iQOO 11 Unboxing & Review - A Flagship Killer for 2023

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enso this is the new IQ 11. it's the first Snapdragon agent 2 powered phone to arrive in India um at a starting price of 60 000 Indian rupees it boasts a bunch of Flagship great specs like a 2K 144hz AMOLED display 50 megapixel triple cameras with a telephoto lens and 120 watt fast charging I have been using this phone for a week now and I really wanted to see if the IQ 11 actually manages to deliver a flagship level experience to justify their price tag or are you better off with competition like Google's pixel 7 the upcoming OnePlus 11 or even last year's iPhone 13. so let me share all my experience with this phone in this review but first let's see what you get inside the box as with most Ico phones this guy also arrives in this sort of unique diagonal packaging so opening up the box we first have the phone in this Legend finish with the classic BMW stripe then there's paperwork a Sim ejector tool and a transparent case a 120 watt power brick is also included along with a USBC to USBC cable and a 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter okay let me start this review with the performance side of things because well that's what's most exciting about the IQ 11. this is the first hn2 powered phone to come in our office and I was really excited to check out its raw performance besides the new chip IQ has also used the newest memory standards like lpddr5x RAM and ufs 4.0 storage here so I run a bunch of benchmarks on this thing and as you'd expect it tops every single chart we have be it in terms of CPU GPU or storage and even with the real life performance the IQ 11 is a real Beast if you remember last year's Snapdragon agent 1 had some real thermal throttling issues because it used Samsung's process but since Qualcomm has shifted to tsmc for the agent II there's none of that trouble here even in GPU hungry games like engine impact the IQ 11 manages a steady 60 FPS at higher setting with negligible frame drops the phone's temperature does not get alarmingly hot or anything either so that is great too IQ 11 also maintains a stable 60fps on other popular titles like pubg mobile Apex Legends and Ash path 9 at their respective Max visual settings but iku's promise of high FPS gaming has left me a little disappointed with frame interpolation igu says that it can deliver 144 FPS on the engine impact although it never went above 40 38 FPS in all my testing for some reason so I hope IQ fixes this software issue as soon as possible I even tried a few hundred and twenty FPS optimized games including Injustice 2 and mecharena but the iGo 11 could not constantly hit 120 FPS hovering around 115 FPS instead this feels like something that's up to the developers to better optimize their games to play nice with qualcomm's latest chip instead of any hardware limitation of the phone itself anyway to further enhance your gaming experience IQ 11 has a few neat tricks as well like the Dual access haptics motor to keep you immersed in the game the ability to set virtual pressure sensitive buttons or motion control for quick in-game actions okay gaming aside the everyday performance on this phone is also quite nice be it memory management or UI fluidity there's not much to worry about out the fun touch OS 13 which is vivo's take on Android 13. and after complaining about it in basically every other IQ smartphone review I'm glad to see the company finally step up its software update game to three generations of os and four years of security updates this time the only thing is funtouch OS 13 comes with a bunch of bloater apps pre-installed and unfortunately there is no option to uninstall or even disable some of them getting to the design the IQ 11 does many things right like it looks unique this organic leather bag is really nice to hold and the overall build quality feels premium to me and for the fans of subtlety there's also the black color option that settles with a regular frosted glass finish instead of leather and no BMW marking of any kind however I'm not a big fan of how wide it is though I guess that's to be expected from a gaming phone but this tall broad form factor means using the iq11 in one hand has been a constant struggle especially for someone like me with small hands and since Aiko has chosen to put the in-display fingerprint reader so far down even unlocking the phone has become an irritating thumb exercise but perhaps the biggest letdown here is that I go 11 still does not have any form of Ip rating despite that massive price jump from its predecessors display wise Aiko has thrown in all the big numbers you'd expect from a flagship smartphone on this guy including a sharp 2K resolution 144hz refresh rate ltp04.0 and the brand new E6 AMOLED panel made by Samsung and most of that translates to an excellent viewing experience in real life usage as well I found that its default color calibration is especially stunning with fairly natural colors contrast wide balance and such outdoor visibility has not been a problem either since that E6 panel can hit an impressive 1100 nits at best or 1800 nits in in HD argon did and yes watching HDR videos on Netflix was really nice