iQOO 11 5G (Alpha, 8GB RAM, 256 GB Storage) | Snapdragon ® 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform| 2K E6 AMOLED Display | V2 Intelligent Display Chip

I’ve been using this for about 20 days now and have pretty good understanding. Before I proceed, I wanted to give a brief about how I selected this phone.

I had a S20+ before this which I purchased on Big Billion Day for 32k + 15k after one year offer. The phone was decent, but its battery life was becoming an issue. I got battery, screen and back cover replaced in October but still the battery seemed low. So, in last week of January, when it accidentally broke, I decided to go for a new phone. Till the time I was using my old iPhone 8 which seemed quite slow.

I had realized that battery life and charging speed had become the most crucial factor for me. So, I just went out looking for phone with fastest charging. This came to my attention for its 25 min fast charging and top specs. OP11 was also launched in China and got to know that in India it will have a 100W charger compared to this having 120W. Also, the intro was on 7th February with launch 2 weeks later and I did not want to wait. The S23 series came on 1st Feb but as someone who gets bored with phones in 2 years, I did not want to spend that much this time on the Ultra. So, I read up on all the reviews with OP11 vs iQoo 11 vs S23 Ultra and decided that I wanted to go with this. Now onto pros and cons for iQoo 11. They also offered pretty decent 12k for iPhone 8 64Gb as exchange offer.

Pros:
1. 120W charging speed easily gets you from 20% to 100% in like 20 mins. That is super-fast coming from a phone that used to take 90 mins. I don’t have to worry about charging anymore.
2. The display is gorgeous to see content on. I think this is going to be hands down the best screen in your home including TVs overall by some margin (except if you have S23 Ultra). It is the latest Samsung E6 AMOLED LTPO4 display which is used in iPhone Pro and Pro Max. Even S23 Ultra uses the same display. Lower segment non-Ultra Samsung S23 and non-Pro iPhone 14 don’t get these displays. Samsung does have slightly higher peak brightness (2200 nits vs 1800 nits on iQoo) but overall, still good at the price point. OnePlus 11 uses older E4 display.
3. The phone has longer sustained performance than OnePlus which starts thermal throttling. That is not observed in iQoo due to its much larger and better designed cooling system. It tops or goes neck to neck with S23 Ultra on most benchmarks. OnePlus 11 is always behind it. This is quite commendable.
4. Due to its excellent cooling along with latest LPDDRX5 memory and UFS 4.0, the phone is lighting fast and doesn’t stutter with anything you throw at it.
5. The speakers are quite good and have balanced sound. No uneven balance where earpiece comes with lesser volume than the other speaker.
6. The haptics are pretty good.
7. Comes with a charger and case in the box. Nowadays that is a luxury.
8. The faux leather back is premium. The lychee back along with Clous de Parised stripes (which is generally seen on high quality premium watches worth over 1 lakhs) will definitely have people asking you, what phone/case is that.

Cons:
1. Funtouch OS is what lets this phone down. It is bad. I understand why others would rate this phone poor. Examples, Notification reply for WhatsApp stops working after 2-4 days on being on, the keyboard doesn’t pop up, you are not able to click on button or apps but are able to scroll. All these issues come after 2-4 days of being on. The only option is to restart to fix it. Hopefully, they can soon fix this with software updates, but this is not expected from a flagship phone and is a huge let down. This was the reason I did not go with OnePlus as they took more than a year to resolve log filling up phone space issue. Hope their sister company doesn’t take that long to fix it.
2. After OP11 pricing reveal, it should get a price cut of about 3000.
3. The main camera is good but other cameras including selfie are not that good. They are average and get the job done but they should have provided a better camera at this price point.
4. No official IPxx rating.
5. The Screen on Time that I am getting is about 5-6 hours. However, I have max resolution along with smart refresh rate, Ok Google, 5G, almost everything that is available on. It lasts a day, but quick charging means I can top it up easily. Replacement battery costs 2590 so you can get it replaced in 1.5-2 years to keep the same life if it degrades too much (to be seen). Reading other review, it seems if I disable some of this, I can easily get 2 days of battery.
6. iQoo does not sell extended warranty or accidental damage protection. This shows lack of confidence in their product. OnePlus sells that for 2 years at just 6000 (ADP+Warranty). You have to rely on third party, and no one provides 2nd year accidental warranty.
7. Lack of availability of accessories which is available for OnePlus. Like Dbrand/Spigen/Daily Objects and other major brands.

Overall, if you ask me after 20 days would I buy this phone again? My answer would be no. I would go with OP11. The reasons are 1. I am not a gamer so don’t need sustained performance 2. It comes with IP64 rating 3. OnePlus is cheaper with more accessories and 2-year ADP Warranty available at just 6000. Since I have a history of breaking phones, ADP is pretty useful for me. Money saved is money earned. I also don’t take that many pics, so camera did not come in consideration, but OP has better camera overall. Also, I think OnePlus will have a better resale value in 2 years compared to iQoo. The OS is a big letdown for iQoo. But my decision to prefer OP11 would be 80% due to ADP it offers. If iQoo offered that, and fixed its OS, I would go with iQoo.

However, if you ask me do I have any regret? I would also say no. It is one of the best-looking phone sure to raise eyebrows out there with best-in-class performance which I think would be hard to beat this year (except maybe gaming oriented phones like Redmagic or ROG). It has been letdown by Funtouch OS and hopefully they can fix it soon.