iQOO Neo 5 SE launched with Snapdragon 870 & 50MP camera

It is like a cheaper version of the iQOO Neo 5

Release Date
December 20, 2021
Starting Price
¥2199 ($345)

Today, iQOO launched two high-end phones in China named the iQOO Neo 5S & the Neo 5 SE. In our previous article, we talked about the iQOO Neo 5S which is a Snapdragon 888-powered device. The iQOO Neo 5 SE is like a cheaper version of the iQOO 5 that launched earlier this year in March. So, the iQOO 5 now sits between the Neo 5 SE & the Neo 5S in terms of pricing & features.

iQOO Neo 5 SE

Design-wise, this is a similar-looking phone to the iQOO Neo 5S but while that phone has a glass back, the Neo 5 SE has a plastic back. The fingerprint scanner is on the right side and doubles as the power button. The phone also has a 3.5mm headphone jack which is interesting since the iQOO Neo 5 & Neo 5S miss out on that.

iQOO Neo 5 SE

On the front, iQOO Neo 5 SE has a 6.67-inch 144Hz LCD with a Full-HD+ resolution. So, this explains why the phone has a side-mounted fingerprint reader while the Neo 5 & Neo 5S have an in-display fingerprint scanner. For selfies, the phone has a 16MP camera in a hole-punch cutout.

Under the hood, the phone has the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G SOC paired with 8GB or 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage. So here as well, there is some cost-cutting done by iQOO since the NEO 5 & Neo 5S have LPDDR5 RAM.

iQOO Neo 5 SE

The triple camera module on the rear includes a primary 50MP shooter, a secondary 8MP ultrawide, and a third macro shooter.

As for the battery, iQOO Neo 5 SE has a 4,500mAh cell and supports 55W fast charging as compared to 66W for the other two phones. Finally, OriginOS Ocean runs out of the box and there are stereo speakers.

iQOO Neo 5 SE

Here is the pricing for the Chinese market –

  • 8GB + 128GB – ¥2199 ($345)
  • 8GB + 256GB – ¥2399 ($376)
  • 12GB + 256GB – ¥2599 ($408)

Well, this is a pretty confusing launch by iQOO because just by spending ¥300 or $50 extra you can get the iQOO Neo 5 with a 120Hz AMOLED, LPDDR5 RAM, faster charging, a glass back and a better set of cameras. Or even better choice is the iQOO Neo 5S which costs ¥500 or $80 extra and offers Snapdragon 888 SOC plus all of the good things about of the iQOO Neo 5. It is like if iQOO had a stock left of Snapdragon 870 chips so the company decided to launch this phone.

The phone will go on sale starting December 28.