Though Xiaomi beat it to the punch in its home market, iQOO’s 12 looks all set to become India’s first smartphone to come rocking the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor.

iQOO 12 5G in white with BMW Motorsport branding.

iQOO 12 5G India launch is set for December 12, 2023. And as expected, iQOO, a Vivo spin-off brand, has started teasing the phone. The latest from hype-vine is the official confirmation that iQOO 12 will be sold on Amazon India, as is usually the case with most iQOO products. The notify-me page listing is now available on the e-commerce website.

On it, iQOO is kicking things off with highlighting what would be one of the iQOO 12’s biggest selling points. The choice of chipset. Though Xiaomi beat it to the punch in its home market, iQOO’s 12 looks all set to become India’s first smartphone to come rocking the brand-new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. Qualcomm’s latest is touted to be about 30 percent faster than the last-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, while its graphics are billed as being 20 percent faster. So, quite fast.

iQOO phones generally tend to squeeze most out of their chipsets, in part due to their big gaming focus, and so, the iQOO 12 will be –presumably— also gunning for the fastest smartphone in the market crown upon arrival. But this year’s flagship iQOO phones— iQOO 12 and iQOO 12 Pro— also boast of impressive camera credentials.

iQOO 12 India launch: Expected specs, features and more

The iQOO 12 has a trio of 50-megapixel, 50-megapixel, and 64-megapixel sensors on the back that sit behind a 23mm wide (with optical image stabilisation), 150-dgree ultrawide, and 70mm periscope-style telephoto (for 3x optical and up to 100x digital zoom). It has a 16-megapixel selfie camera.  

The design is seeing a long overdue upgrade this year also. The iQOO 12 has a glass and metal design available in a choice of white (BMW Motorsport), black, and red with varying degree of finishes. It has a flat profile, even as the pro model goes for a curved chassis. The latter gets you IP68 rating, too, and isn’t coming to India. The iQOO 12 does not have an IP rating.

iQOO 12 5G India listing on Amazon

Elsewhere, the iQOO 12 has a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate, 1.5K (2800x1260p) resolution and 2160Hz PWM dimming. It can theoretically pull 1400nits in sunny outdoors and peak 3000nits when playing HDR content (up to HDR10+ is supported). The iQOO 12 in China is available with up to 16GB of LPDDR5x RAM and 1TB of UFS4.0 storage. Running the show is Vivo’s Origin OS 4.0 based on Android 14. The India variant is expected to come with Funtouch OS. Rounding off the package is a 5,000mAh battery with 120W fast wired charging.

iQOO 12 price in China starts at CNY 3999 (roughly Rs 45,779). Now let's see what the price be in Indian market.

Block the date: 12.12.23