iQOO launched the iQOO Neo9 and Neo9 Professional final yr in China, however just one smartphone escaped the nation – the iQOO Neo9, which was launched because the Neo9 Professional in India. Probably the most notable distinction between the Chinese language Neo9 – known as Neo9 Professional globally – and the Chinese language Neo9 Professional is within the chipset and digicam departments.
The Neo9 Professional is powered by Dimensity 9300 SoC and contains a 50MP ultrawide digicam, whereas the Neo9 has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip on the helm and sports activities an 8MP ultrawide digicam. We used the Indian iQOO Neo9 Professional – sharing {hardware} with the Chinese language Neo9 – for over a month, and this is what we discovered about it.
Design
The iQOO Neo9 Professional is constructed round a 6.78″ 8T LTPO AMOLED show having a 3,000 nits peak brightness and 144Hz display screen refresh fee. The display screen additionally has a punch-hole for the 16MP selfie digicam and a fingerprint scanner embedded for biometric authentication.
The fingerprint reader was quick and correct, and we confronted no points whereas utilizing it. Nonetheless, it might’ve been positioned barely greater for ease of attain, facilitating a extra handy smartphone unlocking expertise.
Flip the cellphone round, and also you see an LED flash and two cameras – 50MP major and 8MP ultrawide. The iQOO Neo9 Professional is available in Fiery Pink and Conqueror Black colours, and it is the purple model that we acquired for overview.
The Conqueror Black model’s again cowl is manufactured from fingerprint-resistant Fluorite AG Glass, whereas the Fiery Pink mannequin’s rear panel flaunts a Twin-Tone Vegan Leather-based Design. iQOO says that it’s carbon fiber vegan leather-based and skin-friendly lychee vegan leather-based “seamlessly integrated for an ultra-thin edge,” leading to a “unique and premium look and feel.”
Effectively, the purple mannequin seems good, and the fake leather-based – which is what it’s – helps with the grip, however not as a lot as we might have appreciated. It additionally does not really feel as premium because the leather-based end we have now on the extra inexpensive Realme 12 Professional sequence smartphones.
On the upside, the iQOO Neo9 Professional Fiery Pink’s vegan leather-based end ensures it does not get smudged with fingerprints, which might require fixed wiping to maintain the cellphone in its pristine type for those who do not use a protecting case.
No matter which model you purchase, the iQOO Neo9 Professional comes with flat frames and a again panel, with the latter having barely curved edges just like the iQOO 12, making the cellphone snug to carry regardless of flat frames. The smartphone can be gentle sufficient for extended utilization. Nonetheless, the protruding rear cameras make it wobble on flat surfaces and transfer when it vibrates upon receiving calls and notifications. That is not splendid because the cellphone might fall if saved close to the sting of a flat floor.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional’s right-side body has an influence button and quantity rocker with respectable suggestions, and on the backside is the USB-C port, flanked by a SIM card slot, major microphone, and a speaker grille. Up prime is one other microphone, joined by an IR blaster.
Ports and controls
The Neo9 Professional is IP54-rated, and we like its total design.
Show
The iQOO Neo9 Professional packs a 6.78″ 144Hz 8T LTPO All the time-On AMOLED show of two,800×1,260-pixel decision and 452 ppi pixel density. It is protected by Schott Xensation Up and helps 1.07 billion colours. It additionally has HLG, HDR10, HDR10+, and Widevine L1 certifications.
iQOO went with an X-Axis Linear Motor for the Neo9 Professional, which supplied nice haptic suggestions that made typing on the display screen enjoyable. It additionally gives 4D Sport Vibration when gaming, which boosts the general gaming expertise.
