I finally had to make a video warning others not to buy this phone at the original price of 24-25k but to get it near 18k for the 8/256 variant. After using it for quite some time now, I can safely say that's what the price should have been on this phone.
Keep comments on the above video itself.
1080p60 Test:
4k30 test:
Closeup Far Away test 1080p30:
Slow Motion 720p240 reincoded as 720p30 test (automatically):
Note: If you use the link to purchase, please check Instagram Broadcast channel (Link on the main instagram profile of MTFi ) to see if you purchase helped this channel or not. If not, you can always donate like everyone else.
Caution: If you still think about buying this phone, I would suggest to wait because the price will go down on this. This phone isn't fit for it's price tag of Rs.27000 or even 24000 in sale
My Purchase:
You last purchased this item on 27 Sep 2024 Colour: Flamboyant Orange | Size: 8GB+256GB
Review:
Summary: To be added later.
Camera Samples shared on Instagram: ni6hant [DMs won't be replied to there]
Cons:
The speakers I was really disappointed by. Normally you can't hear them on 100% volume but they have added this audio boost feature which basically makes everything sound rubbish like some cheap chinese phone and I don't want to use it. I was really disappointed with the volume on this device. I tried to listen to song right now with this on 100% volume and it's too low with the room's fan on, it's unusable. It's almost as if they want us to use the 300% shit as if they improved the sound somehow with software trickery when actually I think they just limited it normally.
At this price it's disappointing to see the lack of Dolby Atmos for Audio, Dolby Vision for Display or 8-bit display.
No headphone Jack.
No SD Card Expansion Slot.
No proper dual apps support or second screen support(There is a profile thing which I have to check out later though but that's specific to Android).
Many crap bloatware which can't be directly disabled like Infinix. Will uninstall later after figuring out their functionality but for now removed all their permissions and disabled notifications.
The stability only works if your camera is set to 1080p30fps which honestly is pathetic. I thought on a camera focussed phone this wouldn't be the case but it is.
AOD is not always on. WTF! I thought at least with an expensive device you will get AOD but you don't.
UFS 2.2 shouldn't be at this price point.
Only IP64. Maybe other phones don't give this much but since it already wasn't giving so much of other stuff this felt like it should have been given.
No NFC.
Launcher rests to the Iqoo launcher after using super battery saver. Very annoying. Makes me never want to use super battery saver at all.
Neutral:
If you don't agree to T&C many bloatware Iqoo/Vivo apps just don't work which is excellent.
I thought there would be 4k60fps video and even though it didn't have it, I was still a bit disappointed considering the price.
I have to test the gyro-EIS/OIS that this phone claims to have. Earlier I would mostly use 1080p60 to make up for lack of OIS but that is what I want to see from this phone.
I am not a fan of curved display.
You can use third party launchers with full home screen gesture with this phone with ease.
I didn't know this and I don't care but this looks like a phone which is made in India(I hope not just assembled in India though) so Daddy would be proud.
Under review:
Front camera is $#!t. No sugar coating this, it's absolute garbage. However the Front camera while clicking pictures looks shit but after clicking they are a lot better.
I saw some applications taking longer time to open but I still haven't found a pattern or I don't seem to be able to recreate it again so will hold onto that.
Night and low light photography. Can never find the time but I will.
Pros:
What the f*** is this battery life? I know I am on single 5G SIM but I have all bluetooth, wifi, location everything turned on and I rarely go in battery saver mode but the low phone usage battery life is just amazing. I keep forgetting to charge this phone at all and that has never happened with me before. I should point out however I don't use youtube, instagram or any social media on my main phone.
Some pictures clicked on this phone are just breathtaking. It just is. I have no other way to say it but normal shots, even portraits through the main camera is just so so good. It's so good that it makes up for all of the cons below. I took my mother's picture with this phone and it has been her best shot in years (Yes, I turned all beauty AI s#!t off as soon as I got the phone).
There is something about the display, something I have seen in Samsung Galaxy Fit 3 vs. Amazfit Band 7. The contents of the phone are raised to the top glass, it's hard to tell this without seeing it in person but that's what it is. It makes reading it in sunlight or even in a room with a lot of light where there are glossy things everywhere an ease.
Sound quality through is earpiece is loud and crystal clear. I had to lower the volume for to like 10-20% which is excellent.
The Personal Good And the Bad:
This isn't pro and cons like above, it's more personal than that.
Good
I am no longer paranoid about my battery life. I see the battery at 30% or 20%, I no longer run to my charger at once or get paranoid like I used to get with older phones. I know this phone will stay charged. Right now my phone has been on charge for about 50 hours, yes 50 hours i.e. 2 days+ and I am confident it will last another night. These numbers used to be before Android arrived with old phones. With every other phone I have to keep it charging everyday, sometimes twice in a day but this, three days with very light usage, easy. And that light usage is with Wifi, bluetooth. location enabled and using the phone's camera quite often so it's not just standby at all.
Slow-motion videos:I always wanted to shoot slow motion videos but most of the older phones I have had in the past just either interpolated or didn't feel like the fps they were offering. Now, I don't know if this phone does actually do 240fps at 720p but it's super slow and it feels like it. It's probably one of the great things about it.
I have started to take pictures again: I used to take quite a lot of photos ever since my first camera phone back in 2009-10 and I am finally back to doing that again. And even with HDR enabled(by default), I can take out phone while cycling, take a picture and put the phone down without stopping, also while on a bike driving. It's a weird feeling.
Bad
The curve display serves no purpose other than to make the extreme ends of the phone unusable due to it's weird angle. I have less horizontal pixels to work with due to this and it's pretty irritating. If there is an option to remove those part of the display in a following update, I would gladly do that.
