iQOO has finally unveiled the Neo 9 Pro smartphone in India, which is also the country’s cheapest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered smartphone. Priced at Rs 37,999, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has a lot to offer, and here we are with the first impression of the handset while we work on a detailed review.
Pricing & Availability
The iQOO Neo 9 Pro will come in three variants including 8GB + 128GB, 8GB + 256GB and 12GB + 256GB, priced at Rs 35,999, Rs 37,999 and Rs 39,999, respectively. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank card users can get a flat Rs 2,000 discount or existing iQOO & Vivo customers can avail a Rs 4,000 exchange offer while non-Vivo and non-iQOO customers can avail a Rs 2,000 exchange offer.
Moreover, users are offered with an 18-month warranty instead of the industry standard 12 months. The sale for the 256GB models begin from February 23 while the 128GB model will begin selling from March 21. Those who pre-booked the device can buy from today itself.
Design & Build
The iQOO Neo 9 Pro comes in two shades, and definitely, the Fiery Red colour looks more attractive than the black, which has a minimal approach. The red one, which is also the model we have with us, has a bright red flat frame with buttons on the right that have a tactile feel to them when clicked. The rear has this vegan leather two-tone finish, which attracts a lot of eyes in the public.
The handset feels quite premium in the hand, and due to the leather finish, it’s grippable as well. iQOO also offers a case within the device’s box for better protection. Regarding protection, it has an IP54-rated build, meaning occasional water splashes shouldn’t be an issue for the handset. There’s an X-Axis linear vibration motor for handling the haptics, which, of course, aren’t as strong as iQOO 12 but still feel nice in hand.
Overall, we can say that the Neo 9 Pro is one of the most impressively designed smartphones we have seen from iQOO.
Display & Performance
The iQOO Neo 9 Pro sports a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED Display with a 1.5K (1260 x 2800 pixels) resolution, HDR10 support, 2160Hz PWM dimming and up to 1400 nits brightness (3000 nits peak) and up to a 144Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
The Neo 9 Pro display has the usual characteristics we see on iQOO smartphones, and that’s impressive and responsive. The quality of the panel is high-end, with accurate and vivid colour reproduction. It gets bright enough outdoors and is clearly visible. Moreover, iQOO says that this panel supports wet hand touch technology, meaning even if your hands are wet, you can use the panel, and it won’t cause accidental touches.
Coming to the performance, so far in our initial tests, the Neo 9 Pro isn’t ready to slow down. Whatever we throw at it, the device handles it easily, whether gaming or other heavy tasks. As iQOO is also marketing the device as a gaming phone, it has many features built-in to back that claim. One of them is 4D game vibration, where the vibrations sync up with in-game actions.
Moreover, the Neo 9 Pro supports a refresh rate of up to 144Hz in select titles and also supports MEMC technology, which can scale up the refresh rate in some videos. Games such as Clash of Clans, COD: Mobile, BGMI, and many more support upscaling of resolution as well as refresh rate simultaneously, which accounts for an ideal gaming experience.
A 6K VC Cooling System handles the thermals and combined with the efficient chipset, the Neo 9 Pro always had the temperatures under control even during sustained workloads during our tests. A bunch of other gaming features are a part of the Ultra game mode, such as picture-in-picture for other apps while playing games, screen mistouch prevention, frame rate priority and more.
The user interface is typical FunTouch OS, based on Android 14, and iQOO is claiming to provide updates up to Android 17 for this one, which is, again, a great move. There’s some preloaded apps like the V-Appstore, Tile master 3D, etc. However, V-Appstore cannot be disabled, and it contains the shortcuts to Hot apps & games, which are turned off by default when you set up the phone.
This was our first impression of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro; from the looks of it, it is here to give its competitors a run for their money. We’ll be diving deep into other aspects of the smartphone, such as the user interface performance, stereo speaker quality, cameras, battery, performance of gaming-related features and more in the full review, so definitely stay tuned for it.