A more mature flagship, which makes it next-level out there!!
iQOO smartphones have been at the forefront in performance and gaming capabilities, giving tough competition to other brands, and the price at which they are offered makes them a value-for-money option. The premium flagship space has always been competitive, and this time around, with significant upgrades over last year's iQOO 13 (Review), the iQOO 15 aims to taste success in this segment.
Last year's iQOO 13 was a well put-together flagship from iQOO, which was itself a very powerful smartphone with all the flagship specifications, including the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, a 144Hz LTPO display, a 50MP triple camera setup, a 6000mAh battery and much more. The iQOO 15 is also aiming to continue the similar successful journey, just like its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 13 did.
The iQOO 15 brings a lot to the table, which includes the flagship-grade Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a newer 144Hz LTPO display, a larger 7000mAh battery, and much more. There are some good upgrades which definitely push the prices of the smartphone. So, with the slightly higher asking price and the flagship features, is the iQOO 15 worth considering, and how good of an upgrade is it over the iQOO 13?
Let's find out in the full review.
iQOO 15 Design:
The iQOO 15 continues the similar design pattern just like its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 13, but the back is now flat instead of the micro-curved back on the iQOO 13. There is a similarly sized square camera module that houses the triple cameras, an ambient light sensor, and an LED flashlight. The camera module does not protrude, as the smartphone would not wobble when kept on a flat surface.
Around the edges, the smartphone is slightly rounded, which makes it easy to hold in the hands. The camera module features a very thin lighting strip that surrounds it, which iQOO calls the Energy Halo. It is an RGB sensor that activates when music is playing, a new notification pops up, and while playing games. This RGB colour can be customised with different colour options under the settings menu.
The iQOO 15 is available in two different colour variants - Legend and Alpha Black. The Legend variant is instantly recognisable in white, and this time around, there is a smaller "Monster Inside" logo instead of the BMW M Motorsport logo on the iQOO 13. There is some design near this logo which is very minimalistic and looks good.
The Alpha Black variant, on the other hand, has a fibreglass back with a smooth matte finish that feels premium and provides good grip while holding in the hands. Neither colour variants do not catch fingerprints, which is good. In terms of button placements, the right side houses the volume buttons along with a power button, whereas the left side remains completely cleaner.
The top of the smartphone houses an IR Blaster and an additional chamber for the secondary speaker, whereas the bottom houses the USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a dual SIM card slot, and a primary microphone. There is also support for eSIM. In terms of thickness, the iQOO 15 is thicker at 8.1mm around the sides and weighs around 220 grams, which makes it slightly heavier considering the larger size of the battery.
The iQOO 15 also brings an IP68/69 rating, which makes it dust and water-resistant. Overall, the build and design feel premium without much flashy design, thus providing the flagship feel out there.
iQOO 15 Display:
The iQOO 15 sports a larger 6.85-inches 2K (1440x3168 pixels) AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. This display uses Samsung's new M14 AMOLED panel, which is a good upgrade over the iQOO 13's display. Just like its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 13, this one also has support for a 144Hz refresh rate and is a 10-bit display, which means you get saturated colours along with great viewing angles.
Talking about the refresh rate, there are three different options to choose from - Smart Adaptation, Standard, and High. The Smart Adaptation mode lets the display switch between different refresh rates depending on the content being played, which means it dials down to 30Hz while scrolling through webpages, switches to 120Hz for most applications, and 60Hz while watching a YouTube video.
Switching to the High mode, the display constantly maintains a 120Hz refresh rate for almost all the applications which support but 144Hz is not always constant while playing games. On the other hand, the Standard mode restricts the display to 60Hz only, which is the best option for better battery life. Regardless of the refresh rate on the display, it drops to 1Hz when there is no activity.
Combined with the 144Hz refresh rate, there is a 360Hz touch sampling rate that instantly switches to 3200Hz while gaming. In terms of display brightness, the iQOO 15 reaches a peak of 6000 nits, a slight improvement over the iQOO 13. The iQOO 15 reaches 2600nits of brightness under High Brightness Mode, whereas in typical scenarios, the display hovers around 1000nits.
