iQOO Neo 7 Review – Best Phone Under 30,000?

The iQOO Neo 7 has been launched in India in two variants. The phone starts at Rs. 29,999 for the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB Storage and goes to Rs. 33,999 for the 12GB RAM and 256GB Storage variant.

You can choose from the two colour options: Frost Blue and Interstellar Black. You can buy the phone online from iQOO’s official website and Amazon.

The iQOO Neo 7 packs the following items inside the box:

• Phone
• 120W Charger
• Type-C USB cable
• Earphone jack adapter
• SIM ejector tool
• Documentation
• Phone case

Before we talk in detail about the iQOO Neo 7 in this review, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.78 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: MediaTek Dimensity 8200
• RAM & ROM: 8GB RAM 128GB Storage, 12GB RAM 256GB Storage
• Software: Android v13
• Rear camera: 64MP + 2MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16 MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 193 grams
• Dimensions: 164.81 x 76.9 x 8.58 mm

Planning to upgrade? Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

The iQOO Neo 7 features a very simple and basic look. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t look bad. The thing is it doesn’t stand out. On the other hand, not everyone looks for a punchy and tacky look. So if you are in for a subtle-looking phone, iQOO Neo 7 might impress you.

It looks very similar to last year and features a boxy design factor. I have the blue colour variant with me which looks nice and subtle. You can also buy the phone in black colour. It features a plastic back with a matte finish and keeps fingerprints at bay. The frame is also made of plastic.

Check Out: Vivo Y100 Review – Premium Design With Colour Magic

Coming at a price of 30K, it feels just not right to give a plastic body when the competitors are launching phones with glass back and metal frames. Anyways, the phone does not feel cheap in my hands. It has a nice and sturdy feel to it.

There’s a big camera module on the back which protrudes a little. Overall, the phone feels light in my hands. You will find the power button on the right side along with the volume rockers. The top side has an IR blaster while the bottom side has the type-C port, primary loudspeaker and SIM card slot.

iQOO Neo 7 features a triple camera setup on the back. This includes a 64MP OIS primary camera, a 2MP depth camera and 2MP macro lens. The front side has a 16MP selfie camera. Sadly, there’s no ultra-wide lens here.

The main camera of iQOO Neo 7 takes some impressive outdoor shots in daylight conditions. The details were good and so were the colours. Portrait shots come out really well. The edge detection was on-point and the blue level was nice. However, the quality drops as the light drops down.

The 2MP macro lens got nothing special to talk about. It takes low-resolution shots which lack in details and look faded. An ultra-wide lens would have been a better choice.

Read More: Best Mobile Phones Under 30,000

Moving on to the front camera, the 16MP lens takes good selfies in outdoor lighting. You get the details and sharpness in the selfies. The portrait selfies also came out really well. On the other hand, it takes a hit in low-light conditions. The low-light selfies turn grainy and lose the detail level drastically.

You can record 4K videos at 60fps from the main camera. The footage comes out to be detailed but shaky. You can change the resolution to 4K 30fps and get a more stable footage.

The iQOO Neo 7 packs a big 5000mAh battery which delivers a pretty good battery backup. A light user can get two days of battery life from this phone. However, if you are a heavy user who likes to play games all day, you would need to charge your phone by the evening.

I got a little more than 6 hours of screen on time which is good. But what’s better than the battery backup is its charging speed. iQOO Neo 7 comes with 120W fast charging support which takes about 25 minutes to fully charge the phone.

A quick charge of just 10 minutes juices the battery level to about 45 per cent.

Check Out: Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra Review – Big, Beautiful Beast

iQOO Neo 7 features a fantastic FHD+ 6.78 inches AMOLED display. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz and a peak brightness of 1300 nits. I used the phone for a while and it’s a great display for content consumption and playing games.

The 120Hz offers smooth scrolling and interactive experience while it also helps in playing games. The bezel around the display has also been reduced from last year. I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and the contents were really sharp.

Check Out: POCO X5 Pro Review – New All-Rounder In The House

The colours were punchy and the backs were deep, as expected from an AMOLED panel. It supports HRD+ so you can consume HRD content on OTT platforms like Netflix. There is also Widevine L1 support so you can watch high-quality content on it.

iQOO Neo 7 punches way above the other phones in this price range when it comes to performance. It’s the first phone in India to feature MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chipset. The powerful chipset is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB internal storage.

The phone glides through everyday apps and I did not experience any kind of lags or shutter. Switching between apps was smooth like the animations on the screen. The Dimensity 8200 SoC is quite powerful and can run high-end games easily.

I ran CoD and New State on iQOO Neo 7 and both the games could run at 90fps. It’s really impressive that iQOO Neo 7 can deliver such level of performance under 30K. No other phone comes close to it at this price. Moreover, the games ran smoothly without any lags and my gaming experience was great.

Check Out: Redmi Note 12 Pro Review – Brilliant Mid-Range Phone

iQOO Neo 7 runs on Funtouch OS 13 which is based on Android 13. iQOO has promised two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates. You get the Material You theme support along with many other features.

At the same time, there’s a bunch of pre-installed bloatware on the phone. Yes, you can uninstall them from the settings.