iQOO 11 review: A true beast

Last week, iQOO, a sub-brand of Vivo, officially launched its flagship smartphone, the iQOO 11, in India. It now has the best hardware and features available. It is the first device to feature the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip coming to India. Additionally, the E6 has an AMOLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate. It is also a fantastic gaming gadget.

This gadget has several features right now, one of which is the V2 chip, which is useful for extreme low-light photography among other things. The iQOO 11’s V2 chip is therefore something one should really look forward to. Apart from that, we will also test whether the gadget is able to deliver a flagship experience that justifies its price. We will go into more detail in this iQOO 11 review.

iQOO 11 review: Design and display

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The design of the iQOO 11 seems to be unique and the overall construction feels classy. The phone has a distinctive leather back with a stripe from the BMW M Motorsport range. The gadget does not slip thanks to the leather finish. But for those of us with small hands, holding this phone in one hand is a task due to its tall and wide design.

The slight snag in this situation is that despite its price, the iQOO 11 still lacks any kind of IP rating that we were hoping it would sport. The screen is still flat and the bezels around it are quite thin. The Corning Gorilla Glass Victus layer also protects the display from unwanted drops and scratches.

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Also read: Pixel 7 Pro review: Why you should get the phone

On the right side of the metal frame are the power and volume controls, and on the bottom edge is the SIM card slot, the main speaker grill and the USB Type-C connector.

The smartphone is defined by a 6.78-inch Samsung 2K AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1,440 x 3,200 pixels. The smartphone screen has a refresh rate of 144 Hz and a maximum brightness of 1,800 nits. In addition, an optical fingerprint sensor is integrated into the screen, which works well.

The default color calibration of the 2K display is extremely striking with quite natural colors and contrast, providing an amazing viewing experience.

With a maximum brightness of 1,800 nits, outdoor visibility is very good. Watching HDR movies and shows on the OTT platform is enjoyable thanks to its vivid highlights.

A rich multimedia experience is provided by the stereo speakers on the iQOO 11, as well as the overall sound quality, which is quite powerful and sophisticated.

iQOO 11 review: Performance and cameras

The iQOO 11 has an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and up to 16 GB of UFS 4.0 RAM. Users of this series can increase their RAM by up to 8 GB thanks to the Extended RAM 3.0 feature. The phone has 256 GB of UFS 4.0 storage.

When it comes to memory management or UI responsiveness, the iQOO 11 performs admirably on a daily basis. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove or even disable some of the pre-installed bloatware that comes with it. With Funtouch OS 13, there is no need to worry as the company has committed to three years of OS updates and four years of security updates.

iQOO 11 is a powerful player even in real situations. The device is able to deliver stable performance with little frame lag even when GPU-intensive games are running at the highest settings. While playing Asphalt 9 on the highest visual settings, the smartphone was able to maintain a stable 60 frames per second. It is also fantastic that the phone does not heat up uncomfortably.

iQOO’s two-axis haptic engine immerses you in the game and contributes to the overall enjoyment. Plus, you have the choice of setting up motion controls or pressure-sensitive virtual buttons for quick in-game response.

A 50-megapixel ISOCELL GN5 primary sensor with OIS is at the heart of the triple rear camera system’s photographic capabilities. The aperture on it is f/1.88.

Also on the list of features is a 13-megapixel telephoto lens, similar to a 50mm portrait sensor, f/2.5 aperture and 2x optical zoom. The rest is digital zoom. The third camera you get is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens with an f/2.2 aperture. It has a field of view of 116 degrees. The smartphone comes with a 16-megapixel front-facing selfie camera with f/2.5 aperture.

Photos taken in daylight are excellent, and the camera captures fine details, vivid colors and acceptable sharpness. In addition, the dynamic range and shadows are very well done. However, the colors of the sky, especially the greens, look a little overexposed and saturated, but this is by no means objectionable.

In pixel view, it’s easy to see how great the details and sharpness levels are in natural color. Unless you want highly realistic images or don’t like saturated photos, daylight shots were fantastic overall and there’s nothing to complain about.

