iQOO launched its Z9 5G smartphone in India earlier this week as the successor to last year’s Z7. This has an improved AMOLED display, faster Dimensity 7200 SoC, better camera with OIS and a bigger battery. Is this the best phone in the market in the Rs. 20,000 price range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO Z9 5G 8GB + 256GB version in Graphene Bluee colour
- Clear Silicon case
- USB Type-C Cable
- 44W Super FlashCharge wall adapter
- SIM ejector tool
- Quick start guide and Warranty information’
Display, Hardware and Design
The iQOO Z9 5G sports a 6.67-inch (2400×1080 pixels) Full HD+ 20:9 aspect ratio AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. The display is bright even outdoors, and it has up to 1,800 nits brightness peak brightness. This is better than the smaller AMOLED screen with a notch in the Z7 5G.
You can select from standard (default), professional and bright screen colour modes. You can select smart switch that can switch between the refresh rate or force it to 60Hz or 120Hz. It has 360Hz touch sampling rate and 1200Hz instant touch sampling rate. There is visual enhancement option that optimizes color and contrast in select apps when enabled.
It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube and Netflix. The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but this has an always-on-display that shows contextual info and notifications all day or as per schedule.
The phone has a 16MP front camera inside the punch-hole. The earpiece acts as a secondary speaker.
There is a small chin below the screen. It has an in-display optical fingerprint scanner. The haptic feedback is good.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the phone has a power button and volume rockers on the right. The bottom part is crammed with a hybrid dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and a speaker grill. The secondary microphone is on the top. The phone doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack, which was present in the Z7.
The back of the phone has a camera part with dual rear cameras. Even though it has a polycarbonate back, it has a smooth matte finish that doesn’t attract fingerprints.
Compared to the Graphene Blue colour that we have, the Brushed Green colour looks attractive. The phone is just 7.83mm thick. Even though it packs a 5000mAh battery, it weighs just 188 grams. The phone has IP54 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with Sony IMX882 sensor, f/1.79 aperture, OIS + EIS, 4K 30fps video recording
- 2MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture, 1080p video recording
The camera UI is the same as other phones running Funtouch OS. It includes several features such as Pro mode, 50MP mode, supermoon, and more. Even though the phone has a 50MP rear camera, the final output is 12.5MP in size after pixel binning, and the front camera output is 16MP.
Coming to the camera quality, the daylight shots are good, and it is recommended to enable HDR option which automatically switches on HDR according to the shot, so that the dynamic range is good. The camera can focus quickly. There is a 2MP depth sensor for portrait shots and the portrait mode has good edge detection. The phone doesn’t have an ultra-wide camera.
Low-light images has also improved compared to the previous generation, but there is noise when you zoom in. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization. There is also supermoon mode with up to 20x zoom, compared to 10x in the normal mode. The supermoon option is a good addition, but you can’t compare it to flagships.
The same old 16MP camera is good in daylight, and the front camera portrait is decent as well, but it is not the best when it comes to low-light.
Check out some camera samples below
It can record videos at up to 4k resolution at up to 30 fps from the rear camera and the front camera supports 1080p 30 fps recording. It has standard stabilization which is EIS on top of OIS that does a good job in stabilization. The phone has portrait video recording at 1080p 24fps, but doesn’t have HDR video recording.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 14 with Funtouch OS 14 on top. It has Android security patch for January 2024. The phone will get 2 Android OS updates and 3 years of security updates, same as the older Z7.
Funtouch OS 14 brings Smooth Experience, Visual Smoothness, Enhanced Multitasking, improved Personalization, including custom Kinetic wallpapers, custom lock screen clock style with three layout styles and eight font styles.
Out of 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, about 7.4GB is usable, out of which 3GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 8GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage, 225.88GB is free out of the box.
Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with a lot of apps such as Facebook, Amazon, LinkedIn, PhonePe, and some games. These apps can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. There are different animation styles that display when you unlock, which you can disable. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music and Multimedia
The default Music Player also has equalizer and DeepField sound effects. It doesn’t have FM Radio support. There is audio super resolution, and super audio features. Audio through the stereo speakers is crisp and loud. Audio through the headphones is good as well.
This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. It also supports HDR playback on Netflix and YouTube.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n40/n77/n788) bands, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ac (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.3, GPS + GLONASS, but lacks NFC support. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.
The iQOO Z9 5G’s body SAR is 0.943W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.984/Kg which is way under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the first phone in India to be powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 4nm processor in the price range. It has 2 x Arm Cortex-A715 performance core operating at up to 2.8GHz and 6x Arm Cortex-A510 efficiency cores at 2.0GHz.
The Mali-G610 MC6 offers a smooth gaming performance even in graphic intensive games, and the phone doesn’t get too hot. It reached maximum 43º C in our testing indoors in Wi-Fi, but this might vary outdoors in 4G or 5G. However, we did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) battery, which is bigger than the 4500mAh battery in the Z7. It can easily last for a day with heavy use, thanks to the optimization.
I got close to 4 hours of screen on time with almost 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use with Smart refresh rate. This should last for 2 days for me easily, which is good compared to Z7.
Since the phone has support for 44W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about half an hour and up to 100% in just over an hour.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 19,999, the iQOO Z9 5G is a worth successor to the Z7 5G. It has several improvements in terms of performance, screen, camera, battery life, and offers a good value in the range. Wish the company had added an ultra-wide camera instead of the depth sensor.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO Z9 5G is priced at Rs. 19,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model and the 8GB + 256GB model costs Rs. 21,999. There is a Rs. 2000 bank discount, which brings the price of the phone down to Rs. 17,999. It is available from Amazon.in and iQOO.com starting today, March 14th.
Alternatives
If you spend more, there is Nothing Phone (2a) that offers a better camera, design, and Glyph lights, but it doesn’t come with a charger or case in the box.
Pros
- 120Hz AMOLED HDR display is good
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Main camera performance is good
- Good battery life with 44W fast charging
Cons
- Blue color has a generic rear design
- A lot of preloaded apps