iQOO today launched the iQOO 15 smartphone in India as the successor to last year’s iQOO 13. This has several upgrades from the iQOO 13 in terms of display, camera, performance, battery life and lots more, and the price has also increased a lot. Is this the best flagship phone in the market in the 70K price range? Let use dive into the review to find out.
| Box Contents |
| Camera |
| Battery Life |
| Conclusion |
Box Contents
- iQOO 15 16GB + 512GB version in Legend colour
- Silicon case
- USB Type-C Cable
- 100W Super FlashCharge wall adapter
- SIM ejector tool
- Quick start guide and Warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
The iQOO 15 sports a large 6.85-inch (3168×1440 pixels) 2K 20:9 aspect ratio 8T LTPO AMOLED display with Samsung M14 Light-Emitting Material and 144Hz refresh rate. The screen has up to 2600 nits brightness in HBM mode, which iQOO claims makes it India’s brightest display. The sunlight legibility is good, and it has up to 6000 nits peak brightness. The colour output good as well since it has 1.07 billion colors.
The device also supports Dolby Vision and incorporates triple ambient light sensors for automatic brightness adjustment. There is Anti-Reflective Screen Protective Film on the phone that cuts down glare effectively. iQOO says it cuts down 95.4% light transmittance and reduce reflectivity to as low as 1.5%.
You can select between 1080p and 2K display options. The 144Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate and 3200Hz instant touch sampling rate offer 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 144Hz, but it can switch between 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and 144Hz depending on the content and can also go to 30Hz and 45Hz in some content and down to 1Hz with static content. Visual enhancement optimizes the color and contrast of some pictures for more vivid display effects, says the company.
There is also MEMC and super resolution for improved frame rate and resolution in some apps like YouTube, Netflix and Prime video. There is 2160Hz PWM Dimming that is automatically activated when you are using the phone in low brightness. The screen has SCHOTT Diamond Shield glass protection. It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube, and Netflix supports Dolby Vision as well.
The phone doesn’t have a notification LED, but there is Always on display (AOD). The new Monster Halo LED light around the camera module that acts as a notification light has been improved in the iQOO 15 and is more prominent. The light turns on and off, matching the rhythm of games and music. It also shows real-time notifications for calls, messages, and charging status. It can be customized for different games.
The phone has a 32MP front camera inside the punch-hole, same as the iQOO 13. There is an earpiece on the top edge which also works as a secondary speaker. You can see ultra-narrow bezels around the screen.
Even the bezel below the screen has reduced. The haptic feedback is good as well, thanks to the industry-first x and y, dual-axis vibration motor, which provides more dynamic and precise haptic feedback compared to single-axis motors.
Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left side, so you just see the antenna band. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom and the secondary microphone is present on the top along with the IR blaster, speaker vent and ambient light sensor.
It has a metal frame with a matte finish, so it doesn’t attract fingerprints easily. It weighs 220 grams, which is just 7 grams heavier than the iQOO 13 even with a bigger 7000mAh battery. The weight distribution is good.
The Legend version that we have has a new tri-color pattern logo and a glass back with matte finish so that it doesn’t slip out of your hands easily. It also comes in Alpha colour that has a matte finish since it uses fiberglass and is slightly lighter at 216.2g.
Even this time, there is no vegan leather version. It retains IP68 + IP69 ratings and can stand when immersed in up to 1 meter of water or when exposed to high-pressure water jets for 30 seconds. There is also wet finger screen control enabling calling, shooting, and gaming with a wet or sweaty hand.
Camera
- 50MP camera with 1/ 1.49″ Sony IMX921 sensor, f/1.88 aperture, OIS
- 50MP 1/2.76″ 150° ultra-wide-angle camera with f/2.0 aperture
- 50MP 3x periscope telephoto camera with 1/1.95″ Sony IMX882 sensor, f/2.65 aperture, OIS
- 32MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture
The camera UI is the same as other phones running Origin OS. It includes several features such as AR stickers, Pro Sports mode, long exposure, 50MP mode, supermoon, fisheye, and more. There is also Landscape and Night mode, and street photography features with a custom UI. 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 32MP.
The main camera sensor is the same as the iQOO 13. Coming to the camera quality, the daylight shots are brilliant, thanks to VCS and vivo’s algorithm. 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. The 50MP ultra-wide camera doesn’t have macro option, instead, the telephoto camera has been improved with a better Sony sensor.
Instead of 2x telephoto, the company has brought back 3x periscope telephoto camera which is helpful in zoomed shots. Portrait shots as good with telephoto. It offers 23mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 100mm portraits. The phone can shoot macro images with the main camera in up to 6x, but you can’t focus close. You can also adjust the focal length and the focus distance manually for the shots.
Low-light image quality are better, thanks to new NICE 2.0 algorithm. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization, but low-light shots from ultra-wide and telephoto camera are average. There is also supermoon mode with up to 100x zoom, same as the normal mode.
The 32MP front camera is good in daylight, and the portrait is decent as well, but low-light needs improvements.
Check out some camera samples below
It can record videos at 8k resolution at up to 30 fps, and 4k resolution at up to 60 fps from the rear camera and the front camera now supports 4K 60 fps recording. It has standard and ultra stabilization, but the resolution is down to 1080p in ultra option since it crops the content. OIS does a good job in stabilization. It still doesn’t have HDR video recording, and the portrait video is still limited to 1080p 30fps.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 16 with Origin OS 6 on top, making it the first phone in the country to run OriginOS 6 out of the box. It has Android security patch for September 2025. The iQOO 15 will get 5 Android OS updates and 7 years of security updates for the first time.
