Hello iQOO Fam! 👋

Hope you're having an AWESOME week. I'm back with another interesting thread—this time it's about iQOO 15. Yesss, it's about iQOO 15, the recently released monster from our brand. 

My journey with the iQOO 15 began a day early—I received the device on 25th November, ahead of the official launch. Big thanks to the @iQOO Connect  team, @NipunMarya @ParthNirmal @parakram_h , for the testing unit—perks of being an iQOO Ranger .

From day one, the iQOO 15 has been my daily driver. Over the past couple of weeks, it has easily handled my day-to-day needs—work calls, Teams, Slack, emails, social media, and entertainment. Being an IT professional and blogger, performance and reliability matter to me. I also click photos quite often, so cameras are definitely important.

I do play Call of Duty: Mobile, mostly on weekends or during free time. I've done a few initial gaming sessions and will test it more thoroughly. I'll be sharing a separate COD Mobile gaming experience thread soon.

So, take this as my initial hands-on experience from a working professional who values smooth performance, good cameras, and an overall polished experience. 

Design & Build Quality: Premium From the First Touch

The unit I received is the Alpha (Black) top-end variant with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage. Initially, I was slightly disappointed about not getting the Legend variant, but that feeling didn't last long.

The matte black finish, paired with the metal frame, gives the phone a clean and premium look. The weight distribution is excellent. Despite weighing around 216.2g, the phone never feels heavy or uncomfortable during long usage.

The fiberglass back with matte texture resists fingerprints and improves grip. Button placement, in-display fingerprint sensor location, and camera island design all feel well thought out.

Overall, the build quality feels solid and refined—great job by the iQOO design team.

Display: A Flagship Panel Done Right

The iQOO 15 sports a 6.85-inch 2K (3168 × 1440 pixels) Samsung AMOLED display, and it's easily one of the best displays in its segment.

Display Highlights (Quick Breakdown):

• LTPO 1–144Hz – Dynamic refresh rate for smoother visuals and better battery life; flagship AMOLED screen, power-efficient, and extremely bright display built on the latest Samsung M14 LTPO AMOLED technology.
• 144Hz refresh rate – Fluid scrolling and animations
• 2600 nits peak brightness – Excellent outdoor visibility
• 2160Hz PWM dimming – Reduced eye strain at night
• HDR10+ & Dolby Vision – Rich contrast for movies and OTT
• 360Hz / 3200Hz touch sampling – Fast touch response, ideal for gaming

I used the Natural Color Mode, which offers softer and more realistic colors. Brightness adjustment is accurate, thanks to triple ambient light sensors.

Also worth noting: the anti-reflective protective film applied out of the box actually works well. It significantly cuts down reflections (cuts down 95.4% light transmittance and reduces reflectivity to as low as 1.5%), so I'd recommend not peeling it off immediately.

Under the display, there's a third-generation ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor, which is noticeably faster and more accurate than traditional optical fingerprint scanners.

Monster Halo LED: A Nice Touch

The Monster Halo LED around the camera module may feel gimmicky at first, but it slowly grows on you. It reacts to notifications, calls, messages, gaming, and system activities.

It's subtle, customizable, and adds a bit of personality to the phone. Almost everyone who picked up my device noticed it instantly.

Software Experience: OriginOS 6 on Android 16

The iQOO 15 runs OriginOS 6 based on Android 16, and it's one of the smoothest Android experiences I've used so far.

Animations are fluid, transitions are clean, and the new “Space System” design gives a layered, glass-like look without feeling heavy. Day-to-day operations feel fast and reliable, which I personally prefer.

Some features I liked:

• Flip Cards on the lock screen
• Deep customization options
• Consistent haptic feedback integrated across the UI

Origin Island & Smart Interactions

One feature I really liked in OriginOS 6 is Origin Island. It acts as a real-time status bar, similar to Android 16's Live Updates, showing ongoing activities like calls, navigation, music, or background tasks in a compact and interactive way—without interrupting what you're doing.

Along with this, iQOO has introduced some smart productivity features:

• Copy & Go: As of now, it supports three quick actions: Copy phone number, URLs, Copy meeting/event details. This makes it easy to act on important information without switching apps.

• Drag & Go – You can tap and hold text, images, documents, and more to trigger this feature, then drag and drop the content directly into supported apps or services like Instagram Stories, Maps, Notes, and others. It makes multitasking faster and feels very intuitive once you get used to it.

Overall, these features may seem small, but they add meaningful value to everyday productivity and highlight how OriginOS 6 is focused on smarter workflows.

