Can the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus beat the segment best iQOO Neo 6?
The premium mid-range segment has been one of the most popular segments as it brought in many smartphones from different brands competing against each other. The iQOO Neo 6 (Review) has been very popular as it brings some very good specifications, thus getting the right balance of everything in all aspects as seen in the past including design, display, performance, battery life and cameras.
Now this year we have the newly launched Redmi Note 12 series out of which the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus (Review) has been a substantial offering as it brings some of the best specifications like a good build and design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset, a 200MP camera setup and a 5000mAh battery with support for 120W fast charging.
So how does the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus fare against the segment-best iQOO Neo 6 and see whether it can dethrone it or will the iQOO Neo 6 continue to take the honours for being the king in the premium mid-range segment? Let's find out in the full comparison.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Design:
In terms of design, both smartphones have a different look and feel to it. The iQOO Neo 6 has a smooth matte finish that provides a good grip and the back is also slightly curved thus making it easier to hold in hands. There is a square-shaped camera module that houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight and the iQOO logo is placed just below it.
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has a rectangular camera module that houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight and this camera module does protrude slightly compared to the one on the iQOO Neo 6. The back of the smartphone has a glossy finish which does catch a lot of fingerprints. However, the back of the smartphone has a glass finish that does feel premium compared to the polycarbonate finish of the iQOO Neo 6.
On the sides, both smartphones have a polycarbonate frame instead of glass. Both of them have a power button and volume buttons present on both of them where the power button on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus doubles up as a fingerprint scanner whereas the one on the iQOO Neo 6 is an in-display one. Both smartphones weigh around 200 grams and feel lighter while holding them in your hands.
Both smartphones have an IP53 rating on the back thus making them splash-resistant up to some extent. On the top, both smartphones get a secondary noise-cancelling microphone and an IR Blaster to connect various devices and the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus gets a dedicated secondary speaker grille with a 3.5mm headphone jack which is good as the iQOO Neo 6 lacks it.
At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone and a dual SIM card slot as there is no support for a microSD card on both. On the front, both smartphones have a single-punch hole located on the top at the centre and have minimum bezels around the sides. Overall, the design is subjective and it depends on personal preference but the build is better on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Display:
On the front, both smartphones sport almost similar-sized displays (6.62 inches and 6.67 inches) Full HD+ (1080x2400 pixels) AMOLED displays with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. Both these displays have support for 120Hz refresh rate and combined with it you get 360Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses during gaming.
Since both these displays are AMOLED, you get good colour reproduction and great viewing angles. Talking about the refresh rate, the 120Hz refresh rate on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is adaptive one where scales between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz depending on the content in the display whereas the one on the iQOO Neo 6 is a standard one where it switches between 60Hz or 120Hz only.
In terms of brightness, both these displays can reach a peak brightness of 1300nits and also have good visibility under direct sunlight. The display of the iQOO Neo 6 does have a slight blue tint if noticed from the sides whereas it is not the case with the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus. Both get their respective colour modes to choose from and the display on both can be set to a warmer or a cooler tone.
The display of the iQOO Neo 6 houses an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works faster and is accurate. Both these displays have support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms and also there is support for HDR on YouTube, but the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus goes one step further by providing support for Dolby Vision which makes content consumption even better than iQOO Neo 6.
In terms of display protection, the iQOO Neo 6 has Schott Xensation whereas the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Overall, the display is great for multi-media consumption but the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is slightly better as it gets Dolby Vision support.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Performance:
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chipset whereas the iQOO Neo 6 is powered by the 2021 flagship Snapdragon 870 chipset. In terms of daily performance, both smartphones can handle all the tasks easily without any problem. All heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends, BGMI, etc. run smoothly but there are some differences.
In BGMI, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus can run at HDR graphics with High frame rates whereas, on the other hand, BGMI easily runs at HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates and after long hours of gaming, there were no such frame drops noticed on the iQOO Neo 6 but on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus, there were some minor frame drops noticed but still it is very negligible.
After longer hours i.e.3-4 hours of gaming continuously, the back of the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus did feel slightly warmer whereas the iQOO Neo 6 remains cooler though both have a dedicated vapour chamber that dissipates heat faster. In terms of benchmarks, the iQOO Neo 6 holds a clear edge over the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus as it has the more powerful chipset of the two.
In terms of network connectivity, there is support for good carrier aggregation on both and in terms of 5G bands, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has support for 12 bands of 5G compared to 4 bands of 5G on the iQOO Neo 6. In the CPU throttling test, both smartphones could maintain a sustained performance of around 90-95 per cent which is really very good with minimal throttling noticed.
Both smartphones are available in two different variants where the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 256GB storage having UFS 2.1 speeds and on the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 is available in 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB storage having UFS 3.1 speeds. Overall, the performance is equally good on both but in terms of gaming, the iQOO Neo 6 holds the clear edge.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Software:
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus runs on the latest MIUI13 with Android 12 out of the box whereas the iQOO Neo 6 runs on the FuntouchOS 13 with Android 13 as of now since it came out of the box with Android 12. The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is slightly disappointing since it is a new smartphone launched in 2023 and comes out of the box with Android 12.
Both these user interfaces have a lot of customizations where you can change the icon shape and size, different styles for Always-On display and fingerprint animations, and there are different themes and wallpapers available. However, both of them lack a Privacy Dashboard feature which is part of Android 12 but FunTouchOS provides other features like Colour Palette which is not present on MIUI.
