iQoo 11 Evaluate: Slick However Scarce

The very best praise I pays the iQoo 11 is I might fortunately use it as my predominant cellphone for the foreseeable future. That’s not one thing I can say about lots of the telephones that come throughout my desk for evaluate.

It’s a pleasing shock given it is a cellphone from the sub-brand of Vivo, an organization that hardly sells telephones in Europe and has no presence within the US. iQoo itself doesn’t promote the iQoo 11 or some other telephones formally in these areas.

That’s an actual disgrace as it is a very good cellphone. It’s the primary to ship with Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and it reveals. This is likely one of the quickest, most responsive Android telephones I’ve ever used.

The software program might nonetheless use some enchancment and there’s a gross quantity of bloatware pre-installed, however you’ll be rewarded with nice battery life, wonderful cameras, and prime efficiency that makes this a superb choice for cell players if you may get your fingers on it.

And that’s the catch right here, as a result of the iQoo 11 is barely on sale in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and India.

Design & construct

• No frills design…
• …Until you get the white one
• Very, very slippery

The iQoo 11 I reviewed is a delicate, plain matt black glass mannequin. It’s delicate however one of many slipperiest telephones I’ve ever used. Though I dislike a budget plastic case included within the field, I used it as a result of in any other case, the cellphone was continually falling out of my (small) fingers and off couch arms.

This mannequin is in sharp distinction to the opposite model, which is a vivid white with BMW branding and a blue and pink stripe down the again. I want the black mannequin.

On the rear of the cellphone is an oblong digicam module that’s fairly massive however has flat glass panel overlaying defending the triple cameras and flash. It’s a wise look that takes its cues from telephones such because the Samsung Galaxy S20 Extremely.

Steel rails across the edge are solely damaged by a quantity rocker on the proper above an influence button, with a USB-C port, SIM tray, mic and speaker grille on the underside.

I don’t love the ‘ULTRA SENSING’ branding beneath the digicam housing however it’s extra delicate than on another telephones on the market and is a small nod to conventional digicam design and lettering. There’s additionally no IP score for mud and water resistance, which is a disgrace.

Display & audio system

• Flat Samsung E6 panel
• 6.78in, 144Hz, AMOLED
• Twin stereo audio system

Like many fashionable telephones, the iQoo 11 is completely huge because of its 6.78in AMOLED display screen. I feel it’s too large, however I want small telephones because of my tiny fingers.

It’s one of many first telephones to make use of Samsung’s E6 show, an AMOLED panel with a 144Hz refresh fee and a 2K decision of 3200 x 1440. It’s excellent and has a peak brightness of 1,800 nits making for clear studying open air.

With that prime refresh fee additionally comes LTPO 3.0 which may intelligently differ the refresh fee between 60- and 144Hz to avoid wasting battery energy. It appears nice, although not as easy to my eyes as related tech on the iPhone 14 Professional and Google Pixel 7 Professional.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

It’s additionally virtually unattainable to inform the distinction between 120- and 144Hz, so that you shouldn’t go for this cellphone purely primarily based on that spec. Higher is iQoo’s clunkily named ‘twin monster contact’ which implies you possibly can function the left and proper sides of the display screen concurrently in panorama mode whereas gaming with as much as 4 contact factors for extra versatile management.

Twin stereo audio system are good to see (and listen to!) and are completely enough for gaming and a few informal YouTube watching.

Specs & efficiency

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• Vivo’s V2 chip
• 256GB storage/16GB RAM

Vivo and iQoo made positive the iQoo 11 was the primary cellphone to market with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. It’s nice to see, as generally we see new chips launched however telephones introduced later nonetheless with the earlier technology of silicon.

The 8 Gen 2 seems like a strong step up, a minimum of on this cellphone. Typically upgrades are incremental however trying on the uncooked benchmark scores in addition to efficiency when multitasking and gaming, the iQoo clearly delivers.

Rounds of Name of Responsibility Cell and Asphalt 9 have been flawless with body charges sky-high and no seen lag.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

iQoo has a gaming focus as a model and that’s evident with the inclusion of Vivo’s V2 chip within the cellphone which the corporate says will increase body fee and reduces energy consumption. I’m undecided if it’s the chip doing that particularly, however the gaming expertise is prime notch and comparable with different gaming telephones, most of which look much more outlandish in design than the delicate black mannequin I used to be testing.

It additionally helps that the cellphone comes with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, a quick and succesful reminiscence commonplace which means this cellphone flies by means of all the pieces. Plus, 256GB storage is greater than sufficient for me too, however there’s no expandable choice.

The cellphone barely ran sizzling even once I put it underneath intense load, which may be all the way down to the inclusion of what iQoo calls a vapour chamber liquid cooling system. So far as I can inform, this doesn’t really comprise liquid, as a substitute utilizing skinny layers of graphite and stainless-steel to dissipate the warmth created by the chipset and elements when gaming, for instance.

iQoo says this could cut back the warmth improve within the higher a part of the cellphone by greater than two levels centigrade.

The haptics on the cellphone are additionally excellent, with little pips for the keyboard vibrations that aren’t pretty much as good as on the newest iPhone however come fairly shut.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Digicam & video

• Glorious 50Mp predominant sensor
• 13Mp telephoto/portrait digicam
• 8Mp ultra-wide digicam

The cameras on the iQoo 11 are surprisingly wonderful. The primary 50Mp sensor isn’t pretty much as good or effectively calibrated because the equal on the Vivo X80 Professional, however it seems like Vivo handed on among the picture processing methods of that nice digicam to this one.