However, there is a specific natural color mode in the settings. If you like muted colors, you can toggle it. More vivid colors can be seen when using the natural color mode.

Thanks to the phone’s 8-megapixel sensor, the ultra-wide-angle camera also captures excellent detail equivalent to the primary camera. Although there is a loss of sharpness on the edges and sides, the photos are still good. However, this is not a serious problem. We still believe that since this is a flagship, the manufacturer should have opted for a 13-megapixel ultra-wide lens similar to the iQOO 9T. In addition, the dynamic range is excellent, while the overall clarity is ideal. Primary sensor colors are somewhat comparable to these colors.

Also read: iQOO 9T review: Bang for money

There is a 13-megapixel telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom. The zoom lens appears to be of good quality and retains the sharpness and degree of detail of the primary sensor. In addition, the dynamic range is good.

Moving on to the detailed photos, we notice that the sharpness levels are impressive and that there is a lot of fine detail. The colors are again slightly highlighted and saturated. It’s unfortunate that this smartphone doesn’t have a macro mode, which is surprising given its price.

As for portraits, in this case a 2x 50mm telephoto lens is used. They are good quality, have beautiful skin tones and are really crunchy. Even with complex backgrounds, subject separation remains flawless. 1x portraits can also be taken using the setting options.

Great detail can be seen in low-light shots indoors under artificial lighting. Photos turned out nicely as colors are also good and noise is kept to a minimum. There is a night mode that provides good clarity and level of detail. Noise is very tightly controlled and the lights are beautifully preserved.

What you don’t see are too many night photos with shadows; yet you can feel the real light here rather than brightening the images. The V2 chip, which works well in extremely low light conditions, makes night mode available for all three cameras and again works quite well.

Taking selfies is handled by the iQOO 11’s 16-megapixel camera. Skin tones are done fairly well and selfies look good. Since selfies are more of a personal preference, colors are good and dynamic range is nice and wide. In addition, the edge detection of portrait selfies is handled quite well.

The phone also supports 4K at 60fps when using the prime and telephoto lenses, in addition to 8K at 30fps. Colors are decent, but not as good as the primary camera, and the ultra-wide is only capable of 1080p. The video looks good [email protected]/30fps in terms of quality and they are also stable. EIS is also available for 1080p at 60/30fps and overall quality is good. The telephoto lens does well with 2x video zoom, and you can digitally zoom video up to 10x while maintaining decent image quality.

In addition, there is also an Ultra Stable mode that has 1080p at 60fps. The V2 processor in the phone also offers a night mode for video recording in up to 4K at 30 frames per second. While there is noise, it is tolerable given the extremely low light conditions. The details are excellent.

Although you can adjust aperture parameters in portrait mode, there is no stabilization available. The iQOO 11’s front camera can only capture videos in 1080p resolution at 30fps; 60 frames per second is not supported.

As for battery backup, the iQOO 11 has been upgraded to a sizeable 5,000 mAh battery. However, the device’s endurance is only slightly above average when subjected to a moderate usage pattern that includes occasional web surfing, gaming, and camera use. It supports 120W charging and it takes about 30 minutes to fully charge the phone from empty to full. And yes, a quick charger is included.

Statement

There you have it, a detailed review of the iQOO 11. The phone boasts of an excellent camera setup, so consumers will not be disappointed. However, we would have appreciated more if the company offered a better ultra-wide camera; the lack of a macro lens/mode isn’t great either.

At a starting price of Rs 60,000, it offers a lot of fantastic premium specifications. This is the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip gadget to make its way to India, as said. This time, iQOO used the latest memory technologies, including UFS 4.0 storage and LPDDR5X RAM. The gaming and performance elements of the device are flawless. If you’re looking for the ultimate gaming or entertainment mobile device, your search ends here.

iQOO 11 Pro

Fast charging

Powerful gaming

Stunning display

iQOO 11 Cons

IP rating is missing

Wireless charging is missing

The cameras could have been better

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