OriginOS 6 centers around the new Origin Smooth Engine, coordinating computing, storage, and display modules for sustained system responsiveness. The Origin Animation System introduces motion effects such as Spring Animation, Blur Transition, Morphing Animation, and One Shot Animation for enhanced visual fluidity, inspired by natural elements.
There are Dynamic Glow and Translucent Color effects for visual depth, Immersive Weather offering animated environmental visuals, Lock Screen Grid for flexible widget arrangement and photo blending, and a new 4×7 Home Screen Grid with adaptive folders and Flip Cards that animate with device motion.
- Origin Island: Real-time status bar with Android 16 Live Updates
- Copy & Go: Copy details to call, text, or schedule directly
- Drag & Go: Move photos or content seamlessly between apps
- AI Retouch: Combines AI Erase, Image Expander, and Photo Enhance
- Productivity Tools: Smart Call Assistant, DocMaster, AI Creation, AI Search
- Cross-Device Integration: Office Kit for Windows and Mac and One-Tap Transfer for iQOO and iPhone offer smooth workflow
Out of 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM, about 14.87GB is usable, out of which 10GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 16GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage, 454.66GB is free out of the box.
Since the phone has an IR blaster, it comes with a Smart Remote app. Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with a lot of apps such as Facebook, PhonePe, Netflix, Instagram and LinkedIn. These apps can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone uses a third generation ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor, which is quicker and more accurate compared to the optical fingerprint scanner. 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 in YouTube, and Dolby Vision works for Netflix along with HDR 10+.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with support for n1/n2/n3/n5/n7/n8/n18/n20/n26/n28A/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n48/n66/n71/n77/n78 bands, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. It also has eSIM support. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 7 802.11be (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz), Bluetooth 6.0, GPS + GLONASS and NFC support. It also has USB OTG support, and it has USB 3.2 Gen1. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.
The stock dialer adds smart summary and AI call translation. There is also call recording without announcement. It uses Google messages.
The iQOO 15’s body SAR is 0.90W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.98/Kg which is almost similar to iQOO 13, under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance and Benchmarks
This is the one of the first phones in India to be powered by the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform. It has a 2 + 6 all-big core architecture that uses 2 x Oryon Prime CPU at up to 4.6GHz, 6 x Oryon Performance CPUs at up to 3.62GHz.
The phone has the largest, 8000 mm² ultra-large VC vapor chamber in iQOO’s history, 14.2% more compared to iQOO 13. The phone has Q3 Self-developed chip that offers both 2K super resolution and 144 fps super frame rate using game frame interpolation concurrently. It also has Live Streaming with USB 3.2 Gen1, and the company has developed game live-streaming assistant that requires no specialised hardware or software; users can simply download a tool on a laptop or desktop and connect with the app on their phone.
We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, thanks to the new Adreno 840 GPU. The Super Computing chip helps to achieve ultra low latency even with the high frame rate games.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 48.3%, and the temperature shot up from 31 to 47 degrees. This time, the stability has reduced, and the temperature has increased compared to the iQOO 13. Check out the benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 7000mAh (typical) Silicon-Carbon battery, which is 1000mAh bigger than the iQOO 13. It can easily last for more than a day even with heavy use, thanks to the optimization.
I got over 6 and half hours of screen on time with 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use with Smart refresh rate. This is slightly better than the iQOO 13.
Since the phone has support for 100W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about 20 minutes and up to 100% in less than an hour. You will have to enable fast charging option if you want to reduce the charging time, but the phone gets a bit hot. It also adds 40W wireless charging support for the first time, but you will have to use third-party chargers since the company doesn’t a charger. There is also bypass charging feature when gaming, so the charging current bypasses the battery to go straight to the motherboard, so it doesn’t affect the battery.
Conclusion
The iQOO 15 arrives as a compelling, power-packed upgrade to the iQOO 13, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to delivering an uncompromising flagship experience, especially for performance enthusiasts.
While the starting price of Rs. 72,999 is a significant jump from its predecessor, it is arguably justified by the multitude of flagship-level enhancements across the board when it comes to smooth performance, brighter display, versatile camera set up, bigger battery with wired and wireless fast charging, and the software has also been improved with the introduction of Origin OS 6.
In the highly competitive Rs. 70,000 price segment, the iQOO 15 carves out a powerful niche. While its camera, though significantly improved and versatile, may not dethrone the most established photography-focused flagships in all scenarios such as low-light.
Pricing and availability
The iQOO 15 is priced at Rs. 72,999 for the 12GB + 256GB model and the 16GB + 512GB model costs Rs. 79,999. With offers, the effective starting price is Rs. 64,999.
The phone will be available from Amazon.in, iQOO.com starting from December 1st for everyone and from November 27th to those who had pre-booked the phone.
Alternatives
The realme GT8 Pro and OnePlus 15 in the similar price range are direct competitors with the same flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. The OPPO Find X9 costs slightly more, but it is more compact, and the vivo X300 that is launching next week should also be in the similar range.
Pros
- 144Hz 2K AMOLED display is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Good cameras
- Solid build with IP68 + IP69 ratings
- Excellent battery life with 100W fast charging, 40W wireless charging
Cons
- Same old front camera
- No telemacro option
- Significant price increase compared to iQOO 13