iQOO 9T review

Android 12 with FuntouchOS 12

The iQOO 9T runs on the exact same software as its other two siblings - the vanilla 9 and the Pro. We've got Android 12 underneath vivo's custom FuntouchOS 12. The latter significantly departs from Funtouch 11's "core values". The stock-ish looking and functioning main UI elements and menus have been substituted with a highly customized and customizable UI. Some of the changes are pretty nifty, too, including the system menus being tailored toward a single-handed use. Samsung's OneUI and OnePlus' OxygenOS have a similar approach. Some of the menus' content moves to the lower half of the screen when you swipe down, but not all, which is odd. Perhaps the only stock-ish looking thing about the software is the notification shade and the quick toggles. Unlike stock Android, though, this software offers a quick switch for automatic brightness control right next to the brightness slider itself.

The recent apps menu, for example, has some other proprietary features. You can choose between the standard carousel formation and a horizontal tiles layout - sort of like MIUI, only scrollable horizontally.

Home screen, app drawer, settings menu

The app drawer, although stock-ish looking, has an expandable recommended apps category on the top (most commonly used ones), whereas using the vertical scroller on the right would highlight the apps beginning with the selected letter.

Notification shade, recent apps,

The notification shade has been revamped too, in terms of looks mostly - the quick toggles are now square-shaped, and the accent color around the menus (including the quick toggles icons) is blue, and there's no way to change either. Applying different themes would only change the icon pack and wallpaper.

The rest of the UI gets plenty of love, too. In the Dynamic effects sub-menu, vivo has grouped quite a few customizable aspects of the home screen, lock screen, animation effects, etc. There are even various charging and facial recognition animations.

Dynamic effects and Always-on display

The Ambient light effect gets more granular control with the option to enable it only during a limited time period, or you can choose which apps to trigger it.

The always-on display settings are in a different sub-menu, however, but the phone still gives you plenty of options to tinker with - a wide selection of animations, clock styles, colors, backgrounds, etc.

The Themes app offers many free themes.

You can also change the animation of the fingerprint scanner, the face unlocks, and even the charging animation.

Fingerprint animation

Speaking of the fingerprint scanner, it is kind of always-on. Sure, you cannot see the icon, but it lights up the moment you touch the glass around its area. And it is quite fast and reliable, among the fastest UD solutions on the market.

The Smart motion menu holds a handful of familiar screen-on and screen-off gestures along with some new additions. One of those requires you to wave in front of the screen during an incoming call to answer hands-free - useful if you're cooking, for example.

Smart motion and screen-off gestures

Holding the volume down key can be used to launch an app or do a certain task, although the list of the latter is limited to launching the camera app, turn on/off the torch or start recording audio. The so-called Quick action feature doesn't work when playing music for obvious reasons. Why isn't there a double-press option for Quick action, though?

The Sound menu holds a few pleasant surprises. Just like Samsung, vivo pays attention to people with hearing problems, and you can calibrate the sound to be heard by elderly people or those with impaired hearing. Additionally, notifications and calls get separate volume sliders. The vibration intensity can be adjusted for calls and notifications independently.

Quick action and sound options

All in all, the new Funtouch 12 runs great, and you can even make it snappier by disabling most of the animations and speeding up the transitions. Yes, Funtouch 12 gives you the freedom to do so. However, those that want to use Android as Google intended might not be okay with the colorful iconography and the highly customized system menus and animations.

Synthetic performance

Compared to the iQOO 9, the 9T offers a substantial upgrade in terms of raw performance, but it's also an improvement over the 9 Pro, even if more modest. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 promises 30% better power efficiency in the CPU and GPU department compared to its predecessor since Qualcomm changed from Samsung's fabs to TSMC's (both are still 4nm, though). Performance gains are smaller - 10% on both CPU and GPU, mainly due to the higher clock speeds.

The octa-core CPU consists of the same 1+3+4 core combo (1x Cortex-X2 + 3x Cortex-A710 + 4x Cortex-510), but clocked at 3.20 GHz, 2.75 GHz and 1.80 GHz, respectively. The Adreno 730 GPU runs at 900Hz.

Aside from the CPU and GPU, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is also bringing a new Spectra ISP, premium Snapdragon Sound and more power-efficient NPU computing. The ISP can now record 8K HDR footage and video bokeh effect alongside face tracking simultaneously. The NPU's capabilities have been bumped up 20% per watt.

