iQOO Neo 9 Pro vs OnePlus 12R: Will OnePlus settle for itself as always or will the iQOO take away the honours?

The budget flagship segment has been the territory for both OnePlus and iQOO for the past few years as both these manufacturers launch their different smartphones catering to different price segments. Like each year, both smartphones have the 2023 flagship chipset, i.e., Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, in their respective offerings, which include the OnePlus 12R (Review) and the iQOO Neo 9 Pro (Review).

Though both smartphones run on a similar chipset, they have many differences. On the one hand, we have the iQOO Neo 9 Pro which comes with a striking design targeted towards the younger audience and along with it brings some very good flagship-level specifications at a lower price whereas on the other hand, there is the OnePlus 12R which seems to build the reputation of the brand thus offering a premium experience. 

So can the iQOO Neo 9 Pro prove to be the best consideration in this value flagship space owing to its lower price or will the OnePlus 12R take away the honours for being the best budget flagship out there? Let’s find out the full comparison.

When it comes to design, both smartphones sport a different design philosophy where the iQOO Neo 9 Pro sports a unique dual-tone finish on the back with one portion having white colour and the iQOO logo etched on it and the other portion having red colour thus making it look athletic if you consider the Fiery Red variant. The back has a vegan leather-like finish but still, it is made of polycarbonate.

There is no camera module on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro as you get dual cameras along with a LED flashlight. The back of the smartphone has an IP54 rating for protection. The OnePlus 12R, on the other hand, has a simple-looking design at the back with a shimmery glitter-like frosted finish that looks premium and provides a solid grip while holding in hands. 

There is a larger circular camera module placed on the back that houses the triple cameras, Time of Flight sensor and an LED flashlight outside the camera module. The back of the smartphone has an IP64 rating and this back is made of glass as it is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. On the sides, the OnePlus 12R is slightly thicker at 8.8mm compared to the 8.3mm thickness of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro.

In terms of weight distribution, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is slightly lighter at 191 grams compared to 207grams weight on the OnePlus 12R. Around the sides, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro houses a polycarbonate frame compared to the premium aluminium frame on the OnePlus 12R. Both smartphones have volume buttons along with a power button on the right side whereas the left side of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is completely cleaner. 

The OnePlus 12R on the other hand, gets the alert slider on the left side. Both have a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grille, and a dual SIM card slot at the bottom. Neither of the smartphones supports a microSD card for storage expansion nor a 3.5mm headphone jack. On top of that, both smartphones have a secondary noise-cancelling microphone and an IR Blaster to control various devices.

On the front, both smartphones have a punch-hole located at the top of the displays. In terms of protection, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is protected by the Schott Xensation whereas the OnePlus 12R has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for protection which feels premium of the two. So overall when it comes to design, iQOO Neo 9 Pro looks good but the OnePlus 12R edges ahead with the premium glass design.

Both smartphones have larger 6.78-inch 1.5K resolution AMOLED displays so you get deeper blues and blacks along with solid viewing angles. The OnePlus 12R houses a curved display compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro which has a flat display. Both of them have LTPO displays where the display scale is as low as 10Hz and can go as high as their respective refresh rates. 

The iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds a slight edge with the 144Hz refresh rate compared to the 120Hz refresh rate on the OnePlus 12R but there is not much of a difference since the 144Hz on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is restricted to a few games like Genshin Impact, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc. Most of the time, the iQOO Neo 9 pro runs on a 120Hz refresh rate only but the OnePlus 12R provides the ability to set app-specific refresh rates. 

There is one small difference between both displays is that the refresh rate on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro can go as low as 1Hz whereas the refresh rate goes as low as 10Hz only on the OnePlus 12R.  Both smartphones provide faster touch sampling rates which is helpful during gaming. iQOO Neo 9 Pro even provides an instant 2000Hz touch sampling rate during gaming which is an added advantage. 

In terms of display brightness, the display of both smartphones is brighter but the OnePlus 12R holds a clear edge as it provides a peak brightness of 4500nits compared to 3000nits of peak brightness on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. But do note that only a few pixels of the display of the OnePlus 12R exhibit 4500nits of brightness and it is only applicable while viewing the content in HDR. 