having the bright highlights shine through in shows like arcade on that note IQ 11 stereo speakers also get quite loud and the overall audio quality sounds rich and detailed for a terrific multimedia experience but since it's still using the earpiece as the second Channel speaker there is some imbalance in the sound output another sort of controversial spec about this phone's display is the 144hz refresh rate be it system or most third-party apps 120 hertz is all you get and only some hand-picked games and benchmarking apps like engine impact and tutu geekbench and CD Mark have been optimized to run at 144hz for some reason so that's next to useless and purely misleading as for the battery backup iku has upgraded to a big 5000 milliampere cell this time but um I found its actual endurance to be just above average under a medium usage pattern with casual web browsing some gaming and taking lots of photos I have been getting roughly six hours of screen on time only the ico11 does support wicked fast 120 watt charging that fills up the phone completely in around 25 minutes only so you lose some you win some and I must complement aiku for this charger not only does it come bundled inside the box but it also supports up to 65 watt USB PD and PPS charging making it useful for your other accessories as well finally let's now talk about the cameras here it comes with a 50 megapixel Samsung gn5 primary sensor with ois complemented by a 13 megapixel telephoto camera capable of two times optical zoom and surprisingly there's a downgraded 8 megapixel ultra white sensor in place of a 13 megapixel camera whereas it's still got the same old 16 megapixel selfie shooter and credit where credit's due the iGo 11 indeed shoots nice photos during the day with plenty of details and good dynamic range it does prefer quite 4G saturation by default which can result in images looking a bit over processed sometimes but you can always sort it out by turning on the natural color mode which brings more natural looking colors I also like how all three of its cameras have so similar image processing most of the time usually you would have seen from other Chinese smartphone brands even in the premium mid-range segment is that they produce somewhat different results from their primary and other cameras but aiku is quite the exception the iGo 11 does struggle a bit with portraits though even from the telephoto camera from contrast exposure handling and depth estimation to the subject's skin tone I think IQ could have done a better job here okay as for selfies it's actually quite the opposite I like how it manages balance composition with good details and everything else the low light images from the ico11 are also pretty great it handles light layers just fine while the colors come off quite pleasing too highlight control is something that could be improved with future updates but overall the nighttime photography is a solid a minus moving on the IQ 11 lets you shoot up to 8K 30 FPS videos but I am more than happy with my 4K recordings at both 30 and 60 FPS modes the videos are decently steady and I also like how you can switch between the main and telephoto camera while you're filming you can switch to 1080p 60fps for the most stable results but do note that it uses frame cropping for such results okay I go 11's a selfie video situation is however just embarrassing forget uh 4K recordings it does not even support 1080p 60fps selfie videos uh why do so many Chinese Brands Overlook selfie videos in this day and age I will never understand okay summing it all up the iGo 11 is an interesting phone to say at the least it absolutely Nails the performance and gaming aspect and I think this will continue to remain a solid Contender throughout 2023 as far as Pure Performance is concerned likewise it's display and cameras are also quite impressive although I cannot say I go 11's cameras are Flagship level in any way you will constantly get better photos from something like the pixel 7 especially in daylight conditions but Iko 11's photos are not that bad either so yeah it certainly looks like we have a solid Flagship killer in our hands with the IQ 11. it does miss out on some important features like IP rating wireless charging and such but you can't have it all at those prices anyway I guess the biggest dilemma with anyone who is considering this phone is if they should go with other established companies that have good brand value like the pixel 7 or the iPhone 13 instead of spending well over 60 000 Indian rupees on an iPhone that's a big dilemma actually but if I were you I would actually wait a few weeks and see what the upcoming OnePlus 11 ends up costing because OnePlus has priced it crazy aggressively in China and we can expect the same for the global market besides better brand value and better software experience it also has a more versatile set of cameras and that could just end up making the biggest difference when deciding between these two words alright guys that was for my unboxing and full review of the new IQ 11. I am thinking of coming up with the comparison between the IQ 11 and the OnePlus 11 ones I get the OnePlus 11 so don't forget to subscribe and hit that Bell icon so that you don't miss out on that