iQOO Neo 6 review

Triple camera on the back with a stabilized high-res primary

The iQOO Neo 6 has a familiar trio of cameras at the back - a high-res primary shooter with optical stabilization, an ultrawide camera, and a small macro shooter. There is also a standard 16MP camera for selfies on the other side.

The primary camera on the iQOO Neo 6 uses a 64MP Samsung (S5K)GW1 1/1.72" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and a Tetrapixel filter. This sensor is paired with a 25mm f/1.9 lens.

The ultrawide camera relies on an 8MP OmniVision OV8856 1/4" sensor with 1.12µm pixels. It sits behind a 16mm f/2.2 lens.

Last at the back is the macro camera with a 2MP OmniVision OV02B10 1/5" sensor with 1.75µm pixels. It uses a 24mm f/2.4 lens and has a fixed focus at 4cm away.

The selfie camera uses a 16MP Samsung S5K3P9 1/3.1" sensor. The lens is 28mm f/2.0, and the focus is fixed.

No major changes were made to the default Funtouch camera app since the vivo X70 series. There's a straightforward zoom selector with 0.6x, 1x and 2x shortcuts. The Super Macro mode is accessed from the flower icon next to the hamburger menu.

The main modes are arranged in carousel formation, and you can switch between them by swiping. The More tab lists the rest of the modes, and from there, you can also customize the modes you have available in the viewfinder.

Camera app

The Pro mode gives you all the freedom to adjust the autofocus, white balance, shutter speed (32s for main, 0.8s for UW), ISO and exposure. You can do so on the main and ultrawide cameras. There's helpful information explaining the options above in case you are just getting into photography. Shooting in RAW is also an option.

Camera app

Photo quality

The camera app's default settings are HDR set to Auto (as on most phones), and AI turned off. The latter option usually boosts colors and contrast depending on the recognized scene, and since the default photos you are about to see are unrealistic already, we'd advise against using the AI option.

So, the primary camera on the iQOO Neo 6 saves good photos with adequate detail levels, excellent contrast, low noise and likable, even if a bit over the top, dynamic range.

They are far from perfect though, as the processing is a mess - for example, foliage is sometimes smudged and oversharpened; other times, it looks quite well. People and cars look glossy and like they came from an oil painting.

And then we have the unrealistically popping colors - though many people like them this way, so we are not sure if this critique will resonate with everyone.

As we wrote, the photos look good, but they are obviously overprocessed, and we are not sure if everyone will find them appealing when looking at them at 100% zoom.

Main camera Auto HDR, 16MP

You can get less processed photos by disabling the Auto HDR completely. The images have a more natural look, especially the foliage, the sharpening is just right, and the noise is more than tolerable. The colors are still oversaturated, but likable, nevertheless.

Main cam HDR off, 16MP

The portraits we shot on the main camera are good - the subject separation is proficient enough not to mess up some body parts, the blur is convincing, and the colors are realistic. The subjects are well exposed and detailed, and the contrast is good, too.

You can tweak the blur intensity and use various beautification effects.

Main cam portraits, 16MP

There is a dedicated 2x zoom toggle on the viewfinder, but there is no zoom camera on the iQOO Neo 6, and the phone does not offer any sort of smart or lossless digital zoom.

This means the 2x zoomed photos from the main camera are cropped and upscaled from the regular one, and the levels of detail and sharpness are unappealing. Worse, they magnify the unrealistic look and messy processing and may not be good even for social networks.

Main cam 2x zoom, 16MP

There is a high-res 64MP shooting mode available, and this is probably the best way to get the least processed photos with accurate colors, white balance, and realistic dynamic range.

It's a smart upscaling process that yields usable photos with okay-ish detail and, as we said, realistic white balance, contrast and dynamic. They can also be used for zooming in without losing much detail by cropping their 16MP center.

Main cam, 64MP

The 8MP photos we shot on the ultrawide camera are good as well. They present enough detail, good contrast and wide dynamic range. They are also noise-free.

The UW photos share the unrealistic overprocessed look of the primary ones - they offer oversaturated colors, over-the-top dynamic, smudged foliage at times, and they can benefit from increased contrast and a notch down on, well, everything else.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

The third and final camera on the back of the iQOO Neo 6 is a 2MP macro eye with a fixed focus at 4cm away.

