iQOO unveiled the iQOO Z7 in India earlier this week and followed up with another Z7 in China, which has different specifications. The Chinese Z7 has yet to go on sale, but the Indian Z7 is already available for purchase. It starts at INR 18,999 ($230 / €215) and has two color options – Norway Blue and Pacific Night. We’ve spent some time there and here are our impressions.
Let’s first check the retail box of iQOO Z7, which design is similar to the more premium iQOO number series packs, but has a smaller footprint. It includes a SIM eject tool, protective case, USB-C cable, 44W power adapter, and the usual paperwork.
The iQOO Z7 is built around a 6.38″ FullHD+ AMOLED screen with a screen refresh rate of 90Hz and a peak brightness of 1,300 nits. The display is protected by Schott Xensation Glass and has a fingerprint scanner digits below, which we soon found fast and accurate time spent with the phone, although we would have liked it to be positioned a little higher up to be within easy reach.
While we applaud iQOO for offering an in-display fingerprint reader on the Z7 instead of using a side-mounted scanner like some other brands do despite their phones featuring AMOLED panels, we didn’t really like the teardrop notch for the selfie camera. 16MP instead of a punch like its Chinese counterpart. Looks dated 2023.
On the bright side, the iQOO Z7’s display supports HDR10+ and the phone comes with Widevine L1 certification, which enables 1080p video streaming on OTT apps. Talking about the screen refresh rate, you have three options under the iQOO Z7 Settings > Display and brightness > Screen refresh rate menus – 60Hz, 90Hz and Smart Switch.
The former keeps the screen refresh rate locked at 60Hz at all times, while the 90Hz mode boosts the refresh rate to 90Hz in supported apps. Smart Switch mode also boosts the refresh rate to 90Hz, but doesn’t drop it back to 60Hz when you’re not interacting with the screen, which is odd since other iQOO phones lower the refresh rate after a few seconds of inactivity in this mode. This may be a bug and we hope it will be fixed soon.
Some apps, including Google Photos, stay at 90Hz in 90Hz mode but switch to 60Hz in Smart Switch mode whether or not you’re interacting with the screen. Therefore, we suggest you stick to the 90Hz mode for the smoothest scrolling experience possible.
Turn the iQOO Z7 around and you see a rectangular two-step camera island that covers just over 50% of the panel’s width. The top plate has a glossy finish and houses the 64MP main camera with OIS and 2MP depth sensor. The second has a matte finish and sports an LED flash.
The Z7’s camera island makes it wobbly on flat surfaces, and the bundled case doesn’t fix that.
The back panel of the iQOO Z7 is made of plastic, but it attracted almost no fingerprint smudges during our use. The back cover of our Norway Blue version has a glitter pattern and reflects multiple colors from different angles, which looks quite cool. However, the flat design might not be preferred by everyone and even we would have the back with curved edges for better handling and ergonomic experience. Regardless, the Norway Blue model of the iQOO Z7 looks good and we like it.
The overall build of the iQOO Z7 is decent, with the volume rocker and power key being quite snappy.
Ports and controls
Talking about the hardware, India’s iQOO Z7 has the Dimension 920 SoC under the hood with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, expandable up to 1TB via a microSD card. The smartphone runs the Android 13-based Funtouch operating system with the February 2023 Android security patch. However, a software update that required a download of around 320 MB brought it up to the level of March 2023. iQOO has promised three years of updates of security and two years of Android version updates, which means that the Z7 will receive Android 15 eventually.
Like most other iQOO smartphones, the Z7 also comes pre-installed with third-party apps, and luckily most of them can be uninstalled if you don’t want them.
Powering the whole package is a 4,500mAh battery charged via a USB-C port at up to 45W. It’s advertised to go from 1% to 50% in 25 minutes and 100% in 64 minutes. The rest of the iQOO Z7’s highlights include Motion Control, an IP54 rating, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and Wi-Fi 6.
The 6GB/128GB model of iQOO Z7 is priced at INR 18,999 ($230/€215) and the 8GB/128GB version at INR 19,999 ($240/€225). You can buy it from iQOO India official website and Amazon.in. Note that this Z7 will remain exclusive to India and the Snapdragon 782G-powered variant which is currently available in China is expected to debut in Malaysia soon. You can go this way to check the detailed specification comparison of Chinese and Indian iQOO Z7 models.
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