The display of the iQOO 15 has good visibility under direct sunlight. In terms of colour reproduction, there are three different modes to choose from - Bright, Standard, and Professional. Choosing the Bright mode provides saturated colours which look punchier, whereas the Professional mode provides proper colour accuracy, and both these modes cover the DCI-P3 gamut space. The Standard mode provides natural colours that are true to nature, and this covers the sRGB colour space.
The display of the iQOO 15 is protected by Schott Xensation Alpha. The iQOO 15 display supports HDR on YouTube, and the presence of Widevine L1 ensures that streaming HDR content on OTT platforms is a breeze. There is also support for Dolby Vision on Netflix. Just like the iQOO 13, here also, there is support for an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which works accurately and is faster.
iQOO 15 Performance:
The iQOO 15 sports the latest flagship chipset of 2026, i.e., the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which is seen on all flagships like the OnePlus 15 (Review), Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, etc. In terms of daily performance, the iQOO 15 handles all the tasks easily without breaking a sweat. With the powerful Adreno 840 GPU on board, it handles all light to heavy games easily.
Compared to the iQOO 13, there is a newer Supercomputing Q3 chip, which works well when it comes to gaming. In terms of gaming, the BGMI easily ran at Smooth graphics along with Ultra Extreme frame rates without any frame drops noticed. All other games, like Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Mobile, etc., ran easily at the highest graphics settings without any stutters or frame drops.
The SuperComputing Q3 chip aids in a smooth gaming experience as it inherits game frame interpolation that analyses the gameplay and increases the frame rates during gaming. For example, BGMI easily runs at 144Hz constantly without any latency or compromise in battery health. The same goes for all other high-end games like Call of Duty Mobile, Genshin Impact, etc., thus maintaining consistent FPS during gameplay.
Along with the SuperComputing Q3 chip, iQOO has provided a larger 8000mm2 vapour chamber, which dissipates heat faster. In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could easily achieve a sustained performance of around 80-85 per cent, which is great as there is very minimal throttling present. The benchmark scores also came out the best in class and far better than smartphones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset.
In terms of network connectivity, you get support for good carrier aggregation, and there is support for almost all bands of 5G. The iQOO 15 is available in two different variants - 12GB RAM with 256GB storage and another 16GB RAM with 512GB storage, where RAM speeds are of LPDDR5X and storage speeds are of UFS 4.1. Overall, the performance remains flagship level without any flaws.
iQOO 15 Software:
The iQOO 15 is the first smartphone that runs on OriginOS out of the box, as compared to other iQOO smartphones that run on FunTouchOS. So the iQOO 15 runs on OriginOS 6 based on Android 16. When compared to FunTouchOS, there are a lot of changes within the user interface. There are newer animations throughout the interface, which feel smoother along with the 144Hz display.
The notification panel and the quick settings can both operate in two split parts or a single window. Notifications use a stacked card layout, and there are newer animations for charging, fingerprint scanner, newly designed power menus and a new iQOO Sans font. The control centre brings some substantial changes in terms of animations and blur effects, which iQOO likes to call the Gradient Blur.
Now, bigger folders that hold different applications can be placed in the homescreen, which can be resized horizontally or vertically, along with customizable colour options. There are a few new looks to different widgets, also. OriginOS 6 comes with a feature called Flip Cards, which is a lockscreen feature where you can select 4 images from the gallery application, which changes wallpapers when you tilt the smartphone sideways.
You can also place a few widgets on the lockscreen, which comes in handy. Similar to Apple's Dynamic Island, there is Origin Island, which shows all the information regarding what music is played, any notifications, and other functionalities. It also provides the convenience of dragging an image or text near the front camera area, where the Origin Island comes out with different applications, where you want to share and save the content, like in social media platforms or note-taking applications.
For example, while dragging an image brings up New Note and Save To Albums, dragging a text brings up Uber, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. There are a lot of AI features present, which include the AI writing tool, which can summarise the text, draft reports, and write paragraphs. AI Captions works well for speech-to-text conversion and provides real-time translation and transcription during meetings and video calls.