The show was additionally lots shiny, which made it simple to observe media and browse textual content underneath direct daylight at max brightness.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional additionally comes with an impartial show chip known as Supercomputing Chip Q1, which, the model says, helps obtain low latency with excessive body fee video games, decrease energy consumption at excessive body charges and determination, and decrease temperature throughout heavy gaming periods. The Sport Tremendous Decision and Sport Body Interpolation options are enabled with the Chip Q1, with the latter marketed to assist obtain a body fee of 144 FPS in video games.
That stated, the iQOO Neo9 Professional has Sensible Swap, Normal (60Hz), and Excessive (144Hz) refresh fee choices, with the display screen supporting 10 refresh charges in complete – 1Hz, 30Hz, 40Hz, 45Hz, 51Hz, 60Hz, 72Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz. Nonetheless, iQOO says 144Hz is just for gaming – which is a bummer – so the utmost refresh fee achievable throughout non-gaming utilization is 120 FPS.
With the display screen refresh fee set to Excessive (144Hz), the refresh fee bumped up from 1Hz to 120Hz for the system menus and apps when interacting with the show. It remained at 10Hz when viewing a picture in Google Pictures and at 30/60Hz when watching movies on Fb, Instagram, Twitter, Google Pictures, and YouTube.
The Normal (60Hz) mode was principally the Excessive mode, besides the refresh fee went as much as 60Hz. In Sensible Swap mode, the apps went as much as 90 FPS when interacting with the display screen, with solely the homescreen, app drawer, app switcher, Settings app, and the Play Retailer having 120 FPS help. Nonetheless, just like the Normal and Excessive Mode, the Sensible Swap mode additionally switched to 10Hz when viewing a picture and 30/60Hz when watching movies.
We tried Name of Obligation Cellular, Lifeless Set off 2, Actual Racing 3, and Sky Drive Reloaded on the iQOO Neo9 Professional, and solely the final two video games ran at 120 FPS – that too in Excessive Mode – with others being capped at 60 FPS. COD is included within the listing of video games supporting 144 FPS gaming, however that wasn’t the case throughout our utilization, even with Sport Body Interpolation enabled.
To conclude, if you need the smoothest attainable expertise, the Excessive refresh fee mode is the best choice.
Software program and Efficiency
The iQOO Neo9 Professional is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and comes with as much as 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Ours is the top-end 12GB/256GB mannequin, working Android 14-based Funtouch OS 14 out of the field.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional comes pre-loaded with third-party apps, however most could be uninstalled. The general software program expertise is much like that of the iQOO 12, so that you would possibly wish to learn our iQOO 12 overview to be taught extra about Funtouch OS 14.
We had no efficiency points with the iQOO Neo9 Professional because the smartphone was clean and snappy in on a regular basis utilization. It additionally dealt with heavy video games throughout lengthy gaming periods very nicely whereas remaining moderately cool even in scorching Indian summers. Nonetheless, as we already talked about, some video games that iQOO marketed with 144 FPS help remained capped at 60 FPS.
Digicam
The iQOO Neo9 Professional sports activities three cameras – one of many entrance and two on the rear. The selfie shooter on the entrance makes use of a 16MP Samsung ISOCELL S5K3P9SP04-FGX9 1/3.1″ sensor. It has an f/2.45 aperture and might report movies in 1080p decision at 30 FPS.
The twin digicam setup on the rear includes 50MP major and 8MP ultrawide models. The first digicam makes use of the Sony IMX920 1/1.49″ sensor with vivo Digicam-Bionic Spectrum (VCS). It has OIS, f/1.88 aperture, and might report 1080p and 4K movies at 30 and 60 FPS, whereas 720p and 8K video recording is restricted to 30 FPS.
The 8MP ultrawide unit makes use of the OmniVision OV08D10-GA5A-001A with an f/2.2 aperture and an FOV of 119˚.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional’s major and ultrawide cameras had been fairly fast to seize pictures, and we not often noticed any shutter lag within the default Photograph mode. Within the 50MP mode, the first digicam expectedly took a bit longer to click on the photographs, whereas Night time Mode took even longer in each the default and 50MP modes.
