Almost a year ago, iQOO launched the cheapest smartphone (at the time of its launch) powered by the Snapdragon 865 chip named the iQOO Neo 3. It launched at a starting price of 2,698 Yuan ($415), and for that price, it had a 144Hz LCD, Snapdragon 865, UFS 3.1 storage, 44W charging, and more. Now, Vivo has launched the iQOO Neo 5 in China, which is the successor of the iQOO Neo 3, and surprisingly, it starts at a price lower than the starting price of last year’s Neo 3. The reason for this is the competition from brands like Xiaomi and Motorola that have already launched their Snapdragon 870-powered phones for a much lower price.
Speaking of the design, the iQOO Neo 5 features a design that very much resembles the iQOO 7. There is a similar-looking camera module below, which is the iQOO logo. On the front, there is the same design once again with a centred hole-punch cutout. The USB Type-C port is present on the bottom, and there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. There are stereo speakers as well.
The display on the front is a 6.62-inch AMOLED featuring a 120Hz refresh rate & Full-HD+ resolution. The aspect ratio is 20:9, and the screen-to-body ratio of the device is 91.45%. It is also an HDR10/HDR10+ certified panel. iQOO also says that the panel can offer an instant touch-sampling-rate of up to 1000Hz, which is impressive.
Under the hood, it is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset and features 8GB or 12GB LPDDR4X RAM paired with 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage.
The triple camera setup on the rear includes a primary 48 Megapixel shooter paired with a 13 Megapixel ultrawide and a 2 Megapixel sensor. The primary camera also has Optical Image Stabilization, so that’s great. The selfie shooter on the front is a 16 Megapixel unit.
Finally, iQOO Neo 5 has a 4,400mAh battery and supports 66W flash charging. Android 11 based OriginOS runs out of the box.
iQOO Neo 5 comes in three colors and three storage options. Here is the pricing for the Chinese market –
- 8GB + 128GB – ¥2499 ($385)
- 8GB + 256GB – ¥2699 ($415)
- 12GB + 256GB – ¥2999 ($460)
In China, the phone will go on sale on the 22nd of March. There is no word on launch outside China.