AI Magic Move lets you drag, resize and move objects within an image, thus ensuring that the background is perfect. AI Image Extender extends the image borders and reframes the shots that have been captured. AI Erase lets you remove any unwanted subject from an image, and AI Colour Adjustment sometimes adjusts the colour science in most images. AI UHD works well in removing blur from images.
There are others like AI Creation, AI Search, DocMaster, AI Photo Enhance, etc. There is the Circle To Search, which comes in handy as always. Google's Gemini integration is present throughout the user interface, also. There is also the convenience of linking the smartphone with a personal computer or laptop, which provides different functionalities like transferring files, screen mirroring, and controling of phone from the PC. The Private Space feature lets you store your private data without exposing it to others.
There is also OneTouch Share, where tapping both smartphones' tops together shares content easily, similar to AirDrop on iPhones. With OriginOS, there is very little bloatware now in the form of a few third-party applications, which can be uninstalled easily. In terms of software updates, OriginOS has gone one step ahead by providing another five years of AndroidOS updates and seven years of security patches, which is a considerable improvement over FunTouchOS.
iQOO 15 Cameras:
The iQOO 15 sports a triple camera setup, which remains unchanged from the iQOO 13 except that the telephoto camera now comes with 3x optical zoom instead of the 2x optical zoom on the iQOO 13. So the primary camera is a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX921 sensor, and with that, there is a 50MP f/2.0 ISOCELL JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera and a 50MP f/2.5 Sony IMX882 sensor for the telephoto camera, which supports 3x optical zoom.
On the front, there is a 32MP f/2.2 camera for selfies. The primary camera does a great job in terms of details that look sharper and have a wider dynamic range with natural colours in the background without any kind of oversharpening. The noise is less in the background, also. The contrast is slightly on the higher side, and the white balance is handled very well.
The 50MP images come out with sharper details, but they tend to be slightly softer when compared to the default 12.5MP images. The images taken during the night come out with sharper details and have excellent dynamic range with punchier colours in the background. The details in the shadows look good, and there is no oversharpening in the background as such. All these results are captured using the dedicated Night Mode.
Without the Night Mode, the details look good but a tad softer and slightly higher noise in the background, but the difference is very minimal. The 50MP ultrawide camera does a great job in terms of details, which look sharper with good dynamic range. The colours look natural, but there is a lot of oversharpening in the background. The contrast comes out well, and the white balance is handled well.
Around the edges, there is some distortion present, but still, it is slightly improved when compared to the iQOO 13's ultrawide camera images. At night, the ultrawide camera does suffer from oversharpening, and the details look softer with higher noise in the background. The colours look slightly washed out, and the contrast is not so good.
With the dedicated Night Mode, the details look slightly sharper, but still, the dynamic range comes out to be average with slightly reduced noise in the background. The images from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details and have excellent dynamic range with almost no noise in the background when taken at 3x zoom. The colours look punchier with good contrast and white balance. There is no oversharpening in the background as such.
If you take images at 6x zoom, the details look adequately sharper with less noise in the background, with punchier colours. Beyond 6x zoom, if you go for 10x and 20x zoom levels, the details do look softer with limited dynamic range, and noise is on the higher side also. The details look softer with washed-out colours.
The telephoto camera is not capable of taking macro shots, which is a slight disappointment, but it is really capable of taking some very good portrait shots with proper edge detection and nice background blur. At night, the telephoto camera does a great job in terms of details that look sharper and have excellent dynamic range with less noise in the background.
With the dedicated Night Mode turned on, the results came out even better with almost no noise in the background. The colours look punchier with no oversharpening in the background, and the contrast was also on the higher side with proper white balance. At 6x zoom levels, the images came out with pretty sharp details with some noise in the background.
The colours do look slightly washed out, but if you go beyond 10x or more, then definitely there is a considerable amount of noise in the background, the details look softer, and colours get faded out. In terms of macro photography, you can take 3x or 6x shots using the primary camera, which results in sharper details and a wider dynamic range with less noise in the background.
In terms of portraits, both the primary and the telephoto cameras are capable of capturing portraits with proper edge detection and a good level of background blur. The human skin tones look natural without any kind of oversharpening, and the portraits from both cameras come out with a wider dynamic range. The telephoto camera takes the slight edge in terms of wider dynamic range and better background blur.
