Just yesterday, iQOO finally unveiled the flagship iQOO 13 smartphone model in its home market of China. It arrives with top notch specs and features. So now, let’s check out every major difference and upgrade that it offers over last year’s iQOO 12.
1. iQOO 13 vs iQOO 12: Taller Screen with Higher Resolution
Back in 2023, the iQOO 12 was released with a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display that offers a 1.5K resolution (2800 x 1260 pixels), a 144Hz refresh rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming, and 3,000 nits of peak brightness. This was quite an impressive package considering its price. However, the iQOO 13 improves in nearly every aspect compared to its predecessor.
The iQOO 13 was announced with a slightly taller 6.82-inch 8T LTPO OLED panel. It has a higher 2K+ resolution (3168 x 1440 pixels), a 144Hz refresh rate, and up to 4,500 nits of peak brightness as well. The PWM dimming has a higher 2592Hz frequency as well.
2. Faster Performance
Earlier this year, we found that the iQOO 12 was one of the best value Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 phones in India. It featured a flagship grade processor with up to 16GB LPDDR5x RAM and 512GB UFS 4.0 storage. But thanks to Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 8 Elite, the iQOO 13 has a noticeable upgrade in performance. It promises a 45% increase in CPU performance while offering a 44% boost in power efficiency. Furthermore, there is also a 40% increase in GPU performance along with 35% faster ray tracing as well.
3. Bigger Battery in a Thinner Body
The iQOO 12 launched with an 8.1mm body, which housed a 5,000mAh battery pack. This cell supports 120W wired fast charging. However, the newer iQOO 13 has a much larger 6,150mAh capacity thanks to iQOO’s new third generation silicon negative electrode technology. But despite the bigger battery, the iQOO 13 has a slimmed 7.99mm body. The only real downside is the 100W fast charging support on the newer flagship phone.
4. New Camera System
The brand announced the iQOO 13 with three 50MP cameras on the rear with a 32MP selfie shooter. This consists of a 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX921 primary sensor (f/1.88 aperture, OIS), 1/2.93-inch Sony IMX816 portrait telephoto shooter (f/1.85 aperture), and a 119.4° ultra wide angle lens with a 1/2.76-inch sensor.
On the other hand, last year’s iQOO 12 had a 50MP OmniVision OV50H primary sensor, a 50MP Samsung JN1 ultra wide angle lens with autofocus, and a 64MP OV64B 3x periscope telephoto shooter with OIS support. On the front, it has a 16MP Samsung S5K3P9 selfie shooter.
5. Other Notable Upgrades
There are a bunch of other upgrades on the iQOO 13 over the iQOO 12. The company’s latest flagship smartphone features an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner, which is an improvement over the optical fingerprint scanner on last year’s model. iQOO’s 2024 flagship phone also has an IP68/IP69 rating for water and dust resistance over iQOO 12’s IP64 rating. But one of the best aspects of the iQOO 13 is that it brings all of these upgrades without any price hike (both start from 3,999 Yuan).