In the course of the day, the iQOO Neo9 Professional’s 50MP major digicam took good photographs within the default Photograph mode. Nonetheless, typically, the photographs clicked with the first digicam within the Photograph mode and 50MP mode had inconsistencies in colours.
Furthermore, the colours within the footage taken in Photograph mode with the first and ultrawide cameras seemed related however had been completely different within the 50MP high-res mode.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional’s 50MP major digicam clicked respectable footage at night time as nicely, and within the 50MP high-res mode, it did a greater job of retaining particulars within the shadows than the Photograph mode. The colours had been additionally nearer to the supply, particularly the skies.
Pictures taken with the 8MP ultrawide digicam at night time had been softer than those captured with the first digicam, particularly across the edges. The colours additionally seemed a bit washed out at instances. Additionally, no matter whether or not you used the first or ultrawide digicam, many low-light footage had lens flare.
Nonetheless, it is value mentioning that photographs clicked with the iQOO Neo9 Professional in low gentle weren’t as noisy and delicate as these taken with the iQOO Neo7 Professional, which is appreciated.
You may test some footage we took from the iQOO Neo9 Professional under.
Daylight Pictures
Let’s take a look at the daylight photographs first, captured with the 50MP major digicam having an output of 12.6MP in Photograph mode.
Main digicam, 12.6MP (23mm).
Main digicam, 12.6MP (23mm)
Ultrawide digicam, 8MP (16mm).
Ultrawide digicam, 8MP (16mm)
Main digicam, 50MP (Excessive decision, 23mm).
Main digicam, 50MP (Excessive decision, 23mm)
Nighttime Pictures
Now, let’s check out some nighttime photographs.
Main digicam, 12.6MP (23mm).
Main digicam, 12.6MP (23mm)
Ultrawide digicam, 8MP (16mm).
Ultrawide digicam, 8MP (16mm)
Main digicam, 50MP (Excessive decision, 23mm).
Main digicam, 50MP (Excessive decision, 23mm)
Battery
The iQOO Neo9 Professional ships with a 5,160 mAh battery. We could not run our commonplace battery check on the iQOO Neo9 Professional, however anecdotally talking, the smartphone ought to simply get most individuals by means of the day on a single cost. We obtained a screen-on time of over seven hours with a 120Hz refresh fee, always-on show, 5G cellular knowledge, and Wi-Fi hotspot enabled the entire time. Our utilization consisted of internet looking, utilizing social media apps, and streaming YouTube movies. With about an hour of heavy gaming, our common screen-on time dropped to 4-5 hours.
As soon as the iQOO Neo9 Professional’s battery is drained, you’ll be able to fill it up with the bundled 120W energy adapter. It is marketed to juice up the cell from 1% to 50% in 11 minutes, however in our testing, it charged 1% to 14% in 5 minutes, 32% in 10 minutes, 34% in 11 minutes, 43% in quarter-hour, 50% in 17 minutes, 56% in 20 minutes, 79% in half-hour, and 100% in 38 minutes.
These charging exams had been run with the All the time-On Show turned on, and your mileage will seemingly fluctuate relying in your utilization and ambient temperature when charging the cellphone.
Conclusion
The iQOO Neo9 Professional is among the finest mid-rangers you should buy in India proper now. It has a handy guide a rough efficiency and handles video games nicely. It contains a 144Hz LTPO AMOLED panel with good outside legibility. The battery life can be excellent, which, when paired with 120W quick charging, makes for an ideal mixture.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional’s 50MP major digicam clicks respectable footage. They might not be the most effective on this vary, however then once more, the Neo9 Professional is not a camera-centric smartphone and primarily focuses on efficiency. Nonetheless, we might prefer to see some software program optimizations from iQOO for a extra constant digicam efficiency from the Neo9 Professional.
The iQOO Neo9 Professional begins at INR34,999 ($420/€390) in India, and it’s value contemplating.