iQOO Neo 6 review

Android 12 with Funtouch 12

The iQOO Neo 6 boots the latest Android 12 OS with vivo's newest Funtouch 12 launcher.

Funtouch 12 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. Some of the menus' content moves to the lower half of the screen when you swipe down, but not all, which is odd.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • Settings menu

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

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.

Recent apps • Recent apps • Notification shade • Quick toggles • App drawer

The notification shade has been revamped, too, in terms of looks mostly.

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.

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.

Dynamic effects • Ambient light effect

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, the lot.

Always-on display

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

Animations

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.

Less secure Face Unlock is available, too, in case you were wondering.

Fingerprint and Face unlock

The Sound menu holds a few pleasant surprises. Just like Samsung, vivo is paying 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.

Sound options

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 menu

Holding the volume down key can be used to launch an app or do a certain task, although the latter list is limited to launching the camera app, turning on/off the torch or 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?

Quick action • S-capture • Screen-split • Easy Touch

There is a bunch of proprietary system apps that compete with the Funtouch 12 app suite. These include Albums, Browser, iManager, Music and Video.

Albums • Browser • iManager • iManager • Music • Videos

There is also a Smart Remote app, which turns the iQOO Neo 6 into a universal remote thanks to the IR blaster.

Smart Remote

Themes app with many free themes is available, too.

Themes

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.

Performance and benchmarks

The iQOO Neo 6 employs one of the fastest and fan-favorite available chipsets - the Snapdragon 870 5G. It is a rehash of the last year's flagship SD865 chip with even higher CPU clocks, and its prime core goes all the way up to 3.2GHz. It still packs one of the most powerful GPUs around - the Adreno 650.

The SD870 features an octa-core CPU in a 1+3+4 configuration with the prime core maxing out at 3.2GHz. The Adreno 650 handles the graphics and should deliver flagship-grade performance, including HFR gaming.

The iQOO Neo 6 has two variants - 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. Ours is the latter, the RAM is LPDDR4X, while the storage is UFS3.1.

And now, let's run some tests, shall we?

The Snapdragon 870 CPU is an easy champ in the midrange. It is only bested by the flagship Snapdragon 888+ and the Dimensity 8100 within the more expensive Realme GT Neo 3.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Realme GT Neo3
  4079
• iQOO 9
  3503
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  3180
• iQOO Neo 6
  3076
• Xiaomi 11T
  2834
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2801
• Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
  2753
• Realme 9 Pro+
  2335
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  2225
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  1891
• Realme 9 5G
  1823

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9
  1143
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  1023
• iQOO Neo 6
  984
• Realme GT Neo3
  968
• Realme 9 Pro+
  814
• Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
  795
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  771
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  743
• Xiaomi 11T
  742
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  736
• Realme 9 5G
  610

The Adreno 650 GPU is one of the best performers not only in the midrange but in the whole current smartphone chipset selection. And it easily aces the graphics benchmarks.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9
  65
• Realme GT Neo3
  53
• iQOO Neo 6
  50
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  49
• Xiaomi 11T
  40
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  28
• Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
  28
• Realme 9 Pro+
  23
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  22
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  19
• Realme 9 5G
  14

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9
  110
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  85
• iQOO Neo 6
  84
• Xiaomi 11T
  72
• Realme GT Neo3
  60
• Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
  50
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  49
• Realme 9 Pro+
  41
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  38
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  35
• Realme 9 5G
  25

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• iQOO 9
  5814
• Realme GT Neo3
  5428
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  4255
• iQOO Neo 6
  4225
• Xiaomi 11T
  4172
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2491
• Realme 9 5G Speed Edition
  2476
• Realme 9 Pro+
  2296
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  2292
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  2014
• Realme 9 5G
  1228

The compound AnTuTu test puts the iQOO Neo 6 at the top of its price segment and among the best scoring non-flagship smartphones.

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• iQOO 9
  852898
• Realme GT Neo3
  819348
• iQOO Neo 6
  730223
• Realme GT Neo 3T
  726007
• Xiaomi 11T
  590837
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  506432
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G
  437872
• Realme 9 Pro+
  416031
• Samsung Galaxy A53 5G
  379313

Finally, we've tested the stability of the Snapdragon 870 inside this iQOO Neo 6. The chipset has a Cascade Cooling System with a large vapor chamber area and a 5-layer 3D graphite cooling plates to further accelerate heat dissipation and provide sustained performance.

The cooling turned out incredibly adequate as the Neo 6 aced the stability tests. It managed to keep 80% of its CPU performance when running CPU Throttle for an hour. Then it scored 99.1% stability on the 3D Mark GPU Stress Test!

The iQOO Neo 6 was warm after each of these tests but never got hot.

CPU test • GPU test

So, the iQOO Neo 6 is not only equipped with a flagship-grade chipset with excellent CPU and GPU performance, but it also features a superb cooling solution that will allow you to use the Neo 6 at full speed for prolonged periods of time without throttling or getting uncomfortably hot. And for all of these, it deserves an excellent mark for performance and stability!