content saying this I'm pratima and I will see you soonso this is the new IQ 11. it's the first Snapdragon agent 2 powered phone to arrive in India um at a starting price of 60 000 Indian rupees it boasts a bunch of Flagship great specs like a 2K 144hz AMOLED display 50 megapixel triple cameras with a telephoto lens and 120 watt fast charging I have been using this phone for a week now and I really wanted to see if the IQ 11 actually manages to deliver a flagship level experience to justify their price tag or are you better off with competition like Google's pixel 7 the upcoming OnePlus 11 or even last year's iPhone 13. so let me share all my experience with this phone in this review but first let's see what you get inside the box as with most Ico phones this guy also arrives in this sort of unique diagonal packaging so opening up the box we first have the phone in this Legend finish with the classic BMW stripe then there's paperwork a Sim ejector tool and a transparent case a 120 watt power brick is also included along with a USBC to USBC cable and a 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter okay let me start this review with the performance side of things because well that's what's most exciting about the IQ 11. this is the first hn2 powered phone to come in our office and I was really excited to check out its raw performance besides the new chip IQ has also used the newest memory standards like lpddr5x RAM and ufs 4.0 storage here so I run a bunch of benchmarks on this thing and as you'd expect it tops every single chart we have be it in terms of CPU GPU or storage and even with the real life performance the IQ 11 is a real Beast if you remember last year's Snapdragon agent 1 had some real thermal throttling issues because it used Samsung's process but since Qualcomm has shifted to tsmc for the agent II there's none of that trouble here even in GPU hungry games like engine impact the IQ 11 manages a steady 60 FPS at higher setting with negligible frame drops the phone's temperature does not get alarmingly hot or anything either so that is great too IQ 11 also maintains a stable 60fps on other popular titles like pubg mobile Apex Legends and Ash path 9 at their respective Max visual settings but iku's promise of high FPS gaming has left me a little disappointed with frame interpolation igu says that it can deliver 144 FPS on the engine impact although it never went above 40 38 FPS in all my testing for some reason so I hope IQ fixes this software issue as soon as possible I even tried a few hundred and twenty FPS optimized games including Injustice 2 and mecharena but the iGo 11 could not constantly hit 120 FPS hovering around 115 FPS instead this feels like something that's up to the developers to better optimize their games to play nice with qualcomm's latest chip instead of any hardware limitation of the phone itself anyway to further enhance your gaming experience IQ 11 has a few neat tricks as well like the Dual access haptics motor to keep you immersed in the game the ability to set virtual pressure sensitive buttons or motion control for quick in-game actions okay gaming aside the everyday performance on this phone is also quite nice be it memory management or UI fluidity there's not much to worry about out the fun touch OS 13 which is vivo's take on Android 13. and after complaining about it in basically every other IQ smartphone review I'm glad to see the company finally step up its software update game to three generations of os and four years of security updates this time the only thing is funtouch OS 13 comes with a bunch of bloater apps pre-installed and unfortunately there is no option to uninstall or even disable some of them getting to the design the IQ 11 does many things right like it looks unique this organic leather bag is really nice to hold and the overall build quality feels premium to me and for the fans of subtlety there's also the black color option that settles with a regular frosted glass finish instead of leather and no BMW marking of any kind however I'm not a big fan of how wide it is though I guess that's to be expected from a gaming phone but this tall broad form factor means using the iq11 in one hand has been a constant struggle especially for someone like me with small hands and since Aiko has chosen to put the in-display fingerprint reader so far down even unlocking the phone has become an irritating thumb exercise but perhaps the biggest letdown here is that I go 11 still does not have any form of Ip rating despite that massive price jump from its predecessors display wise Aiko has thrown in all the big numbers you'd expect from a flagship smartphone on this guy including a sharp 2K resolution 144hz refresh rate ltp04.0 and the brand new E6 AMOLED panel made by Samsung and most of that translates to an excellent viewing experience in real life usage as well I found that its default color calibration is especially stunning with fairly natural colors contrast wide balance and such outdoor visibility has not been a problem either since that E6 panel can hit an impressive 1100 nits at best or 1800 nits in in HD argon did and yes watching HDR videos on Netflix was really nice having the bright highlights shine through in shows like