Performance: Flagship Power Without Compromise

Powering the iQOO 15 is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3nm) SoC, paired with the Adreno 840 GPU and a dedicated Q3 Gaming Chip.

Why This Matters:

• 3nm architecture improves performance and efficiency
• Q3 Gaming Chip enables frame interpolation up to 144 FPS on games like BGMI
• 8K VC Cooling System (largest in India currently) helps maintain stable thermals

My unit has 16GB LPDDR5X Ultra RAM and UFS 4.1 storage (512GB). App launches, multitasking, file transfers, and even video exports feel instant and lag-free.

I've played Call of Duty: Mobile casually during weekends, and initial performance has been very promising. I'll be testing longer gaming sessions soon and will share a detailed COD Mobile gaming thread separately.

Cameras: Potential Hardware

The iQOO 15 comes with a triple 50MP rear camera setup, making it competitive in the ₹70K flagship category.

Camera Setup:

• 50MP Sony IMX921 (Main sensor)
• 50MP Sony IMX882 Periscope Telephoto
• 50MP Ultra-wide camera
• 32MP Front camera

Shot using 3x Periscope Telephoto sensor

100mm portrait shot 

Hi-Res Shot (main sensor)

32MP Front Camera captures good details and accurate skin tones

The biggest highlight is color consistency and details across all three rear sensors. Switching focal lengths—from 0.6x to 10x—doesn't lead to noticeable quality drops. Photos are detailed and mostly ready to share without editing.

Some of the interesting camera features include

• AI Visual Effects (helps change visual conditions in a picture)

• Super Macro (helps capture closeup shots)

• Snapshot mode (helps in capturing moving subjects with fast shutter speed)

• Dedicated HDR

• Multiple filters (personally, I liked the B&W filter)

At times, images can appear slightly oversaturated or overprocessed. This feedback has already been shared with the iQOO team, and a future update should improve processing. Video recording supports up to 8K at 30 fps, which is impressive.

Battery & Charging: Fast, Reliable, and Gamer-Friendly

The iQOO 15 packs a 7000mAh Silicon Carbon battery, and paired with the efficient 3nm Snapdragon chipset, battery life has been excellent.

With my usage—work apps, social media, browsing, and media consumption—the phone easily lasts more than a full day. In fact, given that I used the device at the highest screen resolution with adaptive refresh rate enabled and kept mobile data/Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, location, and NFC always ON, getting around one and a half days of battery life is genuinely impressive.

In this setup, you're essentially enjoying all the top-end features while still getting excellent battery life, which says a lot about the overall optimization.

Charging is equally impressive. The phone supports 100W fast charging, and the charger is included in the box. In real-world usage, it charges up to 50% in around 20 minutes and reaches 100% in under an hour. You also get 40W wireless charging support.

Another thoughtful feature is Bypass Charging, especially useful during gaming. When enabled, the charging current bypasses the battery and directly powers the motherboard, helping reduce heat and protect battery health during longer gaming sessions.

Who Is the iQOO 15 For?

Based on my experience so far, the iQOO 15 is ideal for:

• Working professionals who need a fast and reliable daily driver
• Power users who multitask heavily
• Casual to serious gamers, including weekend gamers
• Camera enthusiasts who value consistent output across lenses
• Display lovers who want a top-tier AMOLED experience

Early Verdict

After more than 10 days as my daily driver, the iQOO15 feels less like a typical spec-flex gaming phone and more like a mature, well-rounded flagship. It delivers a top-tier display, serious performance, promising camera hardware, and excellent battery life. Camera tuning still has some room for improvement, but that feels more like a software refinement than a limitation.

Pricing (Launch + Offers):

• 12GB + 256GB – ₹72,999 (effective ~₹68,999 with card offers)
• 16GB + 512GB – ₹79,999 (effective ~₹75,999 with card offers)
• Available via Amazon.in and iQOO eStore.

Yes, the pricing does feel a bit on the higher side at launch, especially when compared to the iQOO13. That said, this isn't unique to iQOO. Almost every recent smartphone launch has crossed expected price points, largely due to rising component costs—especially RAM and storage, driven by the ongoing AI push across the industry.

What's encouraging is seeing iQOO move in this direction—positioning its flagship for a broader audience, not just gamers. With the available card offers factored in, the pricing becomes much easier to justify.

PS: I'm yet to fully push the device with long gaming sessions, low-light video, sustained thermal testing, and camera performance after future updates.

 Thanks for reading till the end! 

If there's anything specific you'd like me to test on the iQOO 15, drop a reply below and I'll try to cover it in my upcoming threads. 

Signing off, 

@Vishwa_24