As usual with the High Brightness Mode turned on, the display of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro can reach around 1400nits whereas the display of the OnePlus 12R can reach around 1600nits. Both these displays get different colour-tuning modes to choose from and you can set both the displays to a warmer or a cooler tone. Both smartphones have support for HDR on YouTube but the playback is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. 

Both displays support HDR on YouTube and also have Widevine L1 which makes it easier to stream HDR content on OTT platforms. Currently, the OnePlus 12R supports Dolby Vision in Netflix which is not present on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro as of now. Both displays have an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works accurately and is faster. 

So in terms of display, the OnePlus 12R holds an edge in terms of brightness levels, better protection, slightly better colour reproduction, and support for Dolby Vision, but the iQOO Neo 9 Pro provides faster touch responses during gaming.

Both these smartphones are equipped with last year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset so in terms of daily performance and gaming, both these smartphones handle all the tasks easily without breaking a sweat. All the games like BGMI, COD Mobile, Genshin Impact, etc. ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings on both smartphones.

In BGMI, both smartphones ran smoothly at Ultra HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates without breaking a sweat and there were no frame drops noticed in either of the smartphones during gaming. In Genshin Impact, the gameplay was much better on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro whereas the OnePlus 12R had few stutters during the gameplay. 

iQOO Neo 9 Pro does come with a dedicated Supercomputing Q1 chip that provides additional gaming capabilities. Both smartphones have a dedicated gaming mode which has a lot of features in common but iQOO Neo 9 Pro goes a step above as it brings dedicated features like game frame interpolation, 4D vibration motor, etc. 

After longer hours of gaming i.e. 3-4 hours, both smartphones played very well but there were few frame drops noticed on the OnePlus 12R whereas it was not the case with the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. Though both smartphones are equipped with a vapour chamber cooling system, the back of the OnePlus 12R becomes slightly warmer whereas iQOO Neo 9 Pro’s back stays cooler.

In the CPU throttling test, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro could achieve a slightly better-sustained performance of around 85-90 per cent with very minimal throttling compared to the OnePlus 12R which could only maintain a sustained performance of around70-75 per cent and the thermal throttling is also on the higher side. When it comes to benchmarks, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro scores quite higher compared to the OnePlus 12R.

In terms of network connectivity, both smartphones have support for good carrier aggregation but the OnePlus 12R has 15 bands of 5G compared to 11 bands of 5G on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. Both smartphones are available in two different variants – 8/12GB LPDDR5X RAM with 256/512GB storage. The 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant on both smartphones have UFS 3.1 speeds.

But the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has faster UFS 4.0 storage speeds compared to the similar variant on the OnePlus 12R which has UFS 3.1 storage speeds. So when it comes to daily performance, both smartphones are equally good but when it comes to gaming, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is much better and also in a few multi-tasking scenarios, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro feels faster.

When it comes to software, both smartphones run on the latest Android 14 out of the box and come with their respective custom skins i.e. OxygenOS 14 on the OnePlus 12R and FunTouchOS 14 on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. Both these user interfaces have a lot of features and come with a host of customizations where you can change icon shape, size, and colour. 

Other than that you get different styles for Always-On display, lock screen wallpapers, fingerprint scanner animations, etc. Other than that, both of these user interfaces get a lot of features like app cloner, Smart Sidebar, etc. The FunTouchOS 14 comes with a lot of bloatware in the form of many third-party applications which can be uninstalled whereas OxygenOS 14 does not have any bloatware.

In terms of software updates, both smartphones will receive another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security patches. So regarding software experience, OxygenOS clearly holds the edge over FunTouchOS.

The iQOO Neo 9 Pro sports a dual camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX920 sensor for the primary camera and an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera whereas the OnePlus 12R sports a triple camera setup that includes a 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX890 sensor for the primary camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, both smartphones have 16MP f/2.4 selfie cameras.

In terms of images taken during daylight, both smartphones do a good job in terms of details which look sharper and have good dynamic range. but the iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds a slight edge in terms of dynamic range and also the colours look saturated and balanced compared to the OnePlus 12R. The noise is also lesser on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro compared to the OnePlus 12R.

The iQOO Neo 9 Pro also captures slightly better details in HDR and has better contrast over the OnePlus 12R. It does not mean that the OnePlus 12R is far as it does provide sharper details and good dynamic range but there is some inconsistency in colour reproduction as it does yield warmer tones compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. The OnePlus 12R suffers from oversharpening slightly.

At night, both smartphones take very good images, but the details look more sharper on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro and the dynamic range is slightly better compared to the OnePlus 12R. On the other hand, since the OnePlus 12R has a slightly wider f/1.8 aperture compared to the f/1.9 aperture on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro, it does capture more light and makes the background look brighter compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro.

When it comes to the images taken with the dedicated Night Mode turned on, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro comes with a brighter background but does oversaturate the colours and applies some oversharpening. The OnePlus 12R, on the other hand, maintains a good consistency in terms of colours and has a good dynamic range with less noise in the background. But the details in shadows are much better on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro of the two.

When it comes to the ultrawide camera on both smartphones, the OnePlus 12R does provide sharper details and a slightly better dynamic range of two but the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has less noise in the background and provides saturated colours compared to the natural colours on the OnePlus 12R. At night, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds the clear edge with better dynamic range, saturated colours, and lesser noise in the background.

The images taken at 2x zoom using the primary camera on both smartphones come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range but the colours look saturated and there is less oversharpening on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro compared to the OnePlus 12R. The OnePlus 12R comes with a 2MP macro camera which is just average as the details look softer, the dynamic range is average, and colours loo muted.

In terms of portraits, both smartphones take really good portraits with sharper details and proper edge detection. The iQOO Neo 9 Pro can take portraits at 1x and 2x modes whereas the OnePlus 12R is restricted only at 1x mode. The portraits on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro have a slightly better dynamic range and the background blur level and subject cutout from the background are better than the OnePlus 12R.

When it comes to selfies, both smartphones have identical 16MP f/2.4 cameras on the front which take selfies with good dynamic range and the details look more sharper on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro but colours look oversaturated whereas the OnePlus 12R maintain a natural look. The iQOO Neo 9 Pro has very little noise in the selfies compared to the ones on the OnePlus 12R.

The selfies taken on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro are slightly more cropped compared to the ones on the OnePlus 12R. When it comes to selfie portraits, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro provides slightly better dynamic range and the bokeh effect is better implemented than the ones on the OnePlus 12R. On the other hand, the OnePlus 12R selfies and selfie portraits do suffer from some oversharpening in the background.

In terms of videos, both smartphones can record 4K videos at 60fps whereas the iQOO Neo 9 Pro goes one step above by providing 8K video recording at 30fps. The videos on both smartphones come out with sharper details and have good dynamic range, and the noise is also less. The iQOO Neo 9 Pro has better stabilization and there is not much oversharpening as on the OnePlus 12R.

The colours look saturated in videos on both smartphones but iQOO Neo 9 Pro maintains a better consistency in terms of white balance and contrast compared to the OnePlus 12R. In terms of videos from the ultrawide camera, both smartphones are restricted to 1080p video recording at 30fps, but the video footage on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has more sharper details and slightly less noise compared to the OnePlus 12R.

On the front, both smartphones do not have support for 4K video recording as both smartphones can only record at 1080p at 30fps. The front camera videos on the OnePlus 12R have a wider frame whereas the iQOO Neo 9 Pro applies some cropping and even the stabilization is slightly better on the OnePlus 12R compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. The colours are also better tuned on the OnePlus 12R of the two.

So whether it is images or videos, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds a slight edge over the OnePlus 12R, but the latter has better videos on the front camera.

The iQOO Neo 9 Pro sports a 5160mAh battery when compared to the slightly larger 5500mAh battery on the OnePlus 12R. Considering both chipsets run on the efficient 4nm process, you can expect good battery life but there is one big thing noticed here. With normal usage that includes scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, etc. both smartphones easily lasted for a day and a half with some charge left.

