Can the Realme GT Neo 2 take on the segment-best iQOO 7?
The premium mid-range segment has been the most popular segment in 2021 where smartphones came up with almost flagship specifications with a good price tag as each manufacturer was aiming to establish its product and to be the best. Smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, etc. had solid offerings, and just after that Motorola and iQOO joined the premium mid-range segment with their solid offerings.
Realme launched a bunch of smartphones but at the end of 2021 came the Realme GT Neo 2 (Review) which is a good all-rounder smartphone from Realme which packs in a unique design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset with the largest vapor cooling chamber, good battery life, and support for 65W fast charging.
iQOO, a sub-brand of Vivo also came in 2021 with its 7 series out of which the iQOO 7 is a perfect premium mid-range smartphone that focused more on gaming and performance but as a whole brought in some very good specifications like a good build and design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, dual-chip for enhanced gaming, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset, good battery life with 66W fast charging.
So which one should be the better premium mid-range smartphone of the two? Let’s find out in the full comparison.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Design:
When it comes to design. both smartphones have a glass sandwich design which means glass I present at the front as well as on the back. The iQOO 7 has a smooth frosted finish with no design elements as the back looks plain and just below the camera module sits the iQOO logo. Both have a rectangular camera module that has a triple camera setup with a LED flashlight.
Both do not have any camera hump which is a good thing. The design is slightly different on both where the Realme GT Neo 2 has a matte finish with a unique design where there are two strips running from top to bottom – the thinner one has the Dare To Leap logo and the thicker one has the Realme logo and this is present only on the Neo Green color only.
But if you consider the Neo Black and the Neo Blue color, they have a plain look with no design elements. Both provide good grip and do not attract fingerprints. Both also lack an IP rating but have a P2i coating. In terms of weight, the Realme GT Neo 2 weighs around 208grams which is slightly heavier than the 196grams weight on the iQOO 7.
On the front as well as the back, the Realme GT Neo 2 has Gorilla Glass 5 for protection whereas the iQOO 7 provides Schott Xensation protection at the front whereas the back has an AG Matte Glass protection which is almost equivalent to Gorilla Glass 5. Around the sides, both have a plastic frame that houses the power button and volume buttons.
At the top, both have a secondary noise-canceling microphone only whereas the bottom gets a USB Type-C port, a primary microphone, a loudspeaker grill, and a dual SIM card slot with no dedicated microSD card slot for storage expansion. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present on either of these.
On the front both have a single punch-hole display where the punch hole is located to the top right side on the Realme GT Neo 2 and on the iQOO 7, it is located at the center on top. Overall, in terms of build and design, both are good and feel premium during usage.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Display:
Both the Realme GT Neo 2 and the iQOO 7 have a lot of similarities when it comes to the display as they have the same similar screen size at 6.62-inches and have Full HD+(1080×2400 pixels) resolution and sport an AMOLED panel. As both these displays are AMOLED, the color reproduction and viewing angles are great.
Both have a 120Hz refresh rate which feels very smooth during tasks like scrolling through webpages, multi-tasking between games, and also while playing games. The Realme GT Neo 2 has a 600Hz touch sampling rate that aids in smooth gameplay whereas iQOO 7, on the other hand, has only a 300Hz touch sampling rate but it can go as high as 1000Hz as it uses frame interpolation for better gaming and multi-tasking.
Both these displays have support for HDR10 content so you can stream HDR content on Youtube and Widevine L1 which ensures streaming HD content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. But Realme GT Neo 2 cannot stream HDR content on Netflix whereas the iQOO 7 can do it. Since both displays are AMOLED, there is an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that is accurate and fast.
Both these displays can achieve a peak brightness of 1300nits when viewing the content in HDR and under direct sunlight, both have good visibility but colors look slightly better on the iQOO 7 but the difference is very marginal. You can set the color temperature from warmer to cooler tone on both displays. So in terms of displays, both are equally good.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Performance:
When it comes to performance, both these smartphones sport a Snapdragon 870 chipset which is a flagship chipset from Qualcomm that just sits below the Snapdragon 888 chipset. Both smartphones handle all the tasks with ease whether it is multitasking between applications, rendering videos, or also while playing games.
In terms of gaming, both smartphones could easily play BGMI at Ultra HDR graphics with an Extreme frame rate but after 3-4 hours of gaming, the back of the Realme GT Neo 2 felt slightly warmer compared to the iQOO 7 though both have a dedicated vapor cooling system underneath. In the CPU throttling test, the sustained performance was equally good on both with no thermal throttling as such.
But in some scenarios, the iQOO 7 feels slightly faster compared to the Realme GT Neo 2 but both have faster app opening/closing speeds. Both come with 8/12GB LPDDR4X RAM with 128/256GB storage where storage speeds are of UFS 3.1. In terms of benchmarks, both score equally in Geekbench 5.1 as well as on Antutu v8.
When it comes to 5G bands, the Realme GT Neo 2 holds an edge as it supports 8 bands of 5G compared to just one band of 5G support on the iQOO 7. In terms of network connectivity, the carrier aggeration works better on the Realme GT Neo 2 also. Overall the performance feels equally good but when it comes to 5G support, the Realme GT Neo 2 is better but in terms of gaming, iQOO 7 is better.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Software:
When it comes to software, there is a lot in common between both user interfaces. The Realme GT Neo 2 runs on the RealmeUI 2.0 and iQOO 7 runs on FuntouchOS 11 with both having Android 11 out of the box. There is a considerable amount of bloatware on both and in some places, we could also notice a few ads which do clutter the experience.
There are constant push notifications also which is disturbing especially from the browser or from their respective third-party applications that are pre-installed. Both provide a lot of customizations to icon shape size, looks and feel, different color profiles, wallpapers, and also to the Always-On display. Both do also have the Hot Apps of which most of the applications can be uninstalled.
