iQOO Neo 6 Review: A premium mid-ranger that focuses on gaming but could have been better!!

Is the iQOO Neo 6 the best value flagship in the market?

iQOO has shaken up the smartphone market with its different range of smartphones that includes both the Z series in the budget segment and its number series in the flagship segment as they provide the best performance and gaming which has lifted the game for the brand in the market. Recently, iQOO came with its 9 series of which the iQOO 9 Pro is the first premium flagship offering from the company.

The iQOO 9 Pro (Review) has an eye-catching design, a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, a great set of cameras with gimbal stabilization, faster 120W fast charging, and much more. Similarly, there is also the iQOO 9 SE that packs in a premium design, Snapdragon 888 chipset, and a great set of cameras with a 4500mAh battery with support for 67W fast charging.

The newly launched iQOO Neo 6 just sits below the iQOO 9 SE (Review) and provides almost the same specifications except here you get a slightly different camera setup, 80W fast charging support, and the Snapdragon 870 chipset which is a very good chipset that does not have any thermal throttling issues.

So can the iQOO Neo 6 be the perfect flagship killer as it delivers all the right specifications at an affordable price? Is it worth buying? Let's find out in the full review.

iQOO Neo 6 Design:

The iQOO Neo 6 sports a design that looks refreshing at the back and here the camera module is slightly square-shaped and consists of triple cameras with a LED flashlight this camera module has a unique look just below it there is the Neo logo in a different panel which looks good and shines when light strikes at different angles. 

The back is made up of polycarbonate which seems to be slightly disappointing as this is a premium mid-range smartphone but still, the matte finish at the back provides excellent grip and the weight is also lower at 190grams which makes it lighter. At the back, both the sides curve making it easy to hold it in hand. There is also an IP52 rating on the back which makes it splash resistant against water and dust.

The iQOO Neo 6 is available in two different colors - Dark Nova and Cyber Rage where Dark Nova consists of a gradient pattern where you can see dark green and black hues and if you consider the Cyber Rage color, there is a rainbow hue of colors and both these color variants change colors when light strikes at different angles at the back.

To the sides, a polycarbonate frame houses the volume buttons and the power button on the right side. The left side remains completely cleaner with no controls. On the top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone with an IR Blaster whereas the bottom has a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, speaker grille, and a dual SIM card slot. 

There is no dedicated slot for a microSD card and no 3.5mm headphone jack. There is a single punch-hole display on the front with minimum bezels to the sides. Overall, the design looks good but the build quality could have been better if iQOO had provided a glass back. 

iQOO Neo 6 Display:

The iQOO Neo 6 sports a 6.62-inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) E4 AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. This is an E4 AMOLED panel, the viewing angles and color reproduction is excellent where blue and blacks look deep. This display has a 120Hz refresh rate which provides smoother multi-tasking activities like playing games, web browsing, etc.

There is also the standard 60Hz refresh rate which can be turned on to save battery life. iQOO also provides an Auto-Switch option where the display can switch between 60Hz or 120Hz depending on the application in usage. However, you do not have any adaptive refresh rate which could have been better.  Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 360Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses.

However, there is no frame interpolation present here as it is on the iQOO 9 SE but the touch sampling rate does scale as high as 1200Hz while playing games. In terms of display brightness, the iQOO Neo 6 can reach a peak brightness of 1300 nits and a maximum brightness of 800 nits which is very good and the display has good visibility under direct sunlight.

The display has three different color profiles to choose from - Standard, Professional, and Bright where Standard has been set to default. The Standard and Bright cover the DCI-P3 gamut space whereas Professional covers the sRGB color space. Other than this, the display can be set to a warmer or more relaxed tone. There is a Visual Enhancement Mode that punches the color saturation thus increasing battery consumption.

On the front, there is Schott Xensation glass for protection. As this is an AMOLED display, you get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works accurately and is faster. Other than this, there is support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HD content on OTT platforms and YouTube also has support for HDR. Overall, the display is perfect for media consumption. 

iQOO Neo 6 Performance:

The iQOO Neo 6 is powered by the powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset which is by far one of the best chipsets as it does not associate any thermal throttling issues and provides flagship performance. The iQOO Neo 6 handles all the tasks like web browsing, switching between applications, and also games both heavy and light very easily. 

In BGMI, the smartphone could easily run on HDR graphics with Ultra frame rates. The gameplay was smooth with Smooth graphics and Extreme frame rates and there was no lag or stutter but still, there were some minor frame drops noticed. All the other games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, etc. ran at the highest graphics settings easily. 

After 4-5 hours of gaming, the back of the iQOO Neo 6 did not feel warmer which is very good and iQOO has equipped a cascade cooling system that consists of seven different layers that help in dissipating heat faster. In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could easily maintain a sustained performance of around 80-85 percent which is very good compared to the Snapdragon 888 and 8 Gen 1 chipset.

The benchmark scores were also good. In terms of network connectivity, there is good support for carrier aggregation and 4 bands of 5G which is slightly less compared to the other smartphones that offer around 7-8 bands of 5G in this price segment. The iQOO Neo 6 is available in two different variants - 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB UFS 3.1 storage.  Overall, the performance and gaming remain excellent.

iQOO Neo 6 Software:

The iQOO Neo 6 runs on the latest FunTouchOS 12 with Android 12 out of the box. As we all know FunTouchOS has been improving with each of its iterations and has a look almost close to Stock Android. It comes with a host of customizations like different animations for Always-On display, and fingerprint scanner, and also you can change icon shape and size all grouped under the Dynamic Effects in settings.

There are a couple of motions and gestures that include screen-on and off gestures e.g. when a call is coming, you can wave your hand to pick up the call. There is a considerable amount of bloatware present which can be uninstalled and also there are a lot of Vivo applications like Albums, Browser, iManager, Music, and Video.

Other than this, all Android 12 features are present like Conversations in form of Bubbles and enhanced privacy settings where you can check which application is using the camera, microphone as well as location. Depending on the wallpaper color, the same color gets applied to different system apps like dialler, messaging, etc. 

There is also an Ultra Gaming Mode which improves the gaming experience as you can block unnecessary calls and notifications, and also increases the clock speed of the CPU during gaming. In terms of software updates, the iQOO Neo 6 is assured of another two years of AndroidOS updates and three years of security updates. 

Overall, the software experience is good but FunTouchOS 12 still needs some refinement, and the presence of bloatware is slightly jarring.

iQOO Neo 6 Camera:

The iQOO Neo 6 sports a triple camera setup that consists of a 64MP f/1.8 Samsung GW1P sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. The front camera is 16MP f/2.0. 

The images from the main camera come out with good details and dynamic range but the colors look oversaturated but there is no oversharpening in the background. There is a slight amount of noise present. With the HDR turned on, the colors look boosted and over-processed. There is also a 64MP mode using which you get sharper details and good dynamic range but this comes at an expense of slightly higher noise.

At night, in the images from the main camera, the colors look saturated with a wider dynamic range and details look sharper with less noise present. With the dedicated night mode turned on, the images come out with much better details and excellent dynamic rang. Also, there is hardly any noise present in the background. 

The ultrawide camera is an 8MP one which does seem to be a downgrade when compared to other iQOO smartphones like the iQOO 7 and the 9 SE that have a 13MP ultrawide camera. The details look good but at times softer while the dynamic range is also very good. Around the edges, there is a lot of distortion and when you zoom into the images, there is a considerable amount of noise present.

At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details that look sharp and the dynamic range is also good. But the colors look oversaturated and a lot of noise with distortion is present in the images. With the night mode turned on, the images have slightly better details in shadows and also dynamic range improves. 

There is also a 2MP macro camera that takes images with decent dynamic range and details and also looks softer with a large amount of noise. You do mison s out on the macro images taken from the iQO, whichere it uses the ultrawide camera as a macro camera. The main camera on the iQOO Neo 6 can do 2x digital zoom and the details come out good but a lot of noise is present in the background.

The portraits from the main camera come out with a good dynamic range and edge detection is also very good with proper background blur. The details look good which could have been slightly sharper but the colors look natural without any over-sharpening. In terms of selfies, the images come out with natural skin tones and there is very less noise in the background.

The portrait selfies come out with good edge detection and proper background blur. There is no oversharpening in the background and skin tones also look natural. In terms of videos, the main camera can record 4K videos at 60fps and these videos come out with excellent details and dynamic range with very less noise in the background. Since there is OIS present, the videos have good stabilization.

The ultrawide camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps and these videos have good dynamic range and details and also look slightly softer. There is some amount of noise in the background but with the Ultra Steady Mode turned on, the videos come out good and the dynamic range is slightly better but there is a lot of distortion around the corners. 

The main camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps and with the Ultra Steady Mode turned on, the images have a great dynamic range with less noise in the background. The front camera can record 1080p videos at 30fps and these videos come out with good details and dynamic range but iQOO could have provided 4K video support as well as EIS as the videos have a lot of shakiness.

Overall, the cameras are good on the iQOO Neo 6 but could have been better.

iQOO Neo 6 Battery Life:

The iQOO Neo 6 sports a 4700mAh battery which is good as the smartphone can easily last for two days with normal usage that includes casual web browsing, streaming social media, etc. With heavy usage and the display set to 120Hz, the smartphone lasted easily one and half days with some charge left. As the Snapdragon 870 chipset is based on an efficient 7nm process, the battery life is very good.

The standard screen-on time was around 7-8 hours which is really good. However, iQOO needs to work on RAM management as it kills most of the applications in the memory to save battery life. The one area where the iQOO Neo 6 impresses is in terms of fast charging. The 80W fast charger bundled inside the box takes around 0 to 100 percent within 50 minutes whereas 0 to 83 percent is achieved in under 30 minutes. 

iQOO Neo 6 Audio Quality:

The iQOO Neo 6 sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds loud and clear. The bass level is very good and loudness is also very good at the highest volume settings. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present but iQOO does supply a USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone jack converter inside the box. But you do miss out on Dolby Atmos.

Verdict:

The iQOO Neo 6 seems to be a perfect premium mid-ranger as it has a lot going for it. The design looks good and refreshing, the 120Hz AMOLED display is great for media consumption, the Snapdragon 870 provides an excellent gaming experience and daily performance also feels smooth without any sort of overheating, the cameras are good and battery life is excellent with support for fast charging.

However, there are some areas where the iQOO Neo 6 could have been better when it comes to the build, you get a polycarbonate back instead of a glass back as seen on other smartphones in this price segment, and the cameras could have been better, and support for 5G bands could have been more and though FunTouchOS is good has a considerable amount of bloatware.

The one area where iQOO has nailed is in terms of gaming, battery life, and performance and if you are someone who values gaming more than other aspects then the iQOO Neo 6 is a very good option to be considered.