iQoo Neo 7 5G

iQoo Neo 7 5G has been officially launched in India. This new premium mid-range model from the Vivo Spinoff brand is the successor to the iQoo Neo 6 (Review), which was launched last year at Rs. 30,000. The iQoo Neo 7 5G has received many upgrades over its predecessor, including a 4nm MediaTek SoC, a larger battery, faster charging and a 120Hz AMOLED display. While the phone still has a triple camera, there is one major drawback. In this review, we’ll help you decide if the iQoo Neo 7 5G should be your next upgrade.

OnePlus 11R 5G

The OnePlus 11R 5G is the company’s latest “value flagship” and it’s not hard to see why the phone is getting a lot of attention, perhaps even more so than the flagship OnePlus 11 5G (Review)  announced at the same time. For fans of the OnePlus brand, the 11R 5G represents the company’s original philosophy of offering many high-quality features at an amazing price,  something we haven’t seen in a long time. The 11R 5G is a big upgrade over last year’s 10R 5G ( review ), and thankfully OnePlus didn’t cut corners this time.

The OnePlus 11R 5G offers users a flagship processor, the same main camera as the OnePlus 11 5G, and ultra-fast charging, all at a starting price of Rs. 39,999 in India. There aren’t many phones in India right now that offer this combination of features at this price, which makes the 11R 5G a very attractive option. It’s time to see if it’s as good as it looks on paper.

Price of iQoo Neo 7 5G

The iQoo Neo 7 5G has been launched in India in two stock variants. The base version of this phone comes with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. This variant is priced at Rs. 29,999. The version of iQoo sent to us has 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. It is priced at Rs. 33,999 in India.

Price of Oneplus 11R 5G

The base variant of the OnePlus 11R 5G comes with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but there is another variant with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage priced at Rs. 44,999 in India. I think the basic version should be enough for most users, but if you need more storage, there is another option at a reasonable price. We are also seeing a trend that is starting to develop this year; it looks like companies are ditching the 12GB RAM option and going straight to 16 GB. OnePlus sent us the high-end Sonic Black version for this review, and it’s also available in a Galactic Silver version.

Display and Design of iQoo Neo 7 5G

In an era where many smartphones have a flat body, the iQoo Neo 7 5G still offers a curved back panel and frame. The phone has a polycarbonate body, but it doesn’t look cheap at all. Our colour is called Frost Blue and has a matte finish to help keep fingerprints and smudges at bay. At first, I  liked the Interstellar Black colour choice better, but the Frost Blue colour grew on me a bit. In addition, the gradient that is visible when the light hits the back panel gives this phone a premium look. The weight is also well distributed. For those wondering, the iQoo Neo 7 5G weighs 193g and is 8.58mm thick. On the front, the iQoo Neo 7 5G has a tall screen of 6.78 inches. The screen size is the same as the flagship iQoo 11 5G (Review), but the iQoo Neo 7 5G has a Full HD resolution that supports a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen is flat and has fairly thin bezels around it. The chin is the thickest at 2.65 mm, and overall the iQoo Neo 7 5G offers a screen-to-body ratio of 93.11 per cent. The display supports HDR10 and you also get WideVine L1 support, which Netflix has spotted. The colors are vibrant and you get a good multimedia experience thanks to the loud enough speakers. There is a certain imbalance in the channel, as the headphone, which also acts as a secondary audio output, is not as loud as the main speaker at the bottom. I had no problems using the iQoo Neo 7 5G outdoors in direct sunlight. The brightness of the screen is 1300 nits, but it only reaches this when playing HDR content.

Display and Design of Oneplus 11R 5G

The design of the OnePlus 11R 5G surprised me because it looks almost identical to the much more expensive OnePlus 11 5G – unless you know what to look for. The absence of the Hasselblad logo on the rear camera module, the invisible antenna strips on the frame and the selfie camera placed in the middle are the only ways to easily distinguish the 11R 5G. Apart from these, the dimensions, weight and uniform design of the curved edge display are almost identical on both phones. While this slightly detracts from the 11 5G’s premium appeal, it’s a huge bonus for the 11R 5G, especially given the 10R 5G’s polarized design. The OnePlus 11R 5G features the OnePlus-branded ‘Alert Slider’ and a first for a OnePlus phone, an infrared (IR) emitter on the top. The phone comes with an IR Remote app that lets you control home electronics and appliances once installed. The black variant of the 11R 5G has a matte finish on the glass back that easily resists fingerprints but doesn’t offer much grip.