There's also the Volumetric rendering support and improved power efficiency during gaming, and those alone theoretically boost gaming time by about an hour. Now, off to the benchmarks to see how well it fares against the competition and see how good iQOO's implementation is.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  4059
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  3937
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  3907
• iQOO 9 Pro
  3708
• Samsung Galaxy S22+ (Max processing)
  3542
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  3528
• Realme GT2 Pro
  3501
• iQOO 9 SE
  3442
• OnePlus 10T
  3401
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  3049
• Google Pixel 6
  2899

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  1321
• iQOO 9T
  1276
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  1252
• Realme GT2 Pro
  1238
• iQOO 9 Pro
  1231
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  1165
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  1096
• iQOO 9 SE
  1095
• OnePlus 10T
  1043
• Samsung Galaxy S22+ (Max processing)
  1037
• Google Pixel 6
  1030

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  1045901
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  1016958
• iQOO 9 Pro
  997948
• Realme GT2 Pro
  966251
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  957286
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  886916
• iQOO 9 SE
  846231
• OnePlus 10T
  786238
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  719696
• Google Pixel 6
  676831

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  65
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average (1080p)
  61
• OnePlus 10T
  60
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  60
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  50
• Google Pixel 6
  46
• iQOO 9 SE
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• iQOO 9 Pro
  36
• Realme GT2 Pro
  36

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  46
• OnePlus 10T
  46
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  46
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  43
• Realme GT2 Pro
  42
• iQOO 9 Pro
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  31
• Google Pixel 6
  30
• iQOO 9 SE
  29
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  24

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  67
• OnePlus 10T
  60
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  60
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average (1080p)
  59
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  51
• iQOO 9 SE
  43
• Google Pixel 6
  43
• Realme GT2 Pro
  39
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  38
• iQOO 9 Pro
  37

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9T
  52
• OnePlus 10T
  51
• OnePlus 10T (High performance mode)
  51
• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 average
  47
• Realme GT2 Pro
  46
• iQOO 9 Pro
  44
• Samsung Galaxy S22+
  34
• iQOO 9 SE
  30
• Google Pixel 6
  30
• Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G
  25

It's not a surprise to see the iQOO 9T on top of the charts as it runs on the best SoC in the Android world right now. It even manages to outpace your aver Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1-powered smartphone but we think that's mostly due to statistical error than anything else. The difference isn't that noticeable. Then again, the GPU-heavy benchmarks show a substantial difference between the iQOO 9T and other SD8+ Gen 1 smartphones and we are not entirely sure why that is. It could be that iQOO 9T enters some high-performance mode once it recognizes a benchmark running but that would be cheating. It's not the first time a smartphone OEM is cheating in benchmarks.

Sustained and gaming performance

Even though the iQOO 9T isn't a full-blown gaming phone, the company adds a couple of neat features to the software that boost the gaming experience. According to iQOO, the 9T is E-Sports-level ready. There's the In-display Dual Monster Touch feature that splits the screen into two halves and you can map buttons in-game for more comfortable gaming during fast-paced battles. Unfortunately, this feature is available only in Call of Duty Mobile.

The iQOO 9T also boasts one of the most responsive displays on the market with 360Hz touch response rate and reduces the latency below 50 ms.

Unfortunately, when it comes to HRR gaming, only a handful of games were able to take advantage of the 120Hz refresh rate. At least according to Android's built-in refresh rate counter, which in all fairness, might be unreliable. In reality, the game might be running at lower frames per second while the display still reports 120Hz refresh rate. The discrepancy between the two isn't a new phenomenon.

In any case, the iQOO 9T is supposed to provide good sustained performance as well, which is just as important in our opinion. There's a 3,939 mm2 vapor chamber made of copper and graphite for optimal heat dissipation.

Of course, we put that to the test using an hour-long stress test of the CPU. For the first 30 minutes, although a bit wavy, the graph goes down steadily before stabilizing at around 80% of the theoretical performance. It remained there for another 30 minutes without dipping below 78%.

CPU stress test: 30 min • 60 min

For a flagship SoC, this is actually a great result. It could be due to some software optimizations, or TSMC's 4nm node is indeed more efficient and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 isn't getting that hot. We were surprised to see the phone ever so slightly warmer - the back glass and the middle frame were both perfectly fine to the touch.

GPU stress test

Surprisingly enough, the GPU didn't do all that well as the average frame rate was too low and the stability was just 53%, meaning performance dropped by half, comparing the first and the last, 18th loop.