Dynamic vary is superb, and pictures have plenty of vibrancy, however the auto mode boosts blue skies and inexperienced grass to fairly saturated ranges. The sky within the first 4 pictures of the slide present exhibiting St Pancras Lodge was as orange as they give the impression of being – it’s the digicam capturing the scene effectively slightly than making it weirdly orange.

Some photos are additionally over sharpened, giving a man-made feeling. I needed to faucet to focus just a few occasions to get improved outcomes, which the primary sensor is unquestionably able to. Within the under picture, the dangling chains from among the cranes usually are not correctly processed, and the picture may be very over-sharpened:

Henry Burrell / Foundry

However within the under picture the extent of element is superb and the dynamic vary may be very consultant of the scene:

Henry Burrell / Foundry

The imaging inconsistency is predicted at a cellphone of this value, and for the massive half, the primary digicam excels. The ultrawide is serviceable however much less spectacular, although the 2x optical zoom of the telephoto lens is sweet to have and retains a superb stage of element and high quality regardless of utilizing a much less highly effective f/2.46 13Mp sensor.

I additionally had to ensure default settings for filters and sweetness modes have been turned off to keep away from some funky software program processing. It’s maddening that a few of these are turned on by default, however it is a cellphone bought in markets that may want these kinds of options.

Video seize can also be first rate, and zooming in whereas recording is easy and there’s a superb diploma of stability, even at 10x. The cellphone can document as much as 8K at 30fps, too.

Battery & charging

• Superb battery life
• Tremendous fast 120W quick charging
• In-built cooling for gaming

Battery life on this cellphone is unimaginable, notably when contemplating the facility of the chipset and the massive, vivid display screen. In PC Mark’s battery take a look at, it ran for 17 hours and 51 minutes, the all time rating we’ve recorded for a flagship, and the second-best we’ve ever recorded (behind the loopy 24 hours 52 minutes for the mid-range Sony Xperia 10 IV).

Day-to-day utilization on 4G and 5G with my predominant SIM card in it, the cellphone simply lasted a day and often just a few hours right into a second earlier than I used to be reaching for a charger.

The 120W charger comes within the field and actually modified how I charged my cellphone. No extra plugging in in a single day needed when you possibly can plug it in whenever you stand up and it’s absolutely charged in a mind-boggling 27 minutes. There’s no wi-fi charging compatibility, although.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

Software program & updates

• Android 13
• Tons of bloatware
• Solely two years of updates

The iQoo 11 runs Vivo’s Funtouch OS primarily based on Android 13. It’s good to see the newest model out of the field, although the corporate solely guarantees two platform updates to Android 15.

It’s a disgrace that Funtouch OS is so, effectively, boring. It contains neat touches like a nano music participant widget however the Materials You color theming from Android 13 is nowhere to be seen. The cellphone’s menus nearly really feel like an Android cellphone from 2017.

The cellphone comes with a gross quantity of bloatware put in, too. After I first booted it up I got here throughout a pre-installed folder known as ‘Sizzling Apps’ which, to be honest, hasn’t really put in 60 (!) apps however they’re a one-click set up away. There’s an identical folder known as ‘Sizzling Video games’, each of which set up these apps by way of Vivo’s V-Appstore.

Whereas it’s widespread for Android telephones exterior of Western markets to have a couple of app retailer, it’s nonetheless galling to have what mainly quantities to folders stuffed with app adverts pre-loaded onto a cellphone you should have paid good cash for. iQoo additionally pre-installs its personal Telephone and Messages apps however you need to use Google’s in the event you want.

Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry

There are just a few different pre-installed apps equivalent to Viu, SnackVideo, Shopee and Lazada. Fear not, Google Play Retailer is right here and the cellphone runs Google companies and not using a hitch. I ran the cellphone with all my traditional apps obtainable.

Higher software program additions are the gaming modes that auto-run whenever you hearth up a sport. Swiping in from the left whereas in-game offers you a panel with learn outs of CPU and GPU utilization and tabs to pick out three gaming modes together with monster, which jacks up the cellphone’s efficiency for the perfect gaming expertise attainable.

Worth & availability

The iQoo 11 is on sale in Indonesia for IDR10,999,000 which is about $720/£590 on the time of evaluate in January 2023.

The cellphone can also be on sale in India from ₹61,999, in Thailand from ฿27,990.00, and in Malaysia from RM3,499.

Verdict

The iQoo 11 is simple to advocate. It has gorgeous efficiency in a plain design (in the event you get the black one) which is able to go well with players on the lookout for a succesful cellphone however don’t need a garish design.

The battery life is superb, the flat display screen is great, and the cameras are excellent for the value vary. Extra annoying is the quantity of bloatware and the overall blandness of Funtouch OS, with a measly two years of model updates.

For those who stay in a rustic the place the iQoo 11 is bought, then it’s a tremendous buy and probably the most performant telephones you may get on this value vary. For anybody else, I counsel shopping for one thing in-country slightly than importing the iQoo 11 and doubtlessly dropping out on guarantee and after-purchase service from the corporate.

Specs

• Android 13 with Funtouch OS 13
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
• 6.78in 3200 x 1440 144Hz AMOLED show
• 256GB non-expandable UFS 4.0 storage
• 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
• 50Mp f/1.88 predominant digicam sensor
• 8Mp f/2.2 ultrawide
• 13Mp f/2.46 2x optical telephoto
• 5000mAh battery
• 120W wired quick charging
• Bluetooth 5.3
• GPS
• NFC
• 164.86 × 77.07 × 8.40 mm
• 208g