iQOO launched three new flagships in the Indian market today named the iQOO 9 SE, iQOO 9, and iQOO 9 Pro. Now, all of these are not the same phones as available in the Chinese market. The iQOO 9 SE for India is a rebadged iQOO Neo 5S, and the iQOO 9 for India is a rebadged iQOO 8. Only the iQOO 9 Pro for India is the same phone as the 9 Pro for China. Anyways, the price starts at ₹33,990 for the 9 SE and goes all the way up to ₹69,990 for the 9 Pro.
In this article, we will talk about the 9 SE because that is the cheapest among the three and perhaps the one that is going to sell the most.
iQOO 9 SE has a glass back with a matte finish, and the design looks very similar to the iQOO 7 that launched in India last year. There is a flat panel on the front with a hole punch cutout in the middle. The fingerprint scanner is placed under the display, and to no surprise, the phone lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack. There are stereo speakers and a 4D game vibration feature.
The display on the front is a 6.62-inch AMOLED with up to 120Hz refresh rate and 300Hz touch-sampling rate. The phone also has an Intelligent Display Chip present in the iQOO 7 of last year. This display chip improves the frame rates in games and also results in enhanced details and more vibrant colors on the panel while playing games.
Under the hood, there is the Snapdragon 888 SOC, and despite being a last-generation flagship chipset, this is the best SOC that you can get for the price at which the iQOO 9 SE launched in India. For better thermals, there is a VC liquid cooling system. The phone also has an Ultra Game Mode to take advantage of the full power of this SOC. There is LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage.
The triple camera setup includes a primary shooter with a 48MP Sony IMX598 sensor and OIS, a secondary 13MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree FOV, and a third monochrome sensor. The battery size is 4,500mAh, and the phone supports 66W fast charging.
In India, iQOO 9 SE comes in two colors named Sunset Sierra and Space Fusion.
There are two storage options. The 8GB + 128GB variant is priced at ₹33,990 whereas the 12GB + 256GB variant at ₹37,990. The phone will be up for pre-ordering from 2nd March. There are some bank offers too, such as flat ₹3,000 off with ICICI bank cards. That brings the starting price down to ₹30,990, which is a steal! For comparison, the iQOO 7 launched with Snapdragon 870 last year for ₹31,990.