A true value flagship that keeps the momentum going!
Vivo's sub-brand iQOO is known for its performance-centric smartphones that have shaken up the competition in each segment. The iQOO smartphones also come at a cracking price, making them valuable assets in each price segment where they are launched. Last year, the iQOO 12 (Review) had a strong foothold in the premium flagship segment, and this year, we expect the same from the iQOO 13.
The iQOO 12 was a well put-together product, featuring top-of-the-line specifications such as a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, a 50MP triple camera setup, a 5500mAh battery, and more. The same expectations are there for the iQOO 13. The iQOO 13 brings a lot to the table, including the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a 144Hz LTPO display, a 6000mAh battery, and more.
Will the iQOO 13 make a strong statement just like its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 12, and is it worth the upgrade? Let's find out in the full review.
iQOO 13 Design:
The iQOO 13 sports a similar design to that of its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 12, which means you get a similarly sized circular, squarish-shaped camera module, which is surrounded by RGB LED lighting called Monster Halo. These LED lights come on whenever there is a notification for calls and messages. This time around, the IR Blaster is present in the camera module alongside the three cameras.
The iQOO 13 is available in three colour variants: Alpha (Black), Nardo Grey (Silver), and White (BMW M branding). The White colour variant features a small design element with three thin blue, red, and black stripes, and the word "Fascination Meets Innovation" above the iQOO logo. The back has a satin finish that provides a solid grip and feels good in the hands.
Around the sides, there is an aluminium frame which holds the power button along with volume buttons on the right side, whereas the left side frame remains empty. At the top, there is a secondary speaker and a microphone, whereas the bottom houses the USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker, a primary microphone and a dual SIM card tray. The iQOO 13 weighs around 207 grams, which is slightly heavier compared to the iQOO 12, since now you get a larger battery.
The iQOO 13 has a flat back and is slightly curved around the edges. The iQOO 13 now has an IP68 rating, which makes it fully water and dust-resistant, which is a good upgrade over the IP64 rating on the iQOO 12. On the front, there is a single punch hole located on the top of the display at the centre. The display is surrounded by bezels which are slimmer and look premium.
Overall, the build and design remain premium.
iQOO 13 Display:
The iQOO 13 features a 6.82-inch display, slightly larger than the 6.78-inch display of the iQOO 12. The iQOO 13 has a slightly higher resolution of 1440x3168 pixels compared to 1260x2800 pixels on the iQOO 12. Just like the display of the iQOO 12, this one also has support for a 144Hz refresh rate and is a 10-bit panel, which means you get great colour reproduction and good viewing angles.
Talking about the refresh rate, there are three different modes to choose from - Smart Switch(Auto), High, and Standard. Switching the display to Smart Switch or High usually results in a display showing 120Hz, and in High Mode, you can force certain applications to 144Hz. With both these modes, the display switches between 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, etc., depending on the applications.
If there is no activity being performed, the display trickles to as low as 1Hz, thus ensuring good battery life also. With the Standard mode, the display refreshes at 60Hz only. Combined with this, you get a 360Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses, also. In terms of display brightness, the display of the iQOO 13 can reach a peak brightness of 4500nits which is slightly improved over the display of the iQOO 12.
In High Brightness Mode, the display of the iQOO 13 can reach around 1800 nits, and the display has good visibility under direct sunlight. The manual brightness can reach around 515nits, which is good but could have been better. In terms of display colour settings, there are four different modes to choose from - Standard, Professional, Bright and Adaptive.
Switching to Standard and Professional mode results in natural colours on the display that covers the sRGB colour space, whereas with Bright and Adaptive mode, you get punchier colours that cover the DCI-P3 colour gamut. You can set the colour temperature to a warmer or cooler tone. The display of the iQOO 13 is protected by Schott Xensation Alpha.
The iQOO 13 sports an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner, which is a good upgrade over the optical one on the iQOO 12. The fingerprint scanner works well and is accurate. The display of the iQOO 13 supports HDR streaming on YouTube, and the presence of Widevine L1 makes it a breeze while watching content on OTT platforms like Netflix and Hotstar. etc.
iQOO 13 Performance:
The iQOO 13 sports the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is based on a 3nm process and this chipset is found in many flagships like the OnePlus 13, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, etc. When compared to the iQOO 12, which was powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, the performance has been improved slightly and there is a new Supercomputing Q2 chip over the Supercomputing Q1 chip over the iQOO 12.
In terms of daily activities like gaming, scrolling through webpages, rendering videos, streaming social media, etc., the smartphone handles all the activities easily without breaking a sweat. In games like BGMI, Genshin Impact, etc., the smartphone ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings. iQOO smartphones are the forte when it comes to gaming, and the experience is no different here.
All games are locked at 60fps, but with the new Supercomputing Q2 chip, you can upscale the games to run at 90fps and also increase the frame rates, which is called game frame interpolation. Even if it can boost the frame rates to the display refresh rate, ensuring smooth gaming without any stutters. After longer hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone did not feel warmer since there is a larger 7000m2 vapour chamber, which dissipates heat faster.
In terms of benchmarks, the scores came out really good, which were higher than those of other smartphones which run this chipset. In terms of thermal throttling, there is little throttling present, and the smartphone maintains a sustained performance of around 80-85 percent which is very good considering other smartphones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset do throttle a lot.