MIUI has a look and feel close to iOS whereas FunTouchOS has a look and feel close to Stock Android. Both these have a lot of bloatware present which can be uninstalled but the Redmi Note 12 Pro Max has less bloatware of the two. In terms of software updates, both smartphones will get another two years of AndroidOS updates and three years of security patches.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Cameras:
In terms of cameras, both smartphones sport similar camera setups except for the main camera which has a different sensor on both. The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus uses a 200MP f/1.7 Samsung HPX sensor whereas the iQOO Neo 6 sports a 64MP f/1.9 Samsung GW1 sensor and both the main cameras have OIS. Other three cameras include the 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera and a 16MP selfie camera.
The images from the main camera come out with good details on both of them and also have a good dynamic range but the details look sharper on the iQOO Neo 6 and have slightly better contrast than the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus. The colours look saturated on both of them. However, using the 200MP mode on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus results in better details and dynamic range compared to the 64MP mode on the iQOO Neo 6.
In HDR mode, the images come out equally good on both smartphones but the dynamic range is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 6. But at night, things become quite different as the night shots on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus have much better details and dynamic range compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which does struggle with some noise in the background and exposure is not well maintained as on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
Both get a dedicated night mode and if you turn on the dedicated night mode on the iQOO Neo 6, things change quite a lot as the dynamic range improves a lot and noise is slightly reduced. So with night mode turned on both smartphones, the difference is very marginal. Both of them lack a dedicated telephoto camera so you can use the 2x digital zoom on both the main cameras.
The 8MP ultrawide camera does a decent job in terms of details that look sharper but at times a tad bit softer and have good dynamic range. However, around the edges, there is quite some distortion present and some amount of noise in the background. At night, the images from both ultrawide cameras have softer details with a lot of noise in the background and also colours look washed out with poor exposure.
The 2MP macro camera on both smartphones is just average as it is a fixed focus camera so the details look softer and have a poor dynamic range with slightly clashing colours in the background. In terms of portraits, both smartphones have good edge detection and proper background blur, but the details look sharper on the iQOO Neo 6 and have a better dynamic range than the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
The portraits on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus do suffer from poor contrast and there is a lot of oversharpening in the background which is not the case with the iQOO Neo 6. In terms of selfies, the details look slightly sharper on the iQOO Neo 6 and also skin tones look natural whereas there is some oversharpening present on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus. The dynamic range is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 6.
In terms of selfie portraits, the edge detection is good on both smartphones but the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has slightly oversharpening in the background compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which on the other hand has no such issue. In terms of videos, the iQOO Neo 6 can record 4K videos at 60fps whereas the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus can only record 4K videos at 30fps.
In terms of videos, the iQOO Neo 6 has slightly better details and dynamic range with less noise compared to the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus but the colour saturation looks natural on both. Both of them have OIS in their main cameras but the stabilization is much better on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus. The videos at 1080p at 60fps are equally good on both smartphones.
The 1080p videos at 30fps from the ultrawide camera come out with an average dynamic range and details also look softer on both resulting in a larger amount of noise in the background. The videos from the front camera come out at 1080p at 30fps on both smartphones but the iQOO Neo 6 has less noise and slightly sharper details with good colour saturation compared to the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
Overall, whether it is the images or videos, the iQOO Neo 6 holds a clear edge over the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Battery Life:
In terms of battery capacity, the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus houses a slightly larger 4980mAh battery compared to the 4700mAh battery on the iQOO Neo 6. The standard screen-on time was around 7.5-8 hours on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus which is slightly better than the 6-7 hours of screen-on time on the iQOO Neo 6.
In terms of normal usage which includes web browsing, streaming social media, etc. both smartphones can easily last for two days with the display set to 120Hz but with heavy usage which includes playing games continuously, rendering videos, attending continuous calls for longer hours, etc. both smartphones easily lasted a single day with some charge left.
The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is bundled with a 120W fast charger which takes the smartphone around 25-30 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent which is slightly faster than the 80W fast charger bundled with the iQOO Neo 6 that takes around 40-45 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent.
Overall, the battery life and charging speeds are better on the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus vs iQOO Neo 6 Audio Quality:
Both smartphones have a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear but the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus gets a 3.5mm headphone jack which the iQOO Neo 6 lacks. However, both of them do get Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound output.
Verdict:
Overall, both smartphones are a great buy as they come with great specifications for the price at which they are offered. Both of them have a good build and design, a good AMOLED display with stereo speakers for media consumption, good performance and battery life with support for fast charging. The software experience has not been so good for both of them as they do come with some bloatware.
But there are some differences between both smartphones in some aspects. The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus has a better build quality as it gets a glass back compared to the polycarbonate back of the iQOO Neo 6, then the display is slightly better, and battery life is better than that of the iQOO Neo 6. The amount of bloatware is also slightly lesser on the MIUI compared to FunTouchOS.
The iQOO Neo 6, on the other hand, has a better set of cameras, a much better gaming experience, as well as performance, and also FunTouchOS is far better than MIUI when it comes to software updates as you get faster AndroidOS updates and security patches. In terms of pricing, the 8GB RAM with 128GB storage variant of iQOO Neo 6 is priced similar to the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage of the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus.
If you are a person who is looking out for a smartphone which has a premium build and design, an AMOLED display with Dolby Vision support, a good software experience without much caring about faster updates, and want better battery life with 120W fast charging, then the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus is a perfect buy.
But if performance and gaming experience is your highest priority, then the iQOO Neo 6 is the one to go for. Not only performance, but its cameras are also much better and well-optimized, and also FunTouchOS has a great record for timely software updates. So in the end it all depends on your personal preference based on priority and you cannot go wrong if you consider any of one of them.
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