On the other hand, with heavy usage that includes playing heavy games like BGMI, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc., rendering videos, taking videos and images using the camera for longer hours, etc. both smartphones easily last for one single day with some charge left. Though the iQOO Neo 9 Pro has a smaller battery compared to the OnePlus 12R, it has slightly better screen-on-time figures.

With normal usage, the standard screen-on time on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro came around 8-8.5 hours compared to 7.5-8 hours screen-on time on the OnePlus 12R. With heavy usage, the standard screen-on time was equally good i.e. around 3.5-4 hours on both smartphones. In terms of charging, the iQOO neo 9 Pro is bundled with a 125W fast charger which gives it an advantage over the 100W fast charger bundled with the OnePlus 12R.

The iQOO neo 9 Pro takes around 20-25 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent which is slightly faster than the OnePlus 12R which takes around 35-40 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 per cent completely. The charger on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is a USB Type-C to Type-C, so you use this charger to charge laptops or other devices since it supports PD charging.

In battery life as well as fast charging, iQOO Neo 9 Pro goes a step above the OnePlus 12R.

Both smartphones sport a dual stereo speaker setup where the OnePlus 12R has a secondary speaker outlet on the top along with the bottom-firing loudspeaker. On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro uses the earpiece along with the bottom-firing speakers for a stereo sound output. Neither of them has a 3.5mm headphone jack but the OnePlus 12R has support for Dolby Atmos which the iQOO Neo 9 Pro misses out.

Even the sound output is much better and louder on the OnePlus 12R compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. The iQOO Neo 9 Pro, on the other hand, provides slightly muffled sound output but still, it is not so far behind the OnePlus 12R.

Overall, it is a very close call between both smartphones as both of them fulfil almost all the requirements of a premium flagship at a lower price. Both smartphones have a good build and design, great displays along with stereo speakers for multimedia consumption, flagship-level performance and gaming, a good set of cameras, good battery life with faster charging, and a feature-rich software experience. 

However, there are a lot of differences between both smartphones as each of them tries to excel in some or the other areas. When it comes to build and design, the OnePlus 12R holds a slight edge with its premium glass back compared to the polycarbonate vegan leather finished back of the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 9 Pro feels lighter and easier to hold compared to the OnePlus 12R.

In terms of display, the OnePlus 12R holds the edge as it brings support for Dolby Vision in Netflix and has better brightness levels compared to the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. The former gets a curved display while the latter gets a flat display so it is a personal choice which one to choose. When it comes to performance, both smartphones feel faster due to the presence of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

However, though both smartphones provide good performance, still the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is faster in most of the tasks and it provides better sustained performance of the two and also provides better gaming capabilities over the OnePlus 12R. When it comes to cameras, definitely the iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds the edge in terms of both videos and images.

In terms of software experience, the OxygenOS 14 on the OnePlus 12R provides a cleaner software experience over the FunTouchOS on the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. iQOO Neo 9 Pro holds the clear edge in terms of battery life though having a smaller battery compared to the OnePlus 12R and also supports faster charging of the two. The OnePlus 12R edges ahead in terms of audio output over the iQOO Neo 9 Pro.

So to sum it up, if you are someone who values performance and gaming other than anything else, then the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is the clear pick of the two. It also brings a great set of cameras and great battery life, and the look and feel are good with that unique dual-tone vegan leather finish. All other specifications remain outstanding as iQOO has made very few compromises to price it aggressively.

The OnePlus 12R, on the other hand, provides a premium design with a glass back, has a slightly better display, provides a cleaner software experience over the FunTouchOS, and slightly better sound quality. It also gets a good set of cameras but still, it is not as good as the iQOO Neo 9 Pro. The major downside is the thermal throttling though sporting the same chipset as the iQOO neo 9 Pro.

On an overall basis, if you are someone who prefers premium design, a great display, cleaner software experience, then the OnePlus 12R is the better pick of the two but if you are someone who considers gaming as the top priority along with a great set of cameras and battery life without bothering about the build and cleaner software experience, then the iQOO Neo 9 Pro is the better pick and also it is cheaper of the two making it a value for money option.