlus, Google and even one generation-old Apple iPhones still have better image processing capabilities than iQOO 11.

To give you some context, the OnePlus 11 starts at ₹56,999 and the iQOO 11 is going for ₹59,999. With just a few grand less you can get better camera hardware and similar processing grunt.

The iQOO 11 isn’t a bad smartphone by any means but it’s not bringing anything exceptionally great to demand the same price as the competition. The 144Hz screen is good and all but games barely take full advantage of it and honestly a jump from 120Hz to 144Hz is near impossible to tell on a 6.78in display.

The iQOO could’ve become a complete gaming smartphone like Asus ROG and Nubia if it had shoulder touch controls and dedicated stereo speakers. Alas, the iQOO stays a bit chic compared to those two in design and hardware features.