iQOO launched its Z10 Lite 5G smartphone in India recently as the successor to last year’s Z9 Lite. This has a bigger and brighter screen, bigger battery, and the launch price is cheaper. Is this the best phone in the market in the price range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Display, Hardware and Design |
| Camera |
| Software, UI and Apps |
| Fingerprint sensor |
| Music player and Multimedia |
| SIM and Connectivity |
| Performance and Benchmarks |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO Z10 Lite 5G 8GB + 256GB in Titanium Blue
- 15W charger
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- Clear protective case
- SIM ejector tool
- User guide and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The iQOO Z10 Lite sports a 6.74-inch (1600×720 pixels) HD+ 20:9 aspect ratio LCD screen with 90Hz refresh rate. The screen has up to 1000 nits peak brightness, compared to 840 nits in the predecessor. The colour output good as well.
The 90Hz refresh rate offers a smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. You can select from standard (default), professional and bright screen colour modes. You can select smart switch or force it to 60Hz or 90Hz.
The phone has a 5MP front camera inside the notch, compared to 8MP in the predecessor. There is an earpiece on the top edge, but it doesn’t work as a secondary speaker. You can see a large bezel on the bottom.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button and the volume rockers are on the top, the dedicated dual SIM slot is present on the left side, microphone, USB Type-C port and the 3.5mm audio jack are present on the bottom. There is a speaker vent on the top since it has a top-ported speaker.
The phone has a plastic frame, but comes with a matte finish so it doesn’t attract fingerprints. It weighs 202 grams, which is acceptable since it packs a huge 6000mAh battery. The weight distribution is good.
The Titanium Blue colour with nice patterns and has a smooth matte finish. The phone also comes in a Cyber Green colour. It has IP64 ratings for dust and splash resistance and comes with Military-grade durability as well as SGS Five-Star Overall Unit Drop Resistance Certification.
Camera
- 50MP rear camera with Sony sensor, f/1.8 aperture
- 2MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- 5MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture
The camera UI in the FuntouchOS 14 is familiar. There is 50MP mode, Panorama, Documents, Slo-mo, Time-lapse, Pro mode and live photo. The rear camera offers 12.5MP output after pixel binning, and the front camera images are 5MP in size.
Daylight shots came out well, and the dynamic range is better with auto HDR. 2X is good, but as you zoom in you lose details even though you get up to 10X zoom. The portrait mode offers a good edge detection, thanks to the 2MP portrait camera. The low-light camera performance is just average, and the front camera performance is decent at the best.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos in up to 1080p, 30 fps from the front camera and rear cameras.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 15 with Funtouch OS 15 on top. It has Android security patch for May 2025. The iQOO Z10 Lite will get 2 Android OS updates and 3 years of security updates, similar to older Z series phones.
Funtouch OS 15 brings vivo’s Priority Scheduling model for 15% faster app startup time, has zRAM compression algorithm, resulting in a 40% boost in compression speed, vivo’s Origin Animation for a more natural and intuitive user experience.
Out of 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, about 7,6GB is usable, out of which 3.4GB 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, 224.4GB 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 Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Netflix, TrueCaller, Netflix and PhonePe. These apps can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
It has a side-mounted sensor that unlocks the phone quickly. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. The phone also has face unlock feature.
Music and Multimedia
The default Music Player also has equalizer and DeepField sound effects. It also has FM Radio support. There is audio super resolution, and super audio features. Audio through the mono speakers is decent, the company could have offered stereo speakers to compete with other brands. 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 doesn’t have HDR playback on YouTube or any other apps, which is fine considering the price range.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
The iQOO Z10 Lite has support for NSA: n1/n3/n40/n77(3300-3800MHz)/n78 | SA: n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n38/n40/n77(3300-3800MHz)/n78 bands Network Bands in India. It has 4G Wi-Fi and VoLTE, with support for Carrier Aggregation on 4G. Other connectivity options include Wi-Fi 5 802.11 ac,(2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, GPS / GLONASS / Galileo / QZSS. It has OTG support, but doesn’t have NFC support.
Moving on, the call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. It uses the company’s own dialer with auto call recording option and Google messages app.
The iQOO Z10 Lite’s body SAR is 0.88W/Kg (15mm distance) and head SAR is at 0.91/Kg which is way under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
The phone is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 6300 SoC, similar to the predecessor. It uses TSMC N6 (6nm-class) process, same as the Dimensity 6100+. It has 2x x Arm Cortex-A76 big cores clocked at 2.4GHz and 6 x Arm Cortex-A55 efficiency cores, clocked at 2GHz, promising up to 10% faster CPU performance than the previous generation.
The Arm Mali-G57 MC2 promises over 50% GPU performance improvements compared to the previous generation. It can handle casual games like Subway surfers, and games like BGMI in low graphics, but can’t handle high-end games like Genshin Impact. There is no dedicated cooling solution, but I didn’t face any heating issues.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.4% which is just good. The temperature shot up from 30 to 33 degrees, which is not much. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 6000mAh (typical) battery, which is huge for a phone in the price range, and it is 1000mAh bigger compared to the predecessor. It can easily last for a day with heavy use and for 2 days with typical use.
Since the phone only supports 15W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about over an hour, and 100% charge take close to two and half hours.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 9,999, the iQOO Z10 Lite is a decent smartphone and a good upgrade to the Z9 Lite for the price with good build, good battery life and a decent performance. The camera is average, which is not a big deal, but the company could have gone for a punch-hole screen instead of the notch, and the 15W fast charging is too slow, taking 2 and half hours to charge the phone.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO Z10 Lite 5G is priced at Rs. 9,999 for the 4GB + 128GB model, the 6GB + 128GB model costs Rs. 10,999 and the top-end 8GB + 256GB model is priced at Rs. 12,999. It is available from Amazon.in, and iQOO India e-store.
Alternatives
The POCO M6 Plus is a good alternative in the price range with a FHD+ screen, and a 108MP camera. If you spend a bit more, there is iQOO’s own Z9x with a FHD+ screen, the same 6000mAh battery, and faster charging is a good option.
Pros
- Good build quality with IP64 ratings, military-grade durability
- Decent performance
- Dedicated Dual SIM and microSD slots
- Decent camera performance in daylight
- Long battery life
Cons
- Display notch
- 15W charging takes ages to charge
- Bloatware