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IQOO 13 review: Power-packed gaming phone with a cool party trick mint

Over the years, IQOO has made a name for itself in the Indian market with its gaming-focused smartphones. However, in recent times, the company is also getting ready to compete in the flagship space with its Nokia series and the IQOO 13 is its latest attempt in this direction.

With the addition of an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, improved water resistance rating, a larger battery, and a much more powerful processor, the IQOO has filled some much-needed gaps in its flagship range, while keeping essentially the same design. So is the IQOO 13 finally ready to disrupt the crowded Android flagship market and carve out a niche for itself as the definitive smartphone to buy around? 60,000 price point? Let’s find out in this review.

Unboxing and Design:

Opening the black box of the IQOO 13, you find the device, some paperwork, a SIM ejector pin, a 120W adapter, a Type C cable, and a plastic case. I got the 16GB RAM/512GB storage variant of the IQOO 13 in the Legend (Read White) colourway with the signature BMW stripes on the back.

Coming to the design, the IQOO 13 looks similar to its predecessor with a glass sandwich design, aluminum frame, large round camera module and a flat display for the front. The only change in the design aspect is the introduction of a halo light around the camera ring, which can be used for incoming phone calls, notifications, battery level and even provide rhythmic effects while listening to music or playing games. Are.

With a weight of around 213g and a thickness of 8.13mm, the IQOO 13 isn’t the thinnest or lightest phone out there, but IQOO has done a good job with weight distribution to make the device comfortable for long periods of time. Another notable element of the IQOO 13 is that despite having a massive camera module, the phone doesn’t wobble when typing on a flat surface.

Talking about the positives, IQOO has included an IP68 + IP69 rating for the IQOO 13, which means the phone can withstand being submerged in water up to 1 meter and exposed to high-pressure water jets for up to 30 seconds. Can come in. The IQOO 13 also gets rid of the optical fingerprint sensor from last year and now comes with a 3D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor which is definitely faster and more secure than the former.

The back of the IQOO 13, however, is susceptible to capturing a lot of fingerprints and smudges. Another reason to put on a cover on the IQOO 13 is that there is no glass protection for the rear, unlike the Scott ZenSation Alpha glass on the front.

Another disappointing bit is that the IQOO 13 does not come with support for wireless charging, which is a major omission for any flagship phone in 2024.

Display and Software:

The IQOO 13 packs a 6.82-inch 2K AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate for normal scenarios and 144Hz refresh for some games. The phone comes with 4,500 nits of peak brightness and 1,800 nits in High Brightness Mode (HBM), which ensures that there are no issues in usage under direct sunlight. The stereo speaker setup is decently loud and leaves little to complain about.

The phone runs on the latest Funtouch OS 15 based on Android 15 and the Chinese smartphone maker has promised 4 years of OS updates and 5 years of security patches for the flagship device. While there are no ads or bloatware on the IQOO 13, the phone comes with some pre-installed apps like Snapchat, Facebook, PhonePe, Netflix, Myntra, and a default browser. It also comes with ‘Global Search’ (which can be greyed out during the installation process), which means users see recommendations for hot apps and games when searching on the default app drawer.

If you look past the pre-installed apps and app recommendations, Funtouch OS 15 is a hell of a lot faster and features a rich UI. One of my favorite features of the UI is the new ‘Upside Down Game Mode’, which comes with a ton of options like a dedicated esports mode, tweaked game visuals, frame rate (for some games), vibration, silencing calls and direct power supply. Improves.

Camera:

The IQOO 13 sports a triple camera setup with a 50MP Sony IMX921 primary shooter, a 50MP Sony IMX816 telephoto lens, and a 50MP ultra-wide angle lens. On the front, there is a 32MP Galaxcore GC32E1 sensor.

There is a clear downgrade from the IQOO 12 with this year’s flagship, which is missing on the periscope lens. Mind you, the overall camera performance can’t be called bad by any stretch of the imagination, but 2x and 4x photos just aren’t as sharp and detailed as some other competitors in this price range.

Performance and Battery:

The IQOO 13 is in a league of its own at the moment, being the cheapest smartphone in India to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. The 8 Elite is the first processor to be based on Qualcomm’s Orion architecture and also comes with support for ray tracing. While there aren’t many games on the market that can fully take advantage of the 8 Elite’s performance, it’s still nice when they do.

As for benchmarks, the IQOO 13 reached a score of 27,83,171 on Antutu, which is the highest score possible for any smartphone on the planet, but still a fair way away from the 3 million mark claimed by IQOO. One thing I noticed was that the Echo 13 got quite hot while running AnTuTu and became very uncomfortable to hold. As you can see in the screenshot attached below, the IQOO 13 went from about 17 degrees to 50 degrees during one of the tests, with the CPU temperature reaching as high as 60 degrees.

Thankfully, excessive heating wasn’t an issue when running other benchmarks. During long gaming sessions, the phone did heat up a bit, but also cooled down very fast.

On Geekbench 6, the IQOO 13 scored a single-core score of 3016 and a multi-core score of 9445. Meanwhile, on 3D Mark’s WILF Life Extreme Stress Test, the phone got a best loop score of 6257 with stability of 64.2%. During the test run, the IQOO 13 lost around 12% battery while the temperature rose from 26 degrees to a manageable 40 degrees Celsius.

The IQOO 13’s 6,000mAh battery paired with the new Funtouch OS 15 means the phone can easily last a whole day-a day and a half. I got 8-9 hours of continuous screen on time with a relatively light usage pattern of browsing social media, watching OTT content, streaming YouTube videos, and listening to videos.

Even on days when I put the phone through multiple benchmark tests, it still managed to last me an entire day. And once the battery finally runs out, it can be topped up with the bundled 120W in about 30 minutes.

Decision:

IQOO 13, on startup 59,999, checks almost all the boxes for a premium phone in its segment, offering a vibrant display, a long battery life, a powerful processor, and an IP68 + IP69 rating for water resistance. However, its potential as a full-fledged flagship is held back by occasional heating issues, the absence of a periscope lens, and the lack of wireless charging support.

The inclusion of a 144Hz refresh rate and a dedicated gaming chip significantly enhances its gaming experience, making it an excellent choice for power users – especially if you can get around to it 50,000 during the sale.

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