The iQoo Z9 is the company’s newest mid-range smartphone focused on gaming capabilities while retaining its signature affordable price tag. It’s not the most premium smartphone you can get, but it is a pretty decent gaming phone, at least where gaming is concerned. As for the rest, well...
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Jennifer chevron_right
Table of Contents
Design & Build
The iQoo Z9 looks a little like vivo’s Y series smartphones, just with a squarer camera module and, of course, different branding which is not a surprise considering they’re sister companies. The Z9 has a flat back and sharp edges, only rounded on the corners.
I have to say that the flat edges do make the phone pretty comfortable to hold. It’s also really lightweight, despite the large battery, but not so light that it feels flimsy.
While the rear panel is visually appealing with its brushed finish, we did notice that the square-shaped metallic frame housing the vertically aligned cameras tends to attract fingerprints.
Display
The Z9 features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, which is pretty standard for a phone in its segment. The colours are not exactly breathtaking, but they’re vibrant enough for the regular user.
For gamers, who are iQoo’s target market for this phone, responsiveness is quite important. In this regard, the iQoo Z9 did not disappoint, with smooth scrolling and responsive touch in both regular scrolling and gaming.
However, visibility under direct sunlight could be better; outdoor usage in bright conditions required some squinting on our part.
Performance & Battery
Under the hood, the iQoo Z9 packs a MediaTek Dimensity 7200 chipset, which is a tried and true chipset that allows for smooth multitasking. We did not experience any lag during our review of the phone during app switching.
For gamers, the iQoo Z9 has a dedicated game mode, so games like Asphalt 9 and PUBG play smoothly, even on higher settings. While Genshin Impact was a bit more demanding, it was still playable at lower settings. And to our pleasant surprise, the phone remained cool even after two hours of playing.
The iQoo Z9 ships with Android 14-based Funtouch OS 14. The UI is relatively intuitive, especially to those used to the Android UI, but I absolutely detested the bloatware and Funtouch’s proprietary app store, the V-Appstore, which constantly prompts you about Hot Apps and Hot Games. Yes, the app store can be disabled, but not deleted, so you’ll have to be forced to live with it.
We were quite impressed by the iQoo Z9’s battery life. The 5,000mAh battery easily lasted through a full day and a half of mixed usage during our review, including watching videos, social media scrolling, and some gaming.
The iQoo Z9 charges quite quickly too, and iQoo has kindly included a 44W charger in the box, which is more than can be said for some other brands.
Cameras
The 50-megapixel primary camera with a Sony IMX882 sensor does a good job in well-lit environments, delivering sharp and vibrant images. We were particularly impressed with the 2x zoom feature, which allowed us to capture detailed shots using in-sensor cropping. Portraits, pets, and plant shots all came out looking crisp, especially in good lighting.
That said, low-light performance is only decent. We did notice some grain in less well-lit images, even when shooting in night mode.
The 16MP front camera is fine for selfies in good lighting, though once again, in lower light, images were a bit noisy.
Verdict
For a phone under RM1,500, the iQoo Z9 performs pretty decently for a budget gaming phone. However, I wouldn’t call it a proper all-rounder, as its cameras have quite a lot to improve on. For users primarily focused on gaming or day-to-day performance, this phone delivers. But if you're looking for a more well-rounded experience, with better camera options or longer software support, you might want to consider alternatives.