iQoo Neo 6 Review: A Decent All-Rounder Phone

Some will probably say that there's an embarrassment of riches when it comes to smartphone brands and models. Phone brands have sub-brands that try to break into other markets they haven't yet explored. It could be confusing navigating this landscape, especially when smartphones start to sound and look too similar to each other. It's no surprise that every manufacturer tries to come up with a design or feature gimmick to get noticed, which also has the effect of overwhelming buyers. On the flip side, some just deliver a solid performer but might have trouble standing out from the crowd. At first glance, the iQoo Neo 6 from Vivo's sub-brand looks like just another face in the crowd.

The iQoo Neo 6 is as plain as a smartphone can be, which isn't entirely a bad thing. Its design is unobtrusive and modest, but at the same time sleek and stylish, especially with its gradient color options. Its most notable visual feature is the large box that houses the three cameras and LED flash on its back. While not huge or obnoxious, it seems like it's larger than it really should be. Fortunately, it doesn't call attention to itself either, so it can sit nicely there without getting in your way visually.

The design is a bit dated, though, at least compared to many smartphones released this year. The back curves at the edges, and those edges are pretty curved as well. The screen, though, is flat and unadorned save for the punch-hole cutout for the front camera. There are noticeable bezels, too, but they aren't too thick. The back is also made from plastic rather than glass, the first clue to its less than premium stature.

It's actually difficult to label the iQoo Neo 6 as a mid-range phone. In many aspects, it should be on par with more expensive flagships, but the somewhat dated Snapdragon 870 drags it down a bit. In reality, however, the phone actually performs better than you might expect given its price tag. The phone is definitely no slouch, handling everything you can throw at it with aplomb, including gaming. Our review unit has 12GB of RAM from the get-go, but you can add 4GB more, in a manner of speaking, thanks to the RAM Expansion feature. Mind, that also deducts 4GB from the 256GB storage, which you can't expand with a microSD card slot.

Benchmark numbers put the model in the same ballpark as last year's flagships, which confirms its premium status, at least if it were launched in 2021. Compared to the current-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, it can barely hold a candle. In real-world use, we found little to complain about as the iQoo Neo 6 performed admirably. Even better, its cooling solution sufficiently kept the phone from throttling too soon, too often, and it didn't get uncomfortably hot even after serious testing and gaming.

The phone has a 4,700 mAh battery that is more than decent by today's standards. It will get you through the day without having to worry about charging it, but its actual battery usage seems to be all over the place, dropping steeply after a few hours even on standby. Fortunately, the most important detail is that it supports fast 80W charging, though you'll have to make sure you're using the provided charger or a compatible brick to take advantage of that. It works as advertised, going from zero to 50% in a little over 10 minutes, and reaching 100% in around 30 minutes. No wireless charging here, of course, and we're waiting for the day when it becomes standard even for mid-range handsets.

As a Vivo sub-brand, iQoo uses the company's FuntouchOS custom Android experience. With FuntouchOS 12, the iQoo Neo 6 joins the Android 12 world, though it might not look like it. It seems that manufacturers are once again diverging from the vanilla Android UX and are implementing more customizations on top. It's a two-edged sword, where desirable features get mixed with bloatware very few probably asked for.

Like MIUI and ColorOS, FuntouchOS is filled to the brim with options to change how a phone looks. Beyond themes, though, the custom Android skin brings admittedly useful features not found on stock Android. That includes, for example, a way to navigate menus with one hand or the ability to choose between different styles of the Recent Apps screen. It's not hard to get lost in the maze of options, so you might want to go exploring a bit to find what you're looking for or use the search option.

The biggest question mark with FuntouchOS, however, is Vivo's commitment to supporting its current and future phones. The company doesn't exactly have the best track record in that sense, and it is still on the old two-year system. That means the iQoo Neo 6 will be upgraded to Android 13 and 14, depending on how you count those two years. It's also promised to receive three years of security updates, which was also the standard years ago. Major manufacturers are moving towards more generous support periods, and hopefully, there will be a time when Vivo and its peers will, too.