The OnePlus 11R 5G has a 6.74-inch screen with the same curved edges on the left and right as the 11 5G, but slightly narrower top and bottom edges. However, the location of the in-display fingerprint sensor is much lower, making it a bit awkward to use. The screen uses an AMOLED panel with a resolution of 1.5K  (2772 x 1240 pixels) and a peak refresh rate of 120 Hz. It supports HDR video playback (in addition to Dolby Vision). The glass on the back is Corning Gorilla Glass 5, but the screen uses Dragontrail glass to protect against scratches. The sales package of the OnePlus 11R 5G includes standard accessories such as stickers, a case, a USB cable, a 100W power adapter and a SIM remover.

Performance of iQoo Neo 7 5G

iQoo phones are known for prioritizing performance and the Neo 7 5G is no different. Its Dimensity 8200 SoC can run almost anything you throw at it. Be it daily tasks or gaming, the phone can handle it all. I played some games like Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 9 and Genshin Impact on the iQoo Neo 7 5G. While the previous two offered a smooth gameplay experience, Genshin Impact didn’t work as well for me and had some stutters. The game can be too resource intensive as even some flagships struggle with it.  iQoo has added new features in its Ultra Game mode, such as Motion Gestures, which can be customized for specific games. For example, you can tilt the phone to a certain angle to make your character tilt in PUBG Mobile. The Ultra Game control panel also allows users to switch to monster mode, which ensures that the SoC is not overclocked, so you get the best performance for a smoother gaming experience, albeit potentially at the expense of temperature and battery life.

During games, the back of the phone gets a little warm under the camera module. According to iQoo, there is a fairly large vapour chamber cooling system to remove the heat, which may have helped keep the temperature down even after playing for 30 minutes in Mumbai’s 32-degree weather.  In terms of benchmarks, the iQoo Neo 7 5G scored 8,58,057 points on AnTuTu, better than rivals like the Nothing Phone 1 (Review), which scored 6,05,375 points. The iQoo Neo 7 also has a significant lead over the Redmi Note 12 Pro 5G (Review), which scored 4,38,678 points via AnTuTu. The iQoo Neo 7 5G scored 995 and 3885 points in Geekbench’s single- and multi-core tests. These are higher than the Nothing Phone 1 score of 822 and 2898 points.

Performance of Oneplus 11R

The OnePlus 11R 5G is powered by a very powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. This processor does not offer the same performance as the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 but is still powerful enough for most practical use cases. The phone also has support for Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6, NFC and several satellite navigation systems.  11R 5G supports a total of nine 5G bands in India. You get stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos enhancement. The phone has a 5000mAh battery and supports 100W cable fast charging. It doesn’t support wireless charging, nor does it have an official IP rating, although the basic water- and dust-repellent seals are said to be in place. The  OnePlus 11R 5G software is the same as the 11 5G. You get OxygenOS 13  based on Android 13. Oppo ColorOS has the usual customization options, keys and gestures, and some old OxygenOS features like Zen Mode. There isn’t much bloatware, apart from a few OnePlus apps and a series of Google apps. The Internet Browser is somewhat redundant if you have Chrome and cannot be uninstalled.

The camera of the iQoo Neo 7 5G

While everything may have seemed to be going in the iQoo Neo 7 5G’s favour so far, the camera department is a little short. It has a 64-megapixel primary camera that supports optical image stabilization (OIS), a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a 2-megapixel macro camera. The Sub-R doesn’t have an ultra-wide camera. 30,000 phones seems like a disadvantage for someone like me who plays games occasionally. iQoo said its customer research showed that the phone’s target audience had little use for the ultra-wide camera, which is why it was left out of the Neo 7 5G entirely. How do the rest of the cameras work? Prime does a good job with colours and details. Sometimes the camera underexposed the subject. Otherwise, you’ll get bright images with good details in highlights and shadows. The iQoo Neo 7 also did well in low-light photography, with shadows coming out well without too many highlights. The software helps improve dynamic range performance. 16-megapixel front camera output. In both the standard “Photo” and “Portrait” modes, the front camera offered good detail and dynamic range. However, the images taken in portrait mode had softer skin and slightly higher exposure, which made me fair. Photos taken with the presets “Natural” and “Classic” also look the same, but if you turn off the beauty mode, the results are quite close to reality. Edge detection was also correct in most cases.  The iQoo Neo 7 5G can record up to 4K 60fps video with the main rear camera. It does a decent job with colour and detail, but dynamic range performance needs improvement. The front camera only supports  1080p 30fps video recording and prioritizes subject exposure and focus, so dynamic range takes a hit. The company has introduced a new Vlog mode with several templates that allow users to record videos using the front or rear camera. Users can shoot multiple short clips to create a vlog. In this mode you can use filters, some of which must be downloaded separately.

