Is iQOO the new OnePlus? Conversations like these have started to gather a lot of momentum over the last few years. And for good reason. This Vivo spin-off brand has literally taken upon itself to fill the gap left after OnePlus moved to service a higher price tier. Year after year, it’s become almost like second nature for iQOO to launch the first phone with Qualcomm’s greatest mobile processor, at least in India, and the song remains the same with its latest launch, the iQOO 12 5G.

The iQOO 12 holds the crown to give buyers the first dibs at the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 warming up the market with fireworks and magic before the usual suspects— OnePlus, Samsung et al— decide to show up eventually. The jury isn’t out on whether iQOO is able to cash in on this early start but looking at the iQOO 12 (and the iQOO 11 that came before it), more people should notice it, believe in its story, and consider iQOO as a serious option.

But instead, it changed the game. The iQOO 12 feels like the first phone from iQOO in years to look like it’s coming out of Vivo’s shadow and doing its own thing. It looks like an iQOO phone. Not a Vivo. That’s the headline, right there. We won’t go into the ins and outs and leave more meat for our full review. Once again, iQOO is offering a choice of white and black. Both are handsome looking. The white— or legend edition as it’s called— is obviously shinier (and the one to buy in our opinion). The black is a bit more restraint but classy.

The chassis is flat though from the back, the edges have a wee bit of curve and so, it fits well and feels good in the hands. All brands have figured out the way to make flat phones ergonomic (taking a page out of Apple’s textbook of course). iQOO doesn’t specify the type of glass on the front or back as usual. The sides are metal. iQOO has also managed to put an IP rating— a rarity in these phones— even if it is limited to IP64.

The iQOO 12 has a glass back and metal frame. (Photo credit: Saurabh Singh/Financial Express)

The screen is chef’s kiss. There’s plenty of real estate at 6.78-inch, plenty of pixels at 1.5K (2800x1260p) resolution, and it is plenty fast at 144Hz. The panel can peak 1400nits in sunny outdoors and up to 3000nits when playing HDR content (up to HDR10+ is supported natively). You get 2160Hz PWM dimming and an in-screen fingerprint reader for biometrics. If that wasn’t enough, iQOO has also equipped the 12’s screen with wet touch technology, which seems mostly similar to the one that OnePlus uses on its own 12.

iQOO pairs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with up to 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM and up to 512GB of UFS4.0 storage. The VC setup for cooling is up to 40 percent bigger than that on the iQOO 11, iQOO says, to pull sustained performance and the numbers speak for themselves. iQOO is doubling down on software efforts, too, making the iQOO 12 among the first phones to launch with Android 14 out of the box. The phone is guaranteed to get three years of major OS and four years of security updates which is not the best in class for flagships like these but iQOO is sweeting the deal a bit by shipping the 12 without any Hot Apps and Hot Games folders, reducing bloat. Rounding off the package is a 5,000mAh battery with 120W fast wired charging.

iQOO 12 AnTuTu score (Photo credit: Saurabh Singh/Financial Express)

For photography, the iQOO 12 has a trio of 50-megapixel, 50-megapixel, and 64-megapixel sensors sitting behind a 23mm wide (with optical image stabilisation), 150-dgree ultrawide, and 70mm periscope-style telephoto (for 3x optical and up to 100x digital zoom). There is another 16-megapixel selfie camera on the front. Top-tier, again.

Barring wireless charging and “full proof” water resistance, the iQOO 12 covers big ground, the kind that no other iQOO phone has covered before and while doing that, it also provides the best value on a flagship at the time of writing. It’s hard to not be impressed by the iQOO 12 but like all things, it, too, must go through the grind of our tests and experiences for us to tell you, who this new phone is for and why should they buy it. Stay tuned for our full review for all the deets on iQOO’s 12.

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