Color accuracy failed : I am making a series of real world test that most people care about and one of that test involves taking picture of a piece of cloth and then comparing the cloth with the picture on the phone and see how closely you can recreate those colors. This phone has failed that tests. I have tried a lot of options and will do more but for now that's what it is.
Update: Got the Iqoo Z9s Pro 5g for myself. Your comments helped a lot but special 🍨 to @devanshanil2468 . Honestly, I wasted so much time on the decision of it that I at the end said, "F it, just get the phone the whole community on this channel agrees with, IQOO, and I wanted to go with Snapdragon instead of Mediatek this time, so that was the phone." Ab jaisa hoga adjust kar lenge, iske chakkar mein message pe message pada hain instagram pe bahut. I was going through which phone to get to replace my Redmi Note 10 Pro with the green line and I realized I need to buy all of them, not just one. I WANT TO TEST PROPERLY ALL OF THEM, YES ALL OF THEM. That's why I asked what phone you guys are curious about. Soche sabse achcha phone order karte hain camera ke layak, moto ka yaad aaya, fir heating wagairaah yaad aaya, wahi edge wala phone. Jiske paas G40 tha usse baat kiye bola itna garm hota hain phone call mein ki phone ke liye dusra phone hain. (thoda guess kiye ki snpadragon mediatek ka chakkar hoga par kuch conclusive nahi jaisa tum log pehle poll mein bataye the toh ignore maare). Fir laga Nothing 2a kare order par pata nahi kyu nahi kiye, kuch toh odd tha us phone ka. Realme ka bahut phone aaya samne par ek baar le liye Realme UI, chala liye, toh abhi baaki ko mauka de. Iqoo Lite wala 5g 720p tha warna wo high IPS brightness test karne ka bahut mann tha. Nothing Phone 1 order karte karte chor diye-> Video recording achcha lag raha tha dekh ke. Baad mein karenge ab. Moto G64 karne wale the order, fir laga ki G85 jyada achcha lag raha -> Dono Camera ke wajah se. Moto G85 kar hi diye the order ki laga ki ye thoda budget se bahar jaa raha hain aur battery bhi 5000mAH aur AMOLED, fir battery ka rona chalu hoga, to nahi kiye order. Fir yaad aaya Infinix Hot 30 5G jo ki AMOLED nahi tha fir bhi kaafi achcha display tha toh laga ki choro AMOLED, bahut mehanga ho raha, baaki feature, camera aur battery pe dhyaan diya jaaye. Fir last mein G64 hi order kar diye 1000 discount laga ke sabse upar wala variant, finally samajh gaye ki humko sab phone chahiye, ek nahi, isliye. Toh baaki baad mein karenge, filhaal isse kaam chal jaayega. Next day: Wo bhi cancel kar diye ab. Soche Samsung M35 lenge for camera but sample dekhe air jitter dekh ke chor diye. Same with Moto G85. Fir laga ki nothing phone 1 hi kar dete hain order lekin wo pata nahi kyu nahi liye. Fir soche Iqop dekhte hain. Z9s Pro kaafi achcha lag Raha hai, paisa jugaad hoga toh le lenege warna z9s. Almost sabka experience achcha raha hain is channel pe with Iqoo.
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Personal Purchase Decision:
This is the not the only phone I intend to live with. I like reviewing stuff and with that decision in mind I was ready to buy more than one phone, actually two which were good in that Sale, the Nothing CMF 1 Phone and the Moto G85 or even the Samsung M35 but I stopped myself due to some things below.
I put some hard rules based on my personal experience with Android Phones:
The phone has to be minimum 8GB Real RAM:
Android is becoming more and more bloated and even 6GB on these non stock ROMs feels sluggish.
The phone has to have minimum 256GB Internal Storage:
Even UFS 2.2 storage is faster on the memory card storage and having that much makes a lot of sense considering all my phones with 128GB after a few months seem to fill up with internal app data and best I am left with is like 10-20GB of real storage.
The phone has to have it's own dialer which isn't google dialer
From the bottom of my heart, I hate Google Dialer. I don't care about the recording stuff a lot but I do care a lot about having the basic phone functionality. Google dialer to this day feels like a beta app. I don't want it and I will drop any good phones for it.
If possible, call recording. I rarely use it but when I do it saves a lot of effort and I am glad to have it.
The phone has to be camera focussed:
I really wanted to buy a DSLR but no matter how much I wanted to, a DSLR is the start of your camera purchase journey. By the time you end up actually using the camera with the lenses, the stands and what not, it will be a lot more expensive. Also the fact that I really did need a phone since the old Redmi Note 10 Pro would cost a lot to fix and even then there were no promises of many things.
Just like I fell in love with racing games after I got a decent controller, I wanted to fell in love with photography again (Will share on Instagram: ni6hant . Please NO DMs)
I didn't want to go with Poco at all as a brand. Everytime I thought of that and those things they have done in the past a company in response to dead phones has been just pathetic. I didn't want to end up with a dead phone at all.
I didn't want to go with Mediatek this time. The other competitors, the Moto Edge 40/50 series which my friend already has heats up during normal phone call. It's so bad that he got another phone just for phone calls. And I was going to do continuous long video recording on this phone.
I was out of time. I had spent many days of my then precious time(yes, there were precious it was the beginning of the sale) on deciding the phones and I wanted to get on with life and get back to people waiting for my reply and in the end I basically said, "F*** it, let's get it. Whatever happens, a video will be there to either warn to influence others regardless."
