iQOO 3 Neo is the cheapest Snapdragon 865 so far with a 144Hz display

iQOO Neo3 has just been launched in China and could be the most affordable flagship phone to be powered by the Snapdragon 865 chip, yet. The Vivo-backed smartphone brand recently announced the iQOO 3 in India, bringing in separate 4G and 5G models to choose from. With the Neo3, iQOO is taking its lineup further by introducing another affordable flagship phone that goes up against the likes of OnePlus 8.

iQOO Neo3 is priced starting at CNY 2,698 in China which roughly translates to Rs 28,900 according to current conversion rates. And that’s quite an aggressive price for flagship smartphones, especially if you consider that India isn’t 5G-enabled yet. In comparison, the newly launched OnePlus 8 series starts at Rs 41,999 but iQOO 3 remains the most affordable Snapdragon 865 powered phone in India at present.

iQOO Neo3 specifications

iQOO Neo3 features a 6.57-inch Full HD+ (2408 x 1080 pixels) resolution display that uses an LCD panel with a high 144Hz refresh rate and support for HDR10 playback. The screen has a punch-hole cutout on the top-right corner to house the front-facing camera. 

It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 chipset with an octa-core CPU and Adreno 650 GPU. This is paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB UFS 3.1 storage options to choose from. The phone runs on iQOO UI 1.0 out-of-the-box and is based on Android 10.

The Neo3 has a set of three cameras that consists of a primary 48MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a second 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with 112-degree field-of-view and a 2MP macro camera. The rear camera setup is capable of taking 4K UHD videos at 30fps and supports EIS. On the front, there’s a 16MP selfie camera.

iQOO Neo3 comes with the usual set of connectivity features and sensors including Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, stereo speakers, side-mounted fingerprint sensor and Type-C port for charging.

The phone has a 4,500mAh battery that supports 44W fast charging courtesy of Super Flash Charge 2.0 solution. The company claims that the phone can go from 0-100% in just under an hour.

iQOO Neo3 price and availability

The Neo3 comes in four variants to choose from-- base model with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage priced at CNY 2,698 (~ Rs 29,000), 8GB/128GB option priced at CNY 2,998 (~ Rs 32,200), 8GB/256GB variant priced at CNY 3,398 (appox Rs 36,500) and the maxed-out version with 12GB RAM and 128GB storage at CNY 3,298 (~ Rs 35,500).

It is up for pre-orders in China but there’s no word on the official launch of the Neo3 in India yet.