Here’s an inexpensive flagship phone. With a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, the IQOO 13 is a powerful phone that does many things right.

IQOO has not gone out of the way to update the design. This time we get RGB lighting around the camera module that lights up when you get notifications, calls… it also serves as a reminder that Nothing didn’t go over the edge with glyphs.

Photography in bright conditions brings out the best in IQOO's new camera setup

Perhaps a bigger change is that we now get IP68 and IP69 rating for dust and water resistance. Lately, more and more brands are giving IP ratings. Earlier, many companies left out IP ratings because of the pricing difference it made. A quibble: IQOO 13 remains as slippery as the IQOO 12 because of the smooth back.

Bright and big

The display quality of IQOO 13 is very good, almost flagship grade. Thin bezels surround the large 6.82-inch LTPO Amoled display. Having a flat panel makes it easier for gaming as well as streaming content. It has a sharp 3168x1440 display with 10-bit colour depth, 144Hz refresh rate and high PWM dimming, besides HDR10 support for watching streaming services. The display can hit 4,500 nits of peak brightness, which is enough for any phone. IQOO has even managed to reduce screen reflection a great deal, though it doesn’t match the quality of Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

On the software side, things have improved even though you still get some degree of bloatware. The company may say Myntra, Netflix, PhonePe, Snapchat and YouTube are popular apps but that would be a naive explanation. On a positive note, there is support for four years of OS updates and five years of security updates.

There is RGB light around the rear camera panel

With Android 15 out of the box, a number of AI features can be used, like AI eraser, Circle to Search and copy text from images.

No compromise on performance

The main marketing angle of the phone is its chip. Snapdragon 8 Elite is definitely a good processor to have and it works with DDR5X RAM and there is UFS 4.1 storage. The gaming performance is excellent. Be it stability or sustainable performance, you get it all here. IQOO has even given a larger vapour cooling chamber to keep the temperature of the device under control when you are gaming. The thermals are kept in check while playing Genshin Impact or PUBG. You don’t have to go for an Asus gaming phone to enjoy the best of gaming.

Helping performance is a largish battery — 6000 mAh. I was able to get eight to nine hours of screen-on time, which is pretty good for a flagship device. Further, there is a charger in the box. Going from zero to 100 per cent will take around 32-35 minutes. The company has also included a USB 3.2 Type-C port to make data transfer very fast.

Make the call

We have kept camera for the end. There is a 50MP Sony IMX921 main camera and a 50MP Sony IMX816 telephoto camera, besides a 50MP ultra-wide camera. Pictures during daytime come out well but under uneven lighting the performance could have been better. Some pictures are brightened too much. The good thing is that the ultra-wide camera can capture 4K video at 60fps as well as macro photos. You can shoot up to 8K videos but normally you will restrict to 4K at 60fps. Far more impressive is the 32MP selfie camera that can process skin tones better.

Choices? Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is still a good choice, even though you will have to pay a little extra. Or you can wait for OnePlus’s new flagship phones coming in January.

Taken around 7.30am, a closer look at the picture will highlight some noise

Overall, IQOO 13 is an affordable flagship phone offering a sustained gaming experience.

At a glance

Device: IQOO 13

Price: Upwards of ₹54,999

High notes

Excellent sustained performance

Bright display

Good design and RGB lighting on the camera module.

Top-of-the-line battery experience

Muffled notes

Some bloatware

Screen protection could have been better