In terms of network connectivity, you get good carrier aggregation, and there is support for almost all bands of 5G. The iQOO 13 is available in two storage variants - 12GB RAM with 256GB storage, and another 16GB RAM with 512GB storage, where RAM is of LPDDR5 and storage is of UFS 4.0 speeds. Overall, the performance and gaming experience remain the segment's best.
iQOO 13 Software:
Just like all iQOO smartphones, the iQOO 13 ships with FunTouchOS 15 based on Android 15. The FunTouchOS 15 is not much different when compared to the FunTouchOS 14, but now there is a host of AI features present and will slowly trickle down to other iQOO smartphones. In terms of customisations, you can change icon shape and size, colour, fonts, lockscreen and Always-On display profiles.
There are a few pre-installed applications which can be uninstalled easily. There are a couple of AI features, which include AI Erase, AI Enhancement, Circle to Search, Live Transcribe, etc. In the gallery, the AI Erase lets you remove different objects, people and some distortions in an image, whereas the AI Enhancement lets you remove blur in the image and boosts different properties in image post-processing.
As usual, Google's Circle To Search lets you select any object in an image or while viewing that content on the website and provides the required information regarding it. Live Transcribe lets you translate all the conversations during phone calls, which comes in handy in daily usage. There is a Dynamic Light feature where you can customise colours and effects for the LED strip that surrounds the camera module.
In terms of software updates, iQOO 13 will receive another four years of Android OS updates and another five years of security patches, which seems to be a good upgrade over the iQOO 12.
iQOO 13 Cameras:
The iQOO 13 sports a triple camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX921 sensor for the primary camera with support for OIS, a 50MP f/2.0 Samsung ISOCELL JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera, and a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX816 sensor for the telephoto camera. On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.2 camera for selfies.
The images from the primary camera come out with sharper details, and the dynamic range is wider. The colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening. There is very little noise in the background. The 50MP images come out with slightly softer details, with wider dynamic range, and there is also less noise in the background. The 2x zoomed images come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range.
The colour looks saturated without any kind of oversharpening, and there is less noise in the background also. During the night, the images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range. The noise is also on the lesser side with no oversharpening in the background. All these results have been captured with the Photo mode turned on.
With the dedicated Night Mode turned on, you get sharper details and good dynamic range. There is some oversharpening in the background, but other than that, noise is barely present, and contrast looks good. There is some overexposure in the shadows, and details in shadows look slightly softer. Still, the images shot using the Night Mode have slightly better results than those compared without the Night Mode.
The 50MP ultrawide camera captures sharper details with good dynamic range and has very little noise in the background. The colours look sharper without any kind of oversharpening. The field of view is larger, and the contrast also looks good. At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details that look sharper and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background.
The images from the 2x telephoto camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background. The colour reproduction is perfect, and colours look natural like those of the main camera. Beyond 4x zoom, the images look good, but details look softer, and the dynamic range is not so wide. The contrast and white balance are handled very well.
During the night, the 2x zoomed images come out with sharper details and have decent dynamic range. The noise is slightly on the higher side, whereas the colours look natural without any kind of oversharpening as such. Beyond 4x zoom, there is a considerable amount of noise present, and the details also look softer. In terms of portraits, the telephoto camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper and have proper edge detection.
The background blur is well maintained in portraits, and even the colour reproduction looks natural without any kind of oversharpening. The portraits have less noise in the background, which is very good. In terms of selfies, the images have sharper details with good dynamic range, and noise is also on the lower side. However, colours could have been saturated, and some is oversharpening on the background.
In terms of videos, both the primary and the telephoto cameras can record 8K videos at 30 fps, whereas the rest (front and ultrawide cameras) can record 4K videos at 60fps. The videos from the primary camera come out with sharper details, with wider dynamic range and have very little noise in the background, especially due to the presence of EIS, which works perfectly well.
The OIS works perfectly at 1080p videos at 60fps, which results in a wider dynamic range and colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening. The 4K videos from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details, with good dynamic range and less noise in the background. The colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening.
The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with slightly softer details, and there is a considerable amount of noise present in the background. The colours look natural, but there is a huge amount of oversharpening in the background. Similarly, in terms of selfies, the front camera does an average job in terms of details that look softer, colours look dull, and noise is on the higher side.
iQOO 13 Battery Life:
The iQOO 13 sports a larger 6000mAh battery, which is 1000mAh capacity more than its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 12. With the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset built on a 3nm process and the larger battery size, we do expect better battery life. With normal usage, which includes streaming social media, scrolling through webpages, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for two days with some charge left.
With heavy usage that includes playing games for 4-5 hours, running benchmarks, taking videos and clicking images using the camera frequently, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for one and a half days. The standard screen-on time with heavy usage came around 4-5 hours, which is very good, and with normal usage, the standard screen-on time came around 7-7.5 hours, which is very good.
In terms of charging, the iQOO 13 comes with a 120W fast charger, which remains unchanged from the iQOO 12. The 120W fast charger takes around 45-50 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent, which is slightly longer than its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 12, but now you get a more capacity battery. However, there is no support for wireless charging, which is a slight disappointment.
iQOO 13 Audio Quality:
The iQOO 13 sports a dual stereo speaker setup, which includes a loudspeaker grille at the bottom and the earpiece on the top. The sound output is loud and clear without any distortion in the background. There is support for LDAC for HiRes audio, and along with that, there is Dolby Atmos for enhanced sound effects.
Verdict:
The iQOO 13 is a solid all-rounder smartphone which brings the best of everything, including a premium design, an excellent display with support for stereo speakers, flagship-level performance and gaming capabilities, a good software experience, faster charging with great battery life, and a good camera experience. When compared to the iQOO 12, there are fewer upgrades which are worth it.
However, there are only two drawbacks, which include the weak low-light performance from the ultrawide and the telephoto cameras and the lack of wireless charging support, which other flagships do have. Other than the slightly weaker camera experience, the iQOO 13 is a solid flagship all-rounder to be considered and can de-throne many other flagships out there in the market.
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