We have yet another highly anticipated phone with us – the iQOO 15. Yes, we’re very busy these few weeks as we’re just constantly testing these new phones. The iQOO 15 is one of the first smartphones to be equipped Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. iQOO is always known for its performance and raw specs – so after spending about 2 weeks with this phone, I managed to find out a lot about it. So, let’s talk about it in today’s review.
Performance
Let’s now start to talk about the performance first, since it’s the biggest highlight. So, it is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – which is a very long name for a chipset, and it is currently the newest, highest-end chipset by Qualcomm. How’s the gaming performance then?
Let’s start with Genshin Impact. At the highest graphical settings, it hovers around 58fps average and the frame rate does drop to like 54fps sometimes, but overall – not really a major issue. The frame rate is very steady and the overall gaming experience is really good here, but Genshin Impact is no longer considered a “very demanding game” nowadays.
So, let’s move on to Zenless Zone Zero. At the highest graphical settings, it also hovers around 58fps throughout the entire flower boss that. This is actually a very good result and the frame rate consistency is also amazing though there are some frame drops here and there that are very distracting, but overall – still really good all things considered.
Wuthering Waves is the most demanding game that we have to date. The phone renders this game at a very high resolution, and at the highest graphical settings – it performs quite okay as it hovers around 58fps, but it will take around 8W of power. Eventually, it will thermal throttle at about 47°C, and the performance will be cut in half. It’s quite difficult to even make it thermal throttle but if you’re playing Zenless Zone Zero or Wuthering Waves as I do, or if you use a phone case, then yeah, it will thermal throttle.
The iQOO 15 also has the Supercomputing Q3 Chip that enables a few different features for supported games. PUBG Mobile has the option to upscale the resolution and interpolate more frames. For Genshin Impact, we have both the upscaler and the frame rate interpolator, and also the ability to enable ray-tracing.
And it actually works. How the heck does the iQOO 15 manage to have ray-tracing for Genshin Impact? Honestly, I don’t know. The only thing I can think of is that the Supercomputing Q3 chip can tap into the game engine and superimpose ray-tracing into the rendering pipeline.
However, the difference with and without ray-tracing is not really that noticeable. Yeah, there are some extra reflections here and there, but the lighting direction and shadows are pretty much nonexistent still. Is this real ray-tracing? Maybe, but it is a very rudimentary level of ray-tracing.
Battery life
Let’s now talk about the battery life. The iQOO 15 comes with a single-cell 26.25Wh battery, or equivalent to a 7,000mAh. I try not to use mAh because it’s quite a terrible way to measure a battery’s capacity. I also have no idea why the iQOO 15 has a single-cell battery while the iQOO 13 has a dual-cell battery.
Either way, using our standardized battery life test, the iQOO lasts for around 26 hours and 14 minutes. It’s actually quite good and can comfortably last more than a day’s usage.
Charging speed
As for the charging speed, the iQOO 15 does come with a 90W charger in the box. This charger actually supports USB-PD PPS of up to 100W – which means it should have no difference from our Ugreen USB-PD PPS charger.
With the default settings, the iQOO 15 takes around an hour to charge from 15% to completion, and that is pretty good.
In the settings menu, we can turn up the charging speed to the maximum and shortened the charging time required from 15% to completion to around 43 minutes. It’s actually quite a lot faster since it cut the charging time by around 25%.
Using our own Ugreen USB-PD PPS charger, it also takes around 43 minutes to charge from 15% to completion. The phone also only takes 42W maximum for a short period of time. It could take in a bit more wattage, but for those who live in countries that has a power grid that only goes up to 110V, then the charger can only provide up to 45W. Yes, this is written on the charger itself. This is written on all chargers, actually.
Screen
As for the screen, the iQOO 15 comes with a 6.85-inch OLED screen with a resolution of 3168×1440 pixels, and goes up to 144Hz refresh rate. When we test its brightness though, I think there’s a bug?
With the auto brightness turned on, it can only go up to around like 581 nits. HBM mode did not kick in, and the vivo X300 Pro actually has the same bug. When we turn up the brightness to the maximum in manual mode, the screen can actually reach 1668 nits. That’s pretty godo and we can essentially use the phone anywhere we want, even under bright sunlight.
Okay, let’s talk about the color accuracy. There are 3 color profiles here, and the default Natural color profile can cover nearly 100% of both sRGB and DCI-P3 color gamuts. It’s definitely not “natural” since it’s quite a saturated look.
The Professional color profile is definitely what should’ve been called “natural” as the DCI-P3 color gamut coverage is dropped to around 74%, which means it’s not saturated.
Lastly, the Bright color profile. This color profile is really crazy. It can cover 100% of both sRGB, DCI-P3, and also Adobe RGB color gamuts. I usually never talk about Adobe RGB but in this case, it’s just crazy to see that this phone manages to cover 100% on all 3 color gamuts. It’s a crazy good screen.
The display is also completely flat now, which is really good as we don’t have to worry about palm rejection that much, and sticking a tempered glass screen protector is so much easier.
Software
The software experience is actually the same as what we’ve experienced thus far. iQOO has switched over from FunTouch OS to OriginOS, and there are a few new features here and there. Though, I did get some ads pushed via notifications, and there are definitely some bloatware here as well. Nothing surprising there, but we do have some features like the Flip Cards lock screen wallpaper too.
If you want to learn more about the OriginOS 6, then check out our YouTube Short here.
Design
Now, the design. The overall shape and size of the iQOO 15 is very similar to its predecessor. But, for this particular color variant of the iQOO 15, it’s really unique.
It changes color between this grey marble texture, and at certain angles – it even changes to red color. It looks really look, and feels really good too. It’s covered by a matte finish. Just like the screen size, the iQOO 15 has a totally flat back – and I think this is a great decision.
Oh – let’s not forget about the iQOO tradition. See this camera bump here? If we look at it from the side, there’s actually a ring of RGB LEDs inside. It sort of acts like a notification LED from back in the days and we do have some customization options in the settings menu as well. Overall, I think it’s a very nice touch – though I personally will just turn it off entirely.
Camera
Okay, let’s talso talk about the cameras. The iQOO 15 comes with a triple camera setup, with the specs as shown on the screen.
For a gaming phone, I think the cameras here are actually quite good. To have a look at all the pictures taken with the iQOO 15, watch the video at the top of this review.
A few more things to mention
And a few more things to mention about the iQOO 15 – we have a USB 3 port at the bottom with fast transfer speeds, and also has display mirroring too.
We also have dual SIM card slots, at least for our region – and there’s also an IR blaster at the back.
Should you buy the iQOO 15?
So, should you buy the iQOO 15? I honestly think that this is a great phone for gaming. The main highlight are 3 things – the performance with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 paired with the Supercomputing Chip Q3, the magnificent Samsung 2K M14 LEAD AMOLED display, and also its great battery life that can last for hours of high-end gaming.
Ultimately, it boils down to the price – which is starting at RM3,699. It’s not the most affordable Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset that we have right now, but the result speaks for itself. It’s an amazing phone that I think is still a very reasonable price, all things considered.
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