When it comes to selfies, the front camera does a good job in terms of resulting in sharper details along with a wider dynamic range. The skin tones look slightly weird with some skin smoothening in the background. The contrast is good, and the white balance is handled well. Even portrait selfies come out with good dynamic range and have proper edge detection. The background blur is also well implemented.
In terms of video recording, the primary camera can record 8K videos at 30 fps, while the rest of the cameras are capable of taking 4K videos at 60fps. The videos from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range with almost no noise in the background. The colours look punchier with good contrast. Still with 8K videos, there is some room for improvement in terms of stabilisation.
The 4K videos from the primary camera come out with sharper details and excellent dynamic range with almost no noise in the background. The colours look punchier with no oversharpening in the background. The 4K videos from the ultrawide camera come out with decent dynamic range, and details look sharper with a considerable amount of noise in the background. However, colours look saturated though. All these results are captured during the day as well as at night.
The 4K videos from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details and have a wider dynamic range, with almost no noise in the background. The colours look punchier, but at night, the details look softer with limited dynamic range, and noise is also on the higher side. The front camera is capable of taking videos which come out with sharper details and wider dynamic range, but noise is on the higher side.
iQOO 15 Battery Life:
The iQOO 15 sports a larger 7000mAh battery, which is about 1000mAh more in capacity compared to its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 13. With normal usage that includes casual gaming, streaming social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc., the smartphone easily lasted for a single day and a half with some battery left. The standard screen-on time came around 7.5-8 hours, which is good.
With heavy usage that includes playing heavy games like BGMI, Call of Duty Mobile, etc, rendering videos, taking images and videos using the camera, etc., the iQOO 15 easily lasted for a single day and a half with some charge left. The standard screen-on time came around 5-6 hours, which is good. So clearly, we can see that with the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, the battery life has been improved.
In terms of charging, the iQOO 15 supports 100W fast charging and the dedicated 100W fast charger is present inside the box. This is a slight downgrade when compared to the 120W fast charging support on its predecessor, i.e. iQOO 13. The 100W fast charger takes the smartphone from 0 to 100 per cent in around 55-60 minutes, which is fast but slightly time-consuming considering that we now have a larger capacity battery.
Along with this, iQOO has finally bought the 40W wireless charging support on the iQOO 15, which is a good upgrade over the iQOO 13, which lacked the support for wireless charging. There is also support for reverse wireless charging and reverse wired charging, which can be useful for charging other smartphones.
iQOO 15 Audio Quality:
The iQOO 15 sports a dual stereo speaker setup, which includes a speaker on the top along with the loudspeaker grille at the bottom. The audio quality is loud and clearer with no distortion, even at the highest volume settings. There is support for LDAC for HiRes audio, and the haptics are just spot on, where you can even change the intensity of the haptics for a better experience.
Verdict:
Overall, as a package, the iQOO 15 is a solid flagship out there, which will make many flagship smartphones go in admiration. This year, the prices have been increased slightly, but the noticeable features, which include a powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a capable camera setup, a 144Hz AMOLED display, and a larger battery with faster charging and a new feature-rich software experience, make up for it.
If you consider the iQOO 15, what you are getting is a solid build and design, a great eye-catching display for content consumption, along with support for stereo speakers, and then there is the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which provides solid performance and great gaming capabilities, the cameras are good for images and videos, and you get solid battery life with support for faster charging.
The software experience, which was not so refined with FunTouchOS on iQOO smartphones in the past, has been improved with OriginOS on the iQOO 15, which includes a feature-rich software experience along with a better software upgrade lifecycle over other brands in this segment. However, there are a few areas where the iQOO 15 falls short. The ultrawide camera performance is not so good, which makes it average.
The OriginOS, though feature-rich, is not as polished as OneUI in Samsung smartphones or OxygenOS in OnePlus smartphones, and there is bloatware present. The charging speed has been slightly downgraded compared to last year's iQOO 13. So in a nutshell, except for the charging speeds, the iQOO 15 is a good upgrade over the iQOO 13 and makes a sensible buy in the market with the slightly higher asking price.
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