iQOO Z9s Pro hands-on review

iQOO expanded the Z9 series by introducing two 's' models, called iQOO Z9s and iQOO Z9s Pro. Both smartphones are designed for young multi-taskers, primarily college students and young professionals. We already shared some pictures clicked with the Z9s Pro from our media tour in Baku, Azerbaijan, but we also used the smartphone for about a month to see how it performs in other departments, and here's what we found.

Design

The iQOO Z9s Pro is built around a 6.77" curved AMOLED display with a 120 Hz screen refresh rate and 4,500 nits peak brightness. It also has a centered punch-hole for the 16MP selfie camera and a fingerprint reader underneath for biometric authentication.

The fingerprint scanner was fast and accurate, but it could've been placed slightly higher for ease of reach, which could've offered a more convenient smartphone unlocking experience.

Flip the phone around, and you see a squircle-shaped camera island, which reminds us of the iQOO 12. However, it is bigger in size and prevents the Z9s Pro from wobbling on flat surfaces. It houses a circular flash and two working cameras - 50MP primary and 8MP ultrawide.

The iQOO Z9s Pro comes in Luxe Marble and Flamboyant Orange colors, and it's the former that we received for review.

iQOO Z9s Pro in Flamboyant Orange and Luxe Marble colors

The Luxe Marble model has a marble-like pattern on its rear panel with a glossy finish, while the Flamboyant Orange sports a vegan leather back - a first for the Z series. It makes the Flamboyant Orange version 5g heavier than the Luxe Marble model but also provides a better grip and is resistant to smudges. The Luxe Marble picks up fingerprint smudges, but they aren't immediately visible.

Regardless of which version you buy, the iQOO Z9s Pro comes with an IP64 rating. Its back cover also has curved edges, and the phone is lightweight, making it comfortable for prolonged usage.

The iQOO Z9s Pro sports shiny, reflective frames, with the right-side frame featuring the volume rocker and power button. At the bottom is the USB-C port, flanked by the SIM card slot, primary mic, and a speaker grille. Up top is the secondary mic. The Z9s Pro also features stereo speakers.

iQOO Z9s Pro's ports and controls

We like the overall design of the iQOO Z9s Pro. It's built well and is comfortable for prolonged usage.

Display

The iQOO Z9s Pro packs a 6.77" curved AMOLED display of 2,392x1,080-pixel resolution and 387 ppi pixel density. It has a 120 Hz refresh rate and a 300 Hz touch sampling rate. iQOO is also advertising a 2,000 Hz instant touch sampling rate with the Ultra Game Mode, which "enables faster touch response and can be achieved when the game enters the match scene." Games that support 2,000 Hz instant touch sampling rate on the iQOO Z9s Pro include Garena Free Fire, Mobile Legends, Call of Duty: Mobile, Genshin Impact, Garena ROV, and PUBG Mobile.

That said, the iQOO Z9s Pro's display supports 1.07 billion colors. It also supports HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG codecs and comes with Widevine L1 certification, allowing 1080p video streaming on compatible apps.

The iQOO Z9s Pro's display is protected by Schott Xensation Up glass and supports Wet Touch technology, which, iQOO says, "differentiates between fingers and water droplets using specialized algorithms, ensuring that your screen has a fast and accurate touch response even when splashed with raindrops or when your hands are wet."

The iQOO Z9s Pro's screen has 4,500 nits peak brightness for HDR content. However, the panel on our unit wasn't legible enough outdoors under sunlight, even at max brightness, making us cover the screen with a hand to read text and watch images and videos, which isn't ideal.

It's also worth mentioning that the Always-On Display mode on the iQOO Z9s Pro isn't truly always on since it's only turned on when you tap the screen or move the phone slightly. The option to keep it turned on all day or during specific hours is unavailable, and that's a bummer. iQOO might want to avoid calling it an "always-on display" since the display doesn't always remain on to show information. However, this is something that can be fixed with a software update.

The iQOO Z9s Pro's 120 Hz panel supports 60 Hz, 90 Hz, and 120 Hz refresh rates and has three refresh rate options - Smart Switch, Standard (60 Hz), and High (120 Hz). You also get an additional "Apps running at a high refresh rate" option in the menu when you choose the High refresh rate, which lets you select the apps and games you want to run at 120 Hz.

With the screen refresh rate set to High and enabled for all the apps/games from the "Apps running at a high refresh rate" option, the refresh rate bumped from 60 Hz to 120 Hz for the system menus and apps when interacting with the display. It remained at 60 Hz when viewing an image in Google Photos or watching a video. The same goes for YouTube videos.

With the Standard mode, everything expectedly remained at 60 Hz, while the Smart Switch mode handled things differently than the High mode. The refresh rate went from 60 Hz to 120 Hz when switching between the apps and scrolling on the home screen, app drawer, Settings app, and Play Store. For everything else, the refresh rate was capped at 90 Hz, except for Quora and GSMArena's apps, which were restricted to 60 Hz. It was basically the High Mode, which was limited to 90 Hz for most apps.

We tried Call of Duty: Mobile, Dead Trigger 2, Real Racing 3, and Sky Force: Reloaded on the iQOO Z9s Pro at the highest settings supported, and the only games that ran at 120 FPS - that too in High Mode - were Real Racing 3 and Sky Force: Reloaded.

To conclude, if you want the smoothest experience on the iQOO Z9s Pro, the High refresh rate mode is your best option.

Software and Performance

The iQOO Z9s Pro comes with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC, paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. Ours is the top-end 12GB/256GB version, running Android 14-based Funtouch OS 14 out of the box.

iOQO has promised two years of Android version upgrades and three years of Android security updates for the Z9s Pro. However, it hasn't committed anything regarding the rollout frequency of the security updates.

The Z9s Pro also comes pre-installed with third-party apps, but fortunately, most can be uninstalled. The overall software experience you get with the iQOO Z9s Pro is similar to that of the iQOO 12, so you can read our iQOO 12 review to learn more about Funtouch OS 14.

That said, it's worth mentioning that App Retainer - which was introduced with the Neo7 Pro and later came to all vivo and iQOO smartphones through Funtouch OS 14 - still doesn't support some popular apps, including Facebook, meaning when you switch to Facebook from another app, it will refresh, and you won't be able to continue from where you left. It's about time vivo and iQOO fixed this.

Performance-wise, the iQOO Z9s Pro was mostly smooth in everyday usage. We say mostly because it did stutter at times when switching between apps and scrolling the content. ChatGPT was also slower at displaying its textual responses than other phones on the same internet connection. However, we had no issues with the Z9s Pro's gaming performance since it handled heavy games during long gaming sessions very well and remained reasonably cool.

Speaking of, the iQOO Z9s Pro comes with 4D Game Vibration, Motion Control, and AI Game Voice Changer to enhance the gaming experience. However, 4D Game Vibration currently only supports PUBG Mobile and BGMI.

Camera

The iQOO Z9s Pro features three cameras - one on the front and two on the rear. The selfie unit on the front uses a 16MP Samsung S5K3P9SP04-FGX9 1/3.0" sensor with an f/2.45 aperture and the capability to record 1080p videos at 30 FPS.

Around the back, you get a 50MP primary camera and an 8MP ultrawide camera. The primary camera uses the Sony IMX882 1/1.95" sensor, having OIS and f/1.79 aperture. It can record 720p and 1080p videos at 30 and 60 FPS, while 4K video recording is limited to 30 FPS.

The 8MP ultrawide unit uses the OmniVision OV08D10-GA5A-001A sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and 120° FOV.

The iQOO Z9s Pro also comes with a couple of AI-powered features called AI Photo Enhance and AI Erase, which both require an active internet connection to work. The former is advertised to "swiftly fix all the blurry images in your gallery," while the latter helps remove unwanted objects and people from your photo.

The AI Photo Enhance feature can be used by heading to the iQOO Z9s Pro's default Album app, opening the photo, and clicking Edit > Repair > AI Photo Enhance. For AI Erase, you click on Edit > AI Erase.

You get two options in AI Erase - Smart circle and Manual smudge. The former automatically identifies and removes people and objects when you draw a circle on them, while the latter works more like a regular eraser as it removes the objects or people when you draw a line on them.

The iQOO Z9s Pro's primary and ultrawide cameras were quick to capture images. However, there was shutter lag at times in the 50MP High-Res mode, which has been mostly fixed.

The primary camera clicked some nice pictures in daylight in the Photo and High-Res modes, but they weren't perfect. The same can be said for the ultrawide camera. The camera performance was inconsistent. For instance, the sky color in some pictures clicked with the ultrawide camera and the primary camera's default Photo mode was the same, but the High-Res mode had a different hue.

Under strong sunlight, pictures taken with the primary camera in the Photo mode came out nice, but the ones clicked in High-Res mode had dull, washed-out colors at times with less sharpness, especially in shadows. The highlights and midtones were sharp enough with resolved details, though.

In dim daylight conditions, photos clicked with the ultrawide