iQoo Z9s Pro Review: Luxe Head-Turner At Under Rs 25,000, Solid Portrait’s A Bonus
iQoo Z9s Pro Review: This is a steady performer with a flamboyant appearance, a combination that is not too common in its price range.
iQoo Z9s Pro Review: The iQoo Z series has been mainly about two things - style and camera. The iQoo Z9s Pro not only brings these two elements in spades but also adds a good helping of power, making it a solid mid-segment smartphone which covers all bases. almost all bases.
iQoo Z9s Pro Review: Quick Pointers
What we love:
- Premium design, especially the orange variant
- Colourful, bright display
- A good main camera
- Long battery life with fast charging
What we don’t:
- Mediocre 8-megapixel secondary sensor
- Cluttered UI
Flamboyance Unleashed
iQoo has been known to come up with some stylish smartphones, and the iQoo Z9s Pro is no different. The phone comes with a tall, curved, and very bright 6.7-inch full HD+ AMOLED display which tapers off to the side just a little bit.
It is surrounded by minimal bezels and comes with a punch-hole notch which carries the front-facing camera. Flip the phone around and eyes straightaway go to the massive squarish camera unit placed on the top left side of the back.
We received the Flamboyant Orange colour variant, which is flamboyant indeed (the Luxe Marble cuts a more understated but still elegant figure). It comes with a vegan leather back and its massive, slightly protruding camera unit comes with a textured gold accent.
Thanks to the textured back, you do not have to worry about scratches and smudges and it offers a very good grip too. Sandwiched between glass and that vegan leather back is a metal frame - impressive at this price point, and adding a touch of premium-ness to the device.
This frame holds the volume rocker and the power lock/ button on the right while the left remains bare. The base is fully loaded though, it carries the SIM card tray, the USB Type C port and the speaker grille.
The iQoo Z9s Pro is very slim. iQoo claims it is the slimmest phone in the category, with the Luxe Marble variant being a mere 7.49 mm thin, and the Flamboyant Orange also just 7.9mm thin. It is a tall phone at 163.7 mm and you do feel its weight in your palm as it weighs 190 grams. The phone comes with an IP64 rating, protecting it against dust and water splashes.
You get a basic transparent case, a charging brick along with cable and a SIM ejector tool in the box. The iQoo Z9s Pro cuts quite a premium figure in its segment and the Flamboyant Orange variant will especially turn heads.
Ticking Segment-Spec Boxes
The iQoo Z9s Pro ticks pretty much all the basic smartphone boxes and even brings some impressive numbers to the spec table for its price. The phone comes with a 6.67-inch full HD+ curved AMOLED display with a 120 Hz refresh rate with a surprisingly high 4500 nits peak brightness.
It runs on the very capable Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor which can be paired with 8 GB or 12 GB RAM, making it a very smooth operator. Photography is handled by a 50-megapixel Sony IMX882 main sensor with OIS accompanied by an 8-megapixel ultrawide sensor, while a 16-megapixel sensor handles selfies and video calls.
The phone also comes with stereo speakers, and its slim frame packs in a surprisingly large 5,500mAh battery, which comes with pretty brisk 80W fast charging support. The phone comes with Android 14 out of the box, topped with iQoo’s feature-rich yet slightly overwhelming FunTouchOS.
Steady Performer, Great Battery
The iQoo Z9s Pro shines in most areas when it comes to performance. Its curved, tall, AMOLED and bright display delivers flagship feels, and combined with stereo speakers, makes the device an absolute treat to watch and consume content on.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor may not be a flagship-level processor but easily takes upper mid-segment space, and is a very efficient chipset. This, paired with 12 GB RAM on our review unit, lets us fly through our everyday smartphone chores while giving us a good sweet taste of high-end gaming as well.
With a few tweaks, games like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty played smoothly on the device. It did get a touch warm when pushed but did not reach alarming levels at any given point.
The huge 5,500 mAh battery of the iQoo Z9s Pro can easily see you through more than a day’s usage and if you are careful you can even push it to two days. The 80W charging brick in the box gets you up to 50 per cent in about 30 minutes, and to 100 per cent in about fifty minutes.
That is not lightning fast (the OnePlus Nord CE 4 charges fully in about 30-35 minutes) but not slow either. And given how good the battery life is on the device, we were more than content with this charging speed. The phone runs on Vivo’s FunTouchOS on top of Android 14 and comes preloaded with several third-party apps, which can be uninstalled.
At a time when most Android skins are trying to be minimalistic, FunTouch OS is quite unabashedly colourful and feature-rich, which can be overwhelming for some people but is quite useful once one gets the hang of it. The in-display fingerprint scanner works smoothly and call quality is pretty good too.
Inconsistent Colours In Rear Cameras, But Solid Portraits
The 50-megapixel main sensor delivers a good amount of detail, especially in well-lit conditions but colour reproduction can be a little inconsistent.
Our food shots sometimes turned out a little washed out while a wide shot which covered more area seemed a tad saturated as compared to normal. Details get a little compromised as the lights dim down but images remain usable, especially if you switch to the Super Night mode.
Portrait shots turned out impressive on the device with well-defined subject edges and deep bokeh. The ultrawide camera does well in good light conditions but do not expect too much detail - just a wider view.
You get some AI embedded in the phone’s UI as well, with features like AI Erase and AI Photo Enhance, and they are handy enough to use. The phone can record 4K videos and video quality is generally quite good for the segment. The 16-megapixel selfie sensor is a good light friend too - it takes good selfies in well-lit conditions but the graph of details goes down with the light conditions.
iQoo Z9s Pro Review: Final Verdict
The iQoo Z9s Pro is available at Rs 24,999 for its 8GB + 128GB RAM and storage variant, while its 8GB + 256GB variant is priced at Rs 26,999 and the top 12GB + 256GB variant will set you back by Rs 28,999.
That puts it right in there amongst the premium mid-segment champs from different brands, including the likes of the Redmi Note 13 Pro and the OnePlus Nord CE4, both of which come with good cameras and displays, as well as Poco X6 Pro, which might look a little plain but comes with a very powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra processor.
And of course, there is the Nothing Phone 2a which remains THE phone for those who want something strikingly different.
The fact that the iQoo Z9s Pro can stand out in this zone should give you an idea of just how good a phone it is. Right from the bright display to the competent cameras to the very good battery life, it packs a decent punch and has no real flaw (apart from that rather ordinary secondary camera on the back).
What's more, it comes with a premium design that will make people stop and stare. It is a steady performer with a flamboyant appearance, a combination that is not too common in its price range.
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