iQOO Neo 10 Review – High Performance, Big Battery

Unboxing

Inside this black-colored box is the iQOO Neo 10, the lineup of which made is debut in Malaysia recently to serve the mid-range segment for the brand. You are immediately greeted with the phone itself as soon as you lift the box open (like virtually all phones do), and beneath it you get a bunch of accessories to get things going.

These are the items included in the box:
– Quick start guide
– Warranty card
– USB-C charging cable
– 120W charger
– SIM ejector pin
– Protective case
– iQOO Neo 10 main unit

Walkaround

The design of the iQOO Neo 10 is highly similar to that of the brand’s flagship, the iQOO 13 – the camera bump adopts the exact same look sans the RGB you’ll find in its bigger brother, though what’s inside does differ. Here, you’ll find the primary 50-megapixel Sony IMX882 sensor for the wide camera, along with an 8-megapixel designated for ultrawide duty.

A ring-shaped LED completes the rear camera setup, and there’s even a fourth ring which, as far as we can tell, is strictly for aesthetics; we wouldn’t rule out this particular part is simply reused and adapted to Neo 10’s components, which is a valid strategy to save manufacturing costs.

The side-profile views shows a very typical arrangement in terms of button and port placements. The SIM slot is located at the bottom next to the USB-C port sandwiching one of the microphones, and on the other end you’ll find the primary speaker paired with earpiece unit to form a stereo setup. Above, another microphone is present, accompanied by an IR blaster, which is a rarity among smartphones these days. Nothing is on the left, while right side is the usual volume and power keys.

As vivo’s sub-brand, iQOO smartphones share some of the underpinnings from vivo’s handsets, which includes its software. In this case, you get Funtouch OS 15, which is vivo’s adaptation of Android 15 operating system and comes pre-installed with some of vivo’s apps (like the V-Appstore), though the iQOO Store co-exist with it, as seen in the phone’s default home screen.

Specifications

iQOO Neo 10 (I2405)

Full specifications available on product specifications page.

Performance

System

The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip inside the iQOO Neo 10 is quite a powerful chip overall, able to keep up with the likes of MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ from Xiaomi’s 14T Pro, as well as Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the predecessor of the Snapdragon 8 Elite powering 2025’s flagships. Comparing against its direct predecessor in the form of 8s Gen 3 and we see quite a substantial jump in overall performance, although it’s worth noting the HONOR 200 Pro in this case scored below average for the chip it uses.

CPU

Same story applies for CPU performance, where iQOO Neo 10’s SD8s Gen 4 remains in the same performance envelope as the Dimensity 9300+ and SD8 Gen 3, both released last year (it does lead slightly against the HONOR 400 Pro, while losing out slightly to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6, despite both sharing the same SoC). Not too bad as the chip being second fiddle to the SD8 Elite. Once again, it gains a big jump from the SD8s Gen 3.

GPU

The GPU of the SD8s Gen 4 is the Adreno 825, and it’s a bit of an odd GPU when you look at the performance numbers here. The regular Wild Life benchmark shows the GPU has no problem keeping up with the phones in this chart, though the Extreme version of this benchmark brought the scores down to a whole level below others (the same applies to its predecessor). If resolution is indeed a limitation of this GPU, at least the Supercomputing Chip Q1 onboard this smartphone can take care of the upscaling duty to compensate for it.

Battery

Battery is one of the most surprising aspect of the iQOO Neo 10, despite the fact that it already has among the biggest capacity available on the market today. The power efficiency of the SD8s Gen 4 paired with the massive 7,000mAh battery translates to over 22 hours of runtime in this PCMark battery test – head and shoulders beyond the competition in this chart.

User Experience

Software

Generally speaking, the Funtouch OS 15 is intuitive to use if you’re familiar with Android operating system as a whole, though one thing I didn’t like as much is the frequent presence of “suggestions” – lock screen backgrounds, apps, games, in the notifications, and even straight up ads in the search menu. You’ll need to spend time to de-clutter since there are quite a few scattered around the operating system.

Camera

The iQOO Neo 10’s rear camera is fine for most use, although the software forcibly applies AI upscaling and there seems to be no way of turning it off, even in Pro mode. In practice, this made high zoom levels impractical to use as the resulting image produces lots of bloom and Vaseline-like smearing effects, and it is already somewhat visible at zoom levels as low as 2x.

Still, looking past that and the camera is decently capable at low-light situations, although it has a tendency to overcorrect the colors on light sources; the default photo mode is good enough for most uses as the software will figure out most settings from the get-go. Below are some of the photo examples: