iQOO 15 review: Is the quest complete?

In a world where ‘form over function” is becoming a growing trend in the world of technology, where smartphones are bending, folding, going to the gym and getting thinner than ever... The iQOO 15 has arrived like a breath of fresh Air. 

iQOO has plastered “monster inside” all over its marketing for this phone; it is even etched on the back of it for one variant, owing to the fact that it does, indeed, have the most powerful Android smartphone processor inside. 
I have been using it as my primary device over the last two weeks and let me tell you all that is good, all that is great and all that needs improvement, because at a starting price of  ₹72,999, you expect the “monster inside” to scare all doubts and compromises away. Does it though? Let me tell you. 

Design & Build 

The iQOO 15 is a good-looking device. It plays it safe in all the right ways, and its in-hand feel is comfortable enough to hold for long hours, whether you’re scrolling social media or pulling an all-nighter while gaming. (I’d say ‘studying’ but this is a gaming-centric phone and I am not one to pretend.) 

It has an aluminium frame, the back is glass with a satin finish that feels really nice to touch (Fibre Glass on the Alpha black colour variant). The phone feels solid and sturdy, with an IP68 & 69 certification, meaning spills and even high-pressure water jets won’t harm it. The camera bump is significant, but it houses the “monster halo”, which is an LED light meant to be used when the phone is kept upside down. It notifies you when you get a message, call, and even when the phone needs charging. All in all, a safe, sturdy and reliable build that gives you the confidence to go cover-less. 

Performance: Monstrous Indeed

Powering the phone is the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, which means that all games are played at the highest possible settings. I pushed the device to the limit almost every day, playing multiple rounds of Call of Duty Mobile with graphics and frame rates set to maximum, got quite ahead in Genshin Impact’s bizarre story, while intermittently doom-scrolling on Instagram because of poor attention span. I faced no stutters or lags, and neither did the iQOO 15.

The brand’s gaming heritage is on full display here. There isn’t a game that can cause this phone to stutter, including Genshin Impact with ray-tracing turned on. There is even a dedicated Supercomputing chip Q3 inside, that enhances the performance when the device needs it the most, and a dedicated Q-Chip zone that lets you crank up the resolution and frame rate to “extreme” at the cost of losing ray-tracing; which I feel is a greater level of customisability and graphics control than most other phones, making iQOO 15 the best Android phone currently for gaming.

Frame rates are stable, graphics and textures look great, and the ray-tracing, while not exactly PC grade, is good enough for a screen this size. 

The phone does not heat either; iQOO made sure of that by putting in a massive vapour cooling chamber, which they claim is India’s biggest, at 8000mm². iQOO also claimed an AnTuTu score of 4 million+. I tested it myself and the score came out to be around 3.9 million, which is close enough and impressive. 

Display: It’s a Samsung?! 

The display is a 6.85-inch, 144Hz, 8T LTPO AMOLED, made by Samsung (Samsung 2K M14 LEAD™️ OLED Display)
It is a beautiful screen to look at, no two ways about it. It shows smooth, crisp visuals with bright and punchy colours in 2K resolution. 

With 6000 nits of peak brightness and 2600 nits of global brightness (HBM), viewing content even in direct sunlight will not be a problem on this. 
While gaming, you can take full use of its refresh rate and even adjust the touch sampling rate for precise control, including when your fingers are wet or sweaty, thanks to its ‘wet finger control’. 

Battery: Another Big Win 

With a 7000 mAh battery, the iQOO 15 lasts an average of 1 and a half days with ease. That includes calling, camera usage, gaming and social media scrolls along with navigation and GPS use. The standby times are also quite shocking, with one instance of me leaving the phone at 58% at 10 AM, and coming back home at 9 PM, with the battery still at the same percentage. 

You get a 100W flash charger in the box and the convenience of 40W wireless charging. 
Hence, absolutely no battery anxiety, and no need for a power bank. 

Camera: A hand-me-down? 

The cameras on the iQOO 15 click really nice pictures, which should not come as a surprise, since it has vivo optics and DNA, sans the ZEISS collaboration. 

With a 50+50+50 MP Triple camera set-up, portraits, landscapes and night shots all look absolutely stunning. The set-up consists of a Sony IMX 921 sensor with OIS, a Sony IMX882 3X Telephoto Periscope camera and an Ultra-Wide Angle camera. 

On the front end, you get a 32MP selfie camera that can also record 4K 60fps video. The rear set-up records at 8K 30fps. It is a camera that you (and most other people) will be very satisfied with. 

Software and AI

The phone comes with Origin OS 6 (based on Android 16) out of the box. The UI feels smooth and snappy, and there’s plenty of cool, albeit familiar, lock screen customisation. There’s a lot of AI functionality built inside, such as AI-generated seasonal effects for photos, AI erase, AI retouch and AI reflection erase, along with the standard suite of Google Gemini features. 

The phone will get 5 Years of OS updates and 7 Years of security patches. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. 

What’s Not to Like? 

The speakers on this are average at best. They get really loud but there’s little to hear in terms of depth. The sound often feels shrill and hollow at high volumes and lacks a general sense of clarity and bass. 

But on the bright side, that is pretty much it. I have no other complaints about this phone. 

Verdict 

The iQOO 15 is a solid flagship smartphone with an almost no-holds-barred approach. You get a fantastic screen, a super powerful processor, a battery to last you days and cameras that can go head-to-head with some of the best (if not the best) smartphones in the world. 

It is a solid entry from iQOO, bolstering the idea of making phones that feel like a tech lover's dream wish list coming to fruition. 

The price starts at ₹72,999 for the base 12/256 GB variant and goes up to ₹79,999 for the top 16/512 GB variant.