iQOO 13 Review: A Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered flagship you might be overlooking
If you’ve been looking around for a new phone, it’s highly unlikely that an iQOO is on your shortlist. Don’t worry, we won’t berate you for it, nor will we gatekeep. They’re a relatively niche brand after all, so it’s no surprise that their latest iQOO 13 offering hasn’t latched on.
However, being low-key isn’t synonymous with quality. In fact, the phone carries the heralded Snapdragon 8 Elite chip in its carriage, which already hints at its potential. At a reasonable price of RM3,699, you’ll get 16GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM paired with 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. If you feel that’s excessive, there’s also a 12GB+256GB model available for only RM3,499 as an online exclusive.
Gaming qualities are very much at the forefront of the iQOO 13, but as we’ve found, it’s stellar as an everyday smartphone too.
iQOO 13 price and specs in Malaysia
| Price | 12GB+256GB – RM3,499 (online exclusive) 16GB+512GB – RM3,699 |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Elite |
| Display | 6.82″ AMOLED, 2K (3168×1440), 1-144Hz, 4,500nits (peak) |
| Rear Camera | 50MP IMX921 main + 50MP telephoto + 50MP ultra-wide |
| Front Camera | 32MP |
| Rear Camera Recording | 1080p@30/60fps, 4K@30/60fps, 8K@30fps |
| Front Camera Recording | 1080p@30/60fps, 4K@30/60fps |
| Battery & Charging | 6,150mAh, 120W wired charging |
| Wi-Fi & Bluetooth | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 |
| NFC | Yes |
| IP Rating | IP68 & IP69 |
| 3.5mm Jack | N/A |
A distinguished design
If the iQOO 13 were human, it would take the form of a rich, sophisticated gentleman dressed in the finest white tuxedo and driving the fanciest sports BMW. I say this because the iQOO 13’s white Legend colourway exudes the impression of a freshly ironed suit.
The design, from the outset, is a clean white slate with subtle curves along the edges. The only small adornments being the engraved iQOO branding and the iconic tri-coloured emblem of BMW M Motorsport. If you’re wondering how the latter got there, it’s because iQOO has had a running partnership with the automobile brand since 2019.
What really stood out to me, though, was the matted glass panel. It’s fingerprint-resistant, smooth, and just screams premium when you wrap your palms around it. This seems to be exclusive to the Legend colourway, which we received. The Alpha (black) design dons a fibreglass panel instead and does away with the tri-coloured emblem.
They’re both relatively minimal for a phone that maps itself more towards the gaming spectrum.
But there’s one other trick up its sleeve: the RGB lights that encircle the camera module. iQOO has decided to integrate what they a call Floating Light around the frame. These also function to give real-time alerts, such as notifications, incoming calls, and charging status. It also syncs to music and games for a little more flair.
Personally, it isn’t to my liking. When turned on, it made the phone look more like a toy rather than a premium device, so I left it off for the most part. It’s also hardly visible under daylight. But credit where it’s due – you can customize which apps the Floating Light will turn on for, much like how the Glyph Interface works on Nothing Phones.
Power-packed performance
You can probably expect every Android flagship with the Snapdragon 8 Elite to fly this year. To keep it short, performance on the iQOO 13 hits all the marks as an everyday device. It runs like a well-oiled machine with an engine that keeps things snappy and smooth.
This is encapsulated in its 6.82″ AMOLED display with 2K (1440×3168) resolution. The quality of this screen is definitely up to par with high-end devices, and the 144Hz adaptive refresh rate and high 4,500-nit peak brightness certainly add to it.
Where benchmarks are concerned, the phone didn’t quite hit the highs I was expecting. When I ran it through 3DMark’s Wild Life Stress Test – the same test I did for the ASUS ROG Phone 9 – it revealed a best loop score of 18,864, which is decent, but scores then drop to 12,711 and maintain only 67.4% stability.
Given the intensity of the test, these are decent scores, though I did expect better numbers considering that the iQOO 13 also runs on the brand’s proprietary Supercomputing Chip Q2.
Gaming Performance
Nevertheless, the iQOO 13’s engine is more than capable of handling popular games. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang runs excellently with all animations and effects running smoothly even with graphics pushed to the max. The same can be said for Call of Duty, with gameplay running sweetly. On a side note, coming off the back of reviewing the ROG 9, playing first-person shooters with shoulder triggers simply elevates the experience. So, if you are big on utilizing triggers in FPS games, do keep in mind you’ll have to make do without them here.
In case it matters, I played these games in Monster mode, which can easily be toggled by accessing the performance panel when you swipe the left edge of the screen.
Usability-wise, the only real bane of the iQOO 13 is its bloatware. There are at least two folders of recommended apps that the iQOO tries to stuff in your face, and a host of pre-installed apps that can be uninstalled.
Battery
The 6,150mAh battery on the iQOO 13 is a commendable leap from the 5,000mAh on the iQOO 12. The newer model is easily a 2-day phone with moderate usage, and that includes YouTube bingeing and gaming. To give you an estimate of what you can squeeze out of the phone, I managed to get 8 hours and 30 minutes of screen time, consisting of close to 6 hours of YouTube and 2 hours of gaming – and still had a healthy 33% left in the tank.
The 120W charger gets your phone fully juiced in under half an hour – as you would expect. And thankfully, the charging brick also comes in the box.
An almost-perfect gaming phone camera
The cameras on the iQOO 13, I must say, are quite good. For the record, it has a triple 50MP setup consisting of an IMX921 main camera, a telephoto lens, and a wide-angle lens. According to the iQOO website, the array utilizes the same Sony sensor and image algorithm as vivo flagships. vivo – if you didn’t know – is the parent company of iQOO.
When lighting is bright and optimal, the main and ultra-wide lenses render colours accurately and vividly. Sweeping landscape shots turn out crisp, but it does struggle when lighting is less than perfect.
In some instances, even letters become smudged – not blurred, but smudged – which smells of a processing issue. Outside of that, though, the cameras perform decently.
In fact, even Portrait mode surpassed expectations with its precise focusing, edge detection, and creamy bokeh renders.
iQOO 13: Pulling no punches
The iQOO 13 is almost, almost the perfect gaming flagship all-rounder. Its gaming capabilities definitely sit high and mighty among the top guns, with a price and configuration combo that’s undeniably tempting. To recap, at a price of RM3,699, the iQOO 13 comes loaded with a 16GB+512GB configuration.
In comparison, the base ASUS ROG 9 series starts at RM3,999 for the 12GB+256GB model. However, you do get a few extras, such as shoulder triggers and external cooler options. The REDMAGIC 10 Pro is a similar situation with the same starting price and configuration as the ROG 9 series.
Perhaps the closest competitor is the realme GT 7 Pro, which tags on the same RM3,699 for a 512GB storage model, but with slightly less RAM at 12GB.
On the face of it, of all the Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered devices geared towards gaming, the iQOO 13 seems to give you the most. In fact, with its vivo-backed cameras, it almost checks out as the perfect all-rounder. Almost. Also, maybe it’s just me, but the Floating Light seems like a waste of space and resources that wouldn’t be missed if it were left out in the next iteration.
Beyond that, considering the price and what you’re getting, this is a phone that deserves more attention than it is receiving now and certainly one I would encourage consumers to consider.
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