arcade on that note IQ 11 stereo speakers also get quite loud and the overall audio quality sounds rich and detailed for a terrific multimedia experience but since it's still using the earpiece as the second Channel speaker there is some imbalance in the sound output another sort of controversial spec about this phone's display is the 144hz refresh rate be it system or most third-party apps 120 hertz is all you get and only some hand-picked games and benchmarking apps like engine impact and tutu geekbench and CD Mark have been optimized to run at 144hz for some reason so that's next to useless and purely misleading as for the battery backup iku has upgraded to a big 5000 milliampere cell this time but um I found its actual endurance to be just above average under a medium usage pattern with casual web browsing some gaming and taking lots of photos I have been getting roughly six hours of screen on time only the ico11 does support wicked fast 120 watt charging that fills up the phone completely in around 25 minutes only so you lose some you win some and I must complement aiku for this charger not only does it come bundled inside the box but it also supports up to 65 watt USB PD and PPS charging making it useful for your other accessories as well finally let's now talk about the cameras here it comes with a 50 megapixel Samsung gn5 primary sensor with ois complemented by a 13 megapixel telephoto camera capable of two times optical zoom and surprisingly there's a downgraded 8 megapixel ultra white sensor in place of a 13 megapixel camera whereas it's still got the same old 16 megapixel selfie shooter and credit where credit's due the iGo 11 indeed shoots nice photos during the day with plenty of details and good dynamic range it does prefer quite 4G saturation by default which can result in images looking a bit over processed sometimes but you can always sort it out by turning on the natural color mode which brings more natural looking colors I also like how all three of its cameras have so similar image processing most of the time usually you would have seen from other Chinese smartphone brands even in the premium mid-range segment is that they produce somewhat different results from their primary and other cameras but aiku is quite the exception the iGo 11 does struggle a bit with portraits though even from the telephoto camera from contrast exposure handling and depth estimation to the subject's skin tone I think IQ could have done a better job here okay as for selfies it's actually quite the opposite I like how it manages balance composition with good details and everything else the low light images from the ico11 are also pretty great it handles light layers just fine while the colors come off quite pleasing too highlight control is something that could be improved with future updates but overall the nighttime photography is a solid a minus moving on the IQ 11 lets you shoot up to 8K 30 FPS videos but I am more than happy with my 4K recordings at both 30 and 60 FPS modes the videos are decently steady and I also like how you can switch between the main and telephoto camera while you're filming you can switch to 1080p 60fps for the most stable results but do note that it uses frame cropping for such results okay I go 11's a selfie video situation is however just embarrassing forget uh 4K recordings it does not even support 1080p 60fps selfie videos uh why do so many Chinese Brands Overlook selfie videos in this day and age I will never understand okay summing it all up the iGo 11 is an interesting phone to say at the least it absolutely Nails the performance and gaming aspect and I think this will continue to remain a solid Contender throughout 2023 as far as Pure Performance is concerned likewise it's display and cameras are also quite impressive although I cannot say I go 11's cameras are Flagship level in any way you will constantly get better photos from something like the pixel 7 especially in daylight conditions but Iko 11's photos are not that bad either so yeah it certainly looks like we have a solid Flagship killer in our hands with the IQ 11. it does miss out on some important features like IP rating wireless charging and such but you can't have it all at those prices anyway I guess the biggest dilemma with anyone who is considering this phone is if they should go with other established companies that have good brand value like the pixel 7 or the iPhone 13 instead of spending well over 60 000 Indian rupees on an iPhone that's a big dilemma actually but if I were you I would actually wait a few weeks and see what the upcoming OnePlus 11 ends up costing because OnePlus has priced it crazy aggressively in China and we can expect the same for the global market besides better brand value and better software experience it also has a more versatile set of cameras and that could just end up making the biggest difference when deciding between these two words alright guys that was for my unboxing and full review of the new IQ 11. I am thinking of coming up with the comparison between the IQ 11 and the OnePlus 11 ones I get the OnePlus 11 so don't forget to subscribe and hit that Bell icon so that you don't miss out on that content saying this I'm pratima and I will see you soon\n"