The iQOO Z9 5G is the newest mid-range offering from the brand in India and arrives as a follow-up to the iQOO Z7 5G. The handset offers a premium design and value-for-money hardware, including a 120Hz AMOLED display, a 5,000mAh battery, MediaTek Dimensity 7200, and a 50MP primary camera, all under Rs 20,000. We recently reviewed the smartphone, and here’s why you should consider buying it or skipping the device.
3 Reasons to buy iQOO Z9 5G
Impressive performance
The iQOO Z9 5G is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 SoC paired with Mali-G610 MC4 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB/256GB UFS 2.2 storage. Our review notes the performance of the phone is quite impressive as it was able to handle day-to-day tasks without any lags or stutters.
We can partly contribute this to the well-optimised Funtouch OS 14 custom skin. The iQOO Z9 can breeze through tasks like social media, web browsing, checking emails, switching between apps, and more.
The benchmark scores also speak for themselves as the handset registered over 7 lakhs on the AnTuTu platform and Geekbench, it scored 1190 and 2680 in single-core and multi-core, respectively. The phone has also delivered impressive GFXBench scores. It was able to handle heavy titles like Call of Duty Mobile on ‘Very High graphics’.
Bright AMOLED display
The iQOO Z9 5G sports a 6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with 2400×1080 pixels resolution, a 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate, HDR10+, up to 1800 nits peak brightness, and DT-Star2 Glass Protection.
The display of the phone is quite bright for its price and we were able to see the content on the phone even under bright sun. Adding to that is the SGS-certified Eye Care Display, which should prevent any eye strain. The content viewing experience of the phone is also quite sharp. We enjoyed watching content on streaming apps like Netflix.
Good battery life and fast charging
The iQOO Z9 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery with 44W fast charging. The battery life of the phone is quite impressive and it was able to last one single day with moderate usage. It lasted around 15 hours and 40 minutes during our PC Mark battery test. There was no idle battery draining issue as well so no worries there.
The bundled 44W fast charger took roughly 67 minutes to juice up from 0 to 100 percent. However, in this price segment, the Realme Narzo 70 Pro offered 67W fast charging support. Nonetheless, the iQOO Z9 5G offers a pretty good battery life.
3 reasons to skip iQOO Z9 5G
Lots of pre-installed apps
The iQOO Z9 5G ships with Android 14-based Funtouch OS 14 custom skin out of the box. Though we are getting the latest OS out of the box, the phone comes with a lot of pre-installed applications. While some of these might be removed, the whole user experience in terms of software is not completely stock or seamless. We would have liked the phone to come with no bloatware application considering the starting price of Rs 19,999.
Lack of ultra-wide camera
The dual-camera setup on the iQOO Z9 includes a 50MP primary Sony IMX882 sensor with f/1.79 aperture and OIS + EIS and a 2MP depth sensor. The phone lacks an ultra-wide-angle camera. It looks like the brand has omitted the ultra-wide-angle sensor in order to keep the price in check. From a user’s perspective, the ultra-wide-angle camera will be much more functional than a namesake 2MP depth sensor.
When the competition (Realme Narzo 70 Pro with an 8MP ultra-wide camera) offers a more versatile camera system, this looks like a drawback on the iQOO Z9.
Only two major OS updates
iQOO is promising only two major OS updates for the iQOO Z9. This means you will get Android 15 and Android 16 updates when they are made available. We wish iQOO had offered at least three years of OS updates considering the price. The peace of mind of having a phone with a promise of at least 3 Android updates is unmatched.