The camera of Oneplus 11R 5G

The OnePlus 11R 5G boasts of having the same primary camera as the OnePlus 11 5G. It is a Sony IMX890 50MP sensor with optical stabilization (OIS). However, the other rear cameras are more in line with those on the OnePlus 10R 5G, which means they’re not as good as what the 11 5G offers. It has an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera. There’s a 16-megapixel camera on the front, and OnePlus didn’t specify which sensors it used for them. The camera application is more or less the same as the 11 5G, except for some changes such as the removal of the red shutter, Xpan mode and the absence of Hasselblad Pro mode, since the  11R 5G does not include Hasselblad Color Science (HCS) technology. I guess this shouldn’t be a big deal since OnePlus says that HCS is only available when shooting in RAW  Pro mode.

Even with AI Image Enhance disabled on both phones, I found that images captured with the OnePlus 11R 5G  had a cooler colour cast compared to the same subjects captured simultaneously with the 11 5G. Image detail was about the same, as both have the same main sensor, but there were one or two instances where the 11R 5G fell short of the 11 5G’s image quality. Close-up photos taken with the 11R 5G have very good details and colours. The macro camera was surprisingly not great and produced unsatisfactory results.  The ultra-wide camera on the OnePlus 11R 5G produced poorer detail and colour compared to the equivalent camera on the 11 5G. The images looked a bit washed out even in daylight. Fortunately, the camera app automatically takes long exposure photos in low light, so you can get usable night photos.  The 11R 5G main camera captures the best low-light images with very good exposure, colour and detail. Close-ups also look good, and the autofocus is quite reliable in low light. The 11R 5G can only do digital zoom up to 10x, but even in daylight, the quality is pretty poor. The 11R 5G selfie camera seems to be the same as the 11 5G  as their output was identical in most cases. It gets the job done, but selfies aren’t particularly sharp, detail is a little weak, and colours and skin tones can sometimes be distorted. However, thanks to the night mode, it succeeds in good dark photos. The OnePlus 11R can record video up to 4K 60fps, but only with the main rear camera. Ultrawide is limited to 1080p resolution, as is the selfie camera. Day and dark 4K videos look great, with good stability and very little shake when walking. Videos shot with the ultra-wide camera are significantly weaker, especially in low light, although its electronic stabilization works well. The camera app has many familiar shooting modes, such as Movie, which allows you to capture a larger image format, and LOG video recording.

Battery Capacity of iQoo Neo 7 5G

The iQoo Neo 7 5G also performed well in terms of battery life. The phone’s 5000 mAh battery allows you to use it all day. Only if you push the phone to its limits for extended periods are you likely to get less than six hours of screen-on time (SoT). During my week-long review period, I averaged about 7.5 hours, which isn’t bad for a phone with a large screen and a powerful SoC. The battery also charges quickly. Turn on the “Fast Charging” switch in the battery settings and the phone will charge from 1 to 100 percent in less than 25 minutes with the included proprietary 120 W fast charger. In my experience, a 50 per cent charge only took 12 minutes.  In our HD video battery loop test, the iQoo Neo 7 5G lasted  21 hours and 4 minutes, which is pretty impressive.

Battery Capacity of Oneplus 11R 5G

11R 5G supports a total of nine 5G bands in India. You get stereo speakers and Dolby Atmos enhancement. The phone has a 5000mAh battery and supports 100W cable fast charging. It doesn’t support wireless charging, nor does it have an official IP rating, although the basic water- and dust-repellent seals are said to be in place.