iQOO Z6 Pro Review: Overshadowed by the predecessor?

iQOO has made a reputation for itself for providing value for money smartphones and the iQOO Z6 Pro is another attempt towards attracting customers. It is the successor to the iQOO Z5 5G considering the iQOO Z6 5G was more of a downgrade despite its moniker suggesting its the successor to the iQOO Z5. Now, the iQOO Z6 Pro starts at Rs 23,999 in India but in comparison to the iQOO Z5, the company seems to have made some unconventional choices. Let’s talk about it in detail.

iQOO Z6 Pro: Design & Display

The iQOO Z6 Pro, same as the iQOO Z5, has a plastic build but with its matte finish at the back, it feels premium in hand. The frame is completely plastic on the other hand. Because of such materials, the device feels really light to hold. Overall, the device is narrower in comparison to the iQOO Z5.

The Z6 Pro has two large camera rings at the back where one houses the primary sensor while the other ring houses two other sensors. The design of the smartphone looks modern enough from the back but it looks old on the front. This is because it now has a water-drop notch which we can see in budget smartphones nowadays.

The punch-hole front camera looks better in my opinion and it was adopted with the iQOO Z5. For some reason, iQOO went back to the notch design it had in iQOO Z3. Another weird choice is the omission of the Headphone jack. The iQOO Z5 came with a headphone jack but it has been removed in the iQOO Z6 Pro which we don’t know why.

Another oddchoice in terms of audio is that the iQOO Z6 Pro now has a single bottom firing speaker, a downgrade from the dual stereo speakers on the Z5. The speaker on the Z6 Pro is loud but again, isn’t very effective as compared to the predecessor. 

Coming to the front, the iQOO Z6 Pro has a 6.44-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel with a peak brightness of 1300 nits. The display has a 90Hz Refresh Rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. It is also protected by Gorilla Glass 5. This is an upgrade from the 120Hz LCD panel we saw on iQOO Z3 and the Z5.

The panel does produce deep blacks with great colours. It gets super bright under direct sunlight for easy readability. The viewing angles are fine too but the only problem I had with the display is that I could constantly notice a tint on white backgrounds.

Further, there’s a rainbow tint which runs across the screen while viewing from certain angles and it’s quite noticeable. Also, I would have loved it even more if it was a 120Hz panel like on the Xiaomi 11i HyperCharge which is in the same price range as the iQOO Z6 Pro.

iQOO Z6 Pro: Performance & Software

The Z6 Pro runs on FunTouch OS 12 based on Android 12. It is powered by the same Snapdragon 778G Processor as its predecessor. You get up to 12GB of RAM with up to 256GB of storage. We got the 8GB + 128GB variant in which the RAM management was pretty good. It also offers a Virtual RAM feature where up to 4GB of internal storage can be used as RAM. 

Performance was exceptionally good where apps opened quickly and switching between them was smooth as well. The animations are well done and also feel very fluid. FunTouch OS 12 has now gained some more features including Material You theming where the system changes its colours based on the wallpaper you set. You can now change the UI colour under Lock screen & Wallpaper settings which is again a welcome addition.

The dynamic effects where you can change the animation of certain UI elements such as fingerprint & charging animation and ambient light effects, etc. There’s a new addition here as well so you can now add a touch screen animation where it will show a trail of sparkles or squares (more options are available) wherever you touch on the screen. Other features such as Ultra game mode, and Smart Motion gestures are also available. There is some bloatware such as the Moj, Josh, and some more apps that are pre-installed. You can uninstall them though. Further, you get the April 2022 security patch out of the box and that’s exactly what I expect from a device costing this much.

Apart from the software, I really enjoyed gaming on this device as it can handle Call Of Duty Mobile on max graphics with max FPS without many issues. Yes, there are very minor frame drops when the phone warms up but that can easily be ignored. The phone does get hot after a certain period but thanks to the cooling system, it doesn’t get out of control and is within tolerable limits.

Read More: iQOO Z5 Review: A minor or a major upgrade?

iQOO Z6 Pro: Battery Life

iQOO Z6 Pro houses a smaller 4700mAh battery than the iQOO Z5 which has a 5000mAh battery. However, I can tolerate it as the charging speeds have gone up from 44W in Z5 to 66W in the Z6 Pro.

A bigger battery would have been more welcome but this one doesn’t disappoint either. It can easily last you more than a day with moderate usage. With heavy usage, you may be able to kill it in a day. I was easily able to get 4.5 to 5 hours of screen-on time with gaming and could get past 5 hours easily with light usage which included browsing, texting, streaming videos, etc. The device took 1 hour to charge from 0 to 100% which I feel is slightly long for 66W charging.

iQOO Z6 Pro: Cameras

iQOO Z6 Pro gets a triple-camera setup with a 64 MP primary sensor, an 8 MP ultrawide shooter, and a 2 MP macro unit. On the front, the waterdrop notch houses a 16 MP selfie camera.

The iQOO Z6 Pro clicks great shots under direct sunlight. There’s a good dynamic range with high levels of detailing and sharpness. Exposure levels are optimal and the colours are kept natural. Further, there’s no shutter lag which is very impressive. Ultra-wide angle shots have a slight colour shift with a warmer tone and colours that are slightly more saturated in comparison to standard outdoor pictures.

Shots under artificial lighting are decent as well. Again, a natural tone is kept for the colours with decent detailing. The photos could have been brighter but you can take control of that manually as well if you want to. Under low lighting, photos get softer but I am impressed with the way this camera handles the colours in every situation.

The macro sensor also captures highly detailed photos. Vivid colours and quick focus capabilities add to the experience of capturing macro shots. Portrait shots were also good with okay-ish EDGE detection. The intensity of the bokeh effect can be controlled in real-time. Again, the colours look nice and the focusing speed while bringing the subject into focus was also fast.

Selfies are also enjoyable on the iQOO Z6 Pro. Portrait selfies had accurate edge detection (in fact better than rear camera portraits). Moreover, skin tones are well handled and sharpness and detailing inside the photo was also fine. Overall, the selfie camera is a decent one and you’ll enjoy it every time you capture yourself.

Lastly, the night shots are also fine. There’s nothing extraordinary about them. Turning on the Night mode doesn’t do much except increase the overall brightness of the photo.