In terms of software updates, both are slated to get another two major Android OS updates and three years of security updates. So software experience remains good on both though you get some bloatware.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Cameras:
Both sport a triple camera setup where the Realme GT Neo 2 sports a 64MP f/1.8 Samsung GW1 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera. On the front, it has a 16MP f/2.5 camera. The iQOO 7 has a 48MP f/1.8 Sony IMX598 sensor for the main camera, a 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 depth camera. On the front, it has a 16MP f/2.0 camera.
The images from the main camera come out with good and sharper details on both of them but when it comes to dynamic range and contrast, the iQOO 7 is better. The iQOO 7 also has lesser noise in the background when compared to the Realme GT Neo 2. In HDR images, the colors look oversaturated on the Realme GT Neo 2 whereas the colors on the iQOO 7 have a natural color tone.
During the night, the images from both come out with good details but do have quite an amount of noise. The iQOO 7 has a better dynamic range and the details look slightly sharper compared to the Realme GT Neo 2. The noise is less on the iQOO 7 as it gets OIS. With the dedicated night mode, the iQOO 7 has better-looking details and a better dynamic range of the two.
The iQOO 7 has a slightly larger 13MP ultrawide camera compared to an 8MP ultrawide camera on the Realme GT Neo 2 so as a result, the images have slightly sharper-looking details and better dynamic range on the iQOO 7 compared to the Realme GT Neo 2. The distortion around the edges is present on both though but still, it is lesser on the iQOO 7. The iQOO 7 has more natural-looking colors of the two.
At night, the images from the ultrawide camera of the iQOO 7 have better details with good contrast and dynamic range compared to the Realme GT Neo 2. The noise is also lower on the iQOO 7 and though both have a dedicated Night Mode for the ultrawide camera, turning it on, the Realme GT Neo 2 produces more natural colors compared to the iQOO 7.
The Realme GT Neo 2 has a 2MP macro camera which is a fixed focus camera and the images that come out have decent dynamic range, washed-out colors, and a large amount of noise. The iQOO 7 though not sporting a dedicated macro camera, uses the ultrawide camera as a macro camera so as a result, the images have much better and sharper details, colors look natural and no noise is present.
When it comes to portraits, the iQOO 7 provides a much better dynamic range and skin tones look much natural compared to the Realme GT Neo 2. The edge detection is also better on the iQOO 7 and also the implementation of the background blur is much better than the Realme GT Neo 2. But the portrait images do crop in some details on the iQOO 7 compared to the Realme GT Neo 2.
The selfies come out with a good dynamic range and sharper-looking details on the iQOO 7 but it does suffer from oversharpening which is not the case with the Realme GT Neo 2. The colors look more natural on the Realme GT Neo 2 but the noise is slightly less on the iQOO 7. Even in selfie portraits, the iQOO 7 provides better edge detection and background blur compared to the Realme GT Neo 2.
In terms of videos, both smartphones can record 4K videos at 60fps but the iQOO 7 holds the edge over the Realme GT Neo 2 when it comes to dynamic range and the details also look sharper with very little noise. It has OIS that does help in more stabilized videos over the Realme GT Neo 2 which does not have OIS but still, it uses EIS for stabilization that works fine. In low-light also, the iQOO 7 does better.
The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with better dynamic range and slightly sharper-looking details with less noise on the iQOO 7 compared to the Realme GT Neo 2 which does suffer from a larger amount of noise and the details look softer. Both do get Ultra Steady Mode for stabilization which does take videos with less noise on both.
The selfie videos come out with a better dynamic range and the details look sharper on the iQOO 7 but there is a lot of noise and the videos come out with better stabilization on the Realme GT Neo 2. Both do get a dedicated Night Mode for the selfie camera. Overall, the cameras are much better on the iQOO 7 compared to the Realme GT Neo 2.
For a detailed camera comparison click here.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Battery Life:
The Realme GT Neo 2 sports a larger 5000mAh battery when compared to the 4400mAh battery on the iQOO 7. With the display being set to 120Hz and with heavy usage like multitasking between applications, rendering videos, and playing games for around 3-4 hours, both smartphones easily lasted for a single day with the Realme GT Neo 2 having more charge left than the iQOO 7.
With normal usage, both smartphones easily lasted for two days and in terms of screen-on time, the Realme GT Neo 2 provides around 7-8 hours of screen-on time which makes it slightly better than the 7-7.5 hours of screen-on time on the iQOO 7. The Realme GT Neo 2 gets a 65W fast charger that takes around 40 minutes for a full charge from 0 to 100 percent.
The iQOO 7 has a 67W fast charger bundled inside the box that charges the smartphone from 0 to 100 percent within 30 minutes which is very fast. Overall, with better battery optimization of RealmeUI and a slightly larger battery, the Realme GT Neo 2 is better.
Realme GT Neo 2 vs iQOO 7 Audio Quality:
Both the smartphones have dual stereo speakers that sound really good and have good audio quality but the Realme GT Neo 2 is slightly more louder and the bass level is better compared to the iQOO 7. Both do get Dolby Atmos for an enhanced sound experience while playing games or watching content.
Verdict:
The premium mid-range segment has been always been ruled by the iQOO 7 ever since its launch but now Realme GT Neo 2 is giving serious competition. Both these smartphones have specifications in common as both get a 120Hz AMOLED display, a glass build and design, powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset, good battery life with support for faster charging. Both have bloatware present in their user interfaces.
If you want a smartphone with the best gaming capabilities, better cameras, and a decent software experience, then the iQOO 7 holds the edge. But the Realme GT Neo 2 has better audio quality, slightly better battery life, and decent software experience. But considering all specifications, the iQOO 7 feels like the better package of the two.