The 2MP macro photos are usable, and that's the best we can say about them. They are not that detailed, often over-sharpened, and somewhat desaturated or oversaturated, pending on the scene and available light. They look just as overprocessed as the rest of the photos.

Macro camera, 2MP

We liked the 16MP selfies from the front camera. When the Auto HDR is disabled (first photo), you will get a sharp and detailed photo with realistic colors, excellent contrast and low noise.

If you rely on the default Auto HDR state (2,3,4 photos), or the light is not ideal, you will get halved detail with arguably improved dynamic range. The colors and contrast, as well as the dynamic remain realistic and likable across all photos.

Selfie camera, 16MP

The portrait selfies offer the same quality as the regular ones, depending on HDR and available light. Other than that, the subject separation is quite good, and we did like the blur.

Selfie portraits, 16MP

Quite expectedly, the low-light photos are always heavily processed, whether you've opted for Night Mode or not. Usually, there isn't a big difference between the regular and night modes because the standard mode has faster simulated exposure.

So, the default photos taken at night with the primary camera are quite good - they are notably bright, with wide dynamic range, good contrast, and excellent color saturation. The noise has been cleaned well, even if some fine detail got smeared in the process.

Main camera, 16MP

You can manually shoot in Night Mode, and you will see there is barely a difference at first. But zooming in revealed the Night Mode photos offer more detail and better sharpness, and far less smearing.

So, the Night Mode photos have higher per pixel sharpness, and that is the main reason we do recommend using it.

Main cam Night Mode, 16MP

The 2x toggle on the viewfinder offers digitally zoomed photos at night. These are cropped and upscaled from the standard 1x photos, and you can tell if you pixel-peep in those - the resolved detail is halved. Still, these are quite usable and will do for sharing across various apps and services.

2x • 2x Night Mode • 2x • 2x Night Mode

The low-light images from the 8MP ultrawide camera are not as processed as the ones from the primary cam. They have realistic exposure and true-to-life colors, good contrast and acceptable dynamic range. The detail is mediocre.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP

There is barely any difference between the default and the Night Mode ultrawide photos. Sometimes, the Night Mode cleans noise better than what we saw in the standard photo. It may or may not improve the color saturation.

There is one thing to consider, though - the Night mode takes a noticeably longer time to shoot each ultrawide photo, and that's why we are not sure that the tradeoff is worth it.

UW Night Mode, 8MP

And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the iQOO Neo 6. You can see how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.

iQOO Neo 6 against the Realme GT Neo 3T and the Galaxy A52s in our Photo compare tool

Video recording

The iQOO Neo 6 captures videos with all cameras but the macro. The main camera records video up to 4K at 60fps, 1080p at 60fps is also supported. The ultrawide and the selfie shooters are limited to 1080p at 30fps capturing.

OIS is available on the primary camera, while optional electronic stabilization is supported on the primary and the ultrawide cameras.

iQOO stabilization options are a bit awkward - there is Standard, Ultra, and Off. Standard means OUS+EIS for the main camera, and EIS for the ultrawide cam. Ultra uses the main camera and 1080p@60fps mode to capture an action camera-like video. And Off, well, it means no stabilization, obviously.

Unfortunately, there is no stabilization available for the selfie video capturing.

The camcorder is incredibly generous with the bit rates - 4K footage gets 50Mbps, while 1080p/30fps is allocated a similarly about 30Mbps. The audio bitrate is 128Kbps, the sound is stereo.

The 4K footage from the main camera is excellent. The resolved detail is plenty, the sharpness is great, and the foliage, among everything else, looks natural. There is no visible noise, the contrast is great, the colors are true to life, and the dynamic range is just right.

You can also use the main camera for 2x zoomed videos, and they are alright. The detail is not on par with the 1x footage, of course, but it's not that bad either. Overall, these videos are quite usable, especially if you are going to share them on YouTube or among friends via IMs/social accounts.

The 4K low-light clips from the main camera are very good with realistic exposure, good detail levels, likable contrast and true-to-life colors.

The 1080p videos from the ultrawide are merely acceptable. The colors are realistic, and the dynamic range is notably wide. The contrast is low, and the footage looks out of focus.

Finally, here is the iQOO Neo 6 in our video tool so you can make your own comparisons.

2160p: iQOO Neo 6 against the Realme GT Neo 3T and the Galaxy A52s in our Video compare tool