Iqoo 13 Complete Review Performance Focused Flagship

 Introduction and Overview

This is yet another Snapdragon 8 Elite flagship this time from Vivo Sub brand Iqoo. (Iqoo 13)

The Iqoo 13 though its a little different from the other 8 elites weve been seeing so far. For starters its aggressively priced.

And then there is no pro model here. Now what Iqoos basically done is cut out all the fluff and focus solely on performance. (Iqoo 13)

Now the lower price tag here doesnt necessarily mean this is a Poco F1 type pair bone steel.

Iqoo still managed to include a lot of nice to haves like an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner an IP rating and a 2k display amongst other things. (Iqoo 13)

So in todays video were gonna first unbox the Iqoo 13 and then take a detailed look at what Iqoos offering here. (Iqoo 13)

If this is your first time here or in case you just cant remember my names mari youre in thetechcafe and lets get started.

 Unboxing Experience

This is the box the Iqoo 13 comes in. This time I picked up the 12&256 version which is the base. Let me go ahead and cut through the plastic. (Iqoo 13)

Once we open up the box we had read it by the Iqoo 13 itself. Let me remove it from its protective cover. I ended up going for the black version this time. (Iqoo 13)

 Design and Color Options

Iqoo also offers three other color options. Now I chose the black because the back here is fiberglass with a matte finish. So it doesnt pick up fingerprints as much as easily but the metal sides polished. (Iqoo 13)

So that is a fingerprint magnet. Now the other three colors they use regular glass for the back. I mean the legend edition of the white its got similarly glossy metal sides.

Well the green and the gray their metal frames have a matte finish.

So which color do you think looks best this time The legend Let me know in the comments below. (Iqoo 13)

Also while youre down there which of these two devices would you want me to cover next The Xiaomi Pad 7 Pro or the Realme GT7 Pro Let me know you know where.

 Build Quality and Ergonomics

Okay back to the Iqoo 13. If you notice the display here its flat with just 2.5D curve with a very edges. But the back it curves on all four sides. (Iqoo 13)

Now the metal sides are in sharp. So they dont dig into the palm of your hand when you hold it. Thats it.

That and the corner is being rounded. Do help with ergonomics. Now this black skew its this limest coming in at under 8 millimeters of thickness.

The rest are slightly thicker and the black is also 6 grams lighter than the other colors cues. Now here Iqoos retain the Mi icon style camera array. And this time there is no periscope setup. (Iqoo 13)

 Camera Design and RGB Features

So the camera array is quite slim and the IR glasses also built into it. And guys this is a performance focused flagship right And if youre even slightly tech savvy Im sure you know that the best way to you know almost double your performance. Is by adding RGB.

So this camera array its got a RGB ring around it. The camera is the RGB. Well talk about all that in just a minute.

 Box Contents and Accessories

For now lets get back to the box. We have a card to indicate the BMW partnership along with the SIM ejector tool.

Theres a quick start guide and then theres a black TPU case that fits quite well.

Digging further in we get to a USB type C to type C cable which has white accents. And finally theres a 120 watt Vivo flash charger.

Now the Iqoo 13 exports a huge 6150 milliampere silicon carbide battery.

 Battery and Charging Performance

And using the included charger you can get this battery to 50% in just 12 minutes and a full charge in about half an hour which is pretty darn good.

While wireless charging has been cut the Iqoo 13 does have an IP68 IP69 rating for dust and water resistance and the fingerprint scanner and display both can be used with wet hands.

Now thats thanks to Iqoo going with an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner this time.

And theyve also placed it right. Its quite comfortable to use.

 Display Specifications and Quality

Now the display here is a 10bit OLED panel sized 6.82 inches.

The resolution is quite HD plus or 2K. So its a very sharp panel with a 510 pixels per range pixel density. There is no mention of the glass used for protection though.

Now this panel has 144 Hertz refresh with 80 LTPO tech. So the refresh rate can be varied as needed. Iqoo boasts of a brightness peak of 1800 nits.

And in my testing the Iqoo 13 actually output a little more than that. 1850 nits. Refreshing isnt it There is wide wind L12 in case youre wondering.

 Display Performance Testing

Now even under manual mode the Iqoo 13 output of very respectable 850 nits. So this panel is plenty bright for outdoor use.

Under low light theres 2592 Hertz high frequency PWM dimming in case youre sensitive to OLED flicker.

I really like how Iqoos not cut corners here. Given the competitive price it would have been very easy for them to go for a cheaper 1.5k panel and justify it as hey were being aggressive.

I mean there are more expensive flagship phones that weve seen being launched with a 1.5k panel after all right Honestly do you think this is a good call Or do you think they should have gone with a 1.5k panel and gotten even more aggressive with the pricing to you know beat that one phone too Id love to know your thoughts.

 Audio System

Anyway the display here its paired with asymmetrically placed stereo speakers that are pretty rich. The asymmetric placements ensure you dont cover both of them up when youre gaming no matter which way youre holding the phone.

 Processor and Gaming Performance

Talking about gaming the Iqoo 13 obviously its powered by Qualcomms flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite.

This time Qualcomms talking big gains thanks to using their own custom Orion cores.

And weve been seeing mind blowing centric benchmark numbers but amongst the multiple 8 Elite phones that have covered so far one things been common.

Theyve all struggled to tame this beast of an SOC.

That said Iqoos probably had the best results so far. On a stress test it lost a little under half its performance so it performs slightly better than other phones.

It wasnt as cool as the Honor Magic 7 Pro but it didnt get as hot as say the Xiaomi 15 Pro either.

And like Ive mentioned the 8 Elite its powerful and after run most games well despite the throttling.

the Iqoo 13 its also using their self developed Q2 gaming chip to help with frame interpolation and frame generation in case you want to do that.

 Memory and Storage Specifications

And by the way the Snapdragon 8 Elite its paired with 256 512GB or 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage and 12 or 16GB of LPDDR 5X Ultra RAM.

Whats that Ultra you ask Well thats just what we were calling their RAM because of the speed.

Now the 8 Elite supports RAM speeds up to 10667 Mega Transverse per second but most brands so far have been using 8533 Mega Transverse per second RAM.

Iqoo though theyve used 9600 here on the Iqoo 13 and hence theyre branding it Ultra.

 Storage Specification Update

Anyways this is a part Im fitting into the video after I was done with it because as I was working on the video the edits and the camera work and all that I noticed one more thing.

The official Iqoo website it says that the storage is UFS 4.0 but then yesterday there was a post on Chinese social media waybo where the official Iqoo handle mentioned something about UFS 4.1.

Im not sure if this is for a specific SKU or if they actually launched it with UFS 4.1 and later on theyve just activated it. It was running at UFS 4.0 speeds and it got activated.

Things are not really clear at this point. Once I get more information on this I will update the comment on below so do check that space.

 Software Experience

Now of course when you have such top shelf internals youd expect the user experience to be very good.

An Origin OS 5 here built it up Android 15 its been excellent.

Now when this phone launches globally it will not be running on Origin OS but rather Funtouch OS but it is a safe bet to expect the user experience to be just as good.

The software here is pretty similar to what we saw with the X200 Pro Mini with one major exception.

 RGB LED Ring Controls

We get options to control that LED ring to the back.

We can set up different scenarios to trigger it like when charging or getting a notification or call with some games you can even have them light up based on on screen actions.

Of course you arent going to be seeing it but if you want to do it as some kind of game of flex then you can.

 AI Features

Origin OS 5 also brings with it a bunch of AI functionality like AI eraser that lets you remove something in an image after its been shot. Theres also AI generation for wallpapers which worked fine. Anyways lets now talk cameras.

 Camera Strategy and Changes

Over the years Iqoo flagships have predominantly been performance focused smartphones. Last year though Iqoo tried to change that.

They tried to cater to a wider audience by stepping up their camera game.

With the Iqoo 13 they seem to have walked that back.

The primary here its actually a downgrade. Last year what we got was the 50megapixel Omnivision OV50H a 1×1.3inch sensor.

But on the Iqoo 13 this time theyve gone for a much smaller sensor the Sony IMX921 or light 702 whatever you want to call it. Its a 1×1.56inch sensor thats paired with an optically stabilized F1.88 lens.

 Primary Camera Performance

Now as long as the light is good pretty much every phone camera these days performs more or less well.

Between a midrange sensor and a flagship the main difference under good lighting conditions its going to be the dynamic range.

And even with that this sensor it performs above average. Not as good as camera focused flagships but not bad at all.

Now lowlight performance thats going to be the litmus test. And here the Iqoo 13 its still competent. The processing is fine.

Lets see this. The highlight control is good. But definitely not as good as we saw on say the Find X8 Pro or the OnePlus 13.

So the primary here is definitely a step below other flagships weve been seeing.

 Camera Fogging Issue

And guys heres where I noticed a weird issue. As I was shooting samples under lowlight I started seeing images like this.

Turns out the camera lens got fogged up and that wasnt an isolated incident either. Later on in the night when I was shooting these samples I ended up shooting this. As you can see fogged up once again.

To be fair the temperature where I am is low. I mean its zero degrees right now almost 4 a.m. Another all nighter.

Hit that subscribe button. Anyways I didnt mean to plug. The point is this kind of fogging should not really be happening.

Im not even going to say for a phone in this price. It shouldnt be happening on any phone at any price point. We did see this happening last year with Iqoo and Xiaomi.

And this year its not happened with Xiaomi and its a little disappointing that its still happening with Iqoo.

 Video Recording Performance

Anyways what wasnt disappointing was video. In fact I was pleasantly surprised.

8K30 was actually stable and usable. 4K60 a few drops but mostly details smooth and stable footage. I mean this makes me even more mad at the state.

The Xiaomi 15 Pro has been launched. I mean guys if Iqoo with downgraded optics on a phone thats not even focusing on cameras can get the primary camera to shoot such beautiful video I have no idea what Xiaomi is doing.

 Selfie Camera

Now talking about Jittery video Iqoo offers that too but we have the selfie camera.

This camera can shoot 4K60 which was added after an update. But as you can see this is not good 4K60. This 32MP camera does a fair job with stills though.

Details selfies with slightly boosted saturation.

 Ultrawide Camera

Now the secondary camera is a 50MP ultrawide the Samsung JN1 and it has autofocus so it does pull double duty for matter shots such as this.

 Telephoto Camera

The third camera heres the other down red.

No periscope this time. Instead we get a Sony IMX 816 a 1×2.93 inch sensor thats paired with another optically stabilized F1.9 lens. This gets you 2x optical zoom.

Its basically therefore portraits and its good Iqoos also provided a few options for these portraits. Once again I like the black and whites best. I guess I have a thing for monochrome I suppose.

 Street Photography Mode

And talking about presets you enter the humanistic street snap camera mode thats a mouthful when you swipe up from the regular camera interface.

This gives you all pro controls and a bunch of presets to shoot images like this. Its for quick street photography I suppose so thats exactly what I ended up doing.

 Camera System Overall Assessment

So overall the optics here I call it competent just not great. Its definitely the area where Iqoos got most corners.

So if cameras are a primary priority for you this phone its probably not aimed at you.

 Target Audience and Pricing

So who is this phone for Its probably aimed at people who are willing to tolerate the downgrade in optics for this competitive price.

So in China the Iqoo 13 starts at $39.99 which converts to about $550 US or $47000 rupees Indian. This makes the Iqoo 13 one of the least expensive snapdragon 8 elite phones today.

 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

And honestly I like a lot of what Iqoos done here the choices theyve made the choice to not go with a pro model the choice to not compromise on the display the choice to go for an IP rating the choice to still provide a charger in the box.

So anyways thats everything Iqoo 13. What do you guys think about this phone On a scale of 1 to 10 what would you rate the Iqoo 13 Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for supporting. mari out.

Reference

https://www.iqoo.com/en/products/iqoo-13

https://www.gsmarena.com/vivo_iqoo_13-13462.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLkvzDSeGWw

https://www.iqoo.com/in/products/param/iqoo13