iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G is the latest smartphone from the company below Rs. 40,000 in India, ranking above the Neo 7 5G (review), released earlier this year. Compared to its affordable sibling, Neo 7 Pro 5G comes with a more powerful SoC, an extra camera sensor on the back and comes in two finishes. The sub-Rs. The 40,000 segment is currently filled with a plethora of options, including the OnePlus Nord 3 (Review), OnePlus 11R 5G (Review), Vivo V27 Pro (Review), Nothing Phone 1 (Review), and the Oppo Reno 10 Pro 5G (First Impressions) ).
Does the iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G have what it takes to be the best smartphone in its segment, or should you skip ahead and look at the alternatives? Here’s our full review to help you decide.
Price of iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G in India
iQoo launched Neo 7 Pro 5G in India with two storage options. The base model includes 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 34,999. Our review unit comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 37,999.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G design and screen
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G is similar to Neo 7 5G in terms of design. It has a curved edge back panel and a plastic frame. Like the Motorola Edge 40 (Review) and the Realme 11 Pro+ 5G (Review), the Neo 7 Pro comes with a vegan leather back panel. This one is available in a saturated orange shade, which the company calls Fearless Flame. I really like the textured finish, which, along with the phone’s lightweight (194.5g) design, helps it feel great in the hand. There’s also an AG glass option called Dark Storm, which looks premium and has a slightly shiny appearance when light hits the back panel.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G in its two color options
iQoo says the Neo 7 Pro 5G has an IP52 rating, which is good but not great considering some of the rivals offer IP68 water and dust resistance. The iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G has an in-display fingerprint scanner, which is quick to authenticate and unlock the device, but it would have been better if iQoo had placed the scanner a little higher.
The iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G has a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with full-HD+ resolution (2400×1080 pixels) and 120Hz refresh rate. Despite sporting a flat screen with rather thin bezels, the device offers a good multimedia experience with vibrant colors, deep blacks and a dual speaker setup. Though the bezels aren’t as slim as the OnePlus Nord 3 (review).
The iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G’s fingerprint reader is a little too low for our liking
Plus, with a peak brightness of 1,300 nits, you shouldn’t have any issues using it indoors or outdoors. The screen offers three refresh rate settings – 60Hz, 120Hz and Smart Switch. There are no UI interruptions when using the phone in Smart Switch mode.
Specifications and software iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G
The iQoo Neo 7 Pro has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, which is also found in the new and more expensive Nothing Phone 2 (First Impressions), Oppo Reno 10 Pro+ 5G (Review) and OnePlus 11R 5G (Review). The device also has LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. It packs a beefy 5,000mAh battery with 120W fast charging support, and the charger is bundled with the phone.
Software-wise, iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G runs on Funtouch OS 13 based on Android 13 out of the box. While the phone comes with some pre-installed third-party apps, the software situation isn’t as bad as Realme UI 4 or ColorOS 13, where you get 50+ apps pre-installed. iQoo Neo 7 Pro comes with some popular apps like Spotify, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Netflix and Amazon. If you don’t use these apps, you can choose to uninstall them.
There are also Hot Apps and Hot Games recommendation folders, which can be hidden from the app drawer or home screen by disabling the toggle in the ‘Home settings’ section of the Settings app.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G promises to receive two major Android updates
Other than that, you get tons of customization and customization options, which we detailed in our iQoo 11 5G review. iQoo promised to provide two major Android updates and monthly security patches for three years for the Neo 7 Pro 5G.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G performance and battery life
With the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC under the hood, performance is nothing to worry about in the iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G. During my week of use, I didn’t experience any issues, even while gaming. I played Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Asphalt 9: Legends on the phone and overall performance was excellent.
BGMI supports ‘Extreme’ frame rate if you opt for ‘HDR’ graphics. If you want ‘Ultra HD’ graphics, frame rate support drops to ‘Ultra’. I preferred the combination of HDR graphics and extreme frame rate, and during my gaming sessions there were no signs of stutter or lag. The phone got a little warm in the camera module region, but it wasn’t alarming at all.
The iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G is said to have an independent display chip, which unlocks support for ‘Frame Rate Interpolation’. The feature essentially adds extra frames while gaming to give you a smoother gaming experience. You can enable this by accessing ‘Ultra Game Mode’, which also provides some additional features that help enhance the gaming experience. This includes motion control, locking screen brightness, disabling notifications, etc. You can also switch between Battery Saver, Balanced, and Monster modes. The latter ensures no CPU throttling while gaming, but it will consume more battery.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G includes best-in-class hardware
The iQoo Neo 7 Pro dominates its closest rivals in benchmark tests. In AnTuTu (v10), iQoo Neo 7 Pro scored 12,63,884 points. The OnePlus Nord 3 with its Dimensity 9000 SoC and the OnePlus 11R 5G with a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC scored 8,47,115 and 10,26,784 points respectively. In Geekbench 6 single-core and multi-core tests, iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G managed to score 1727 and 4459 points, which again is higher than Nord 3 (863 and 2978 points) and 11R (908 and 3430 points).
Battery life on iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G is also very good. I averaged about 7 hours and 40 minutes of screen time (SoT) during my review. This included playing for 45 minutes to an hour, capturing some photos and videos, and browsing social media. In our HD video battery loop test, the iQoo Neo 7 Pro lasted 22 hours and seven minutes, which is pretty impressive.
The phone also comes with a 120W fast charging adapter in the box which takes around 27 minutes to fully charge.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G Cameras
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G has a triple camera setup on the back. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera with an f/1.88 aperture, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro sensor. For selfies, the phone has a 16-megapixel front camera.
Daytime images from the main camera offer good detail and dynamic range. The colors are close to real life, but sometimes the algorithm increases the greens in the trees. In low light, the camera exposes the overall image very well, but I would recommend switching to night mode to get the right balance of exposure between highlights and shadows. There are some exposure issues when it comes to the night mode and hopefully iQoo will fix this with future updates.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G main camera previews (tap for full size)
The color temperature of the ultrawide camera is very close to that of the main camera. You also get good dynamic range and colors, but the images aren’t as detailed. There’s distortion around the edges, something we see in almost all ultrawide camera samples.
In terms of selfies, the iQoo Neo 7 Pro’s front camera does a good job when it comes to getting skin tones right in most cases. Beautification is on by default for those who don’t want the extra step of post-processing an image. However, even if you turn it off, the algorithm softens the skin a little and also exposes the overall picture a little more than necessary.
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G Camera Swatches (Top: Ultra Wide Camera, Bottom: Front Camera)
In terms of video, the iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G can record videos at up to 4K 60fps with the main rear camera, and the overall output is pretty good when it comes to colors, dynamic range and stabilization. The front camera captures 1080p 30fps videos. While colors are generally good, dynamic range performance needs improvement.
Verdict
iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G has some key features that its younger brother Neo 7 5G lacked. You get a more complete camera system with better performance and a more powerful SoC. The phone also offers a smooth 120Hz AMOLED display with good speakers and an impressive battery life with 120W fast charging. As a package, the iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G offers great value and clearly has an edge over OnePlus Nord 3 (review) when it comes to raw performance. However, the Nord 3 5G offers 16GB of RAM and has an edge when it comes to overall camera performance.
The price of the 12GB RAM variant of the iQoo Neo 7 Pro 5G is pretty close to the base model of the OnePlus 11R 5G (review). The 11R 5G offers a higher resolution screen with curved edges and has the same performance unit. The main difference between the iQoo and its OnePlus rivals is the software experience, and I think most purchase decisions will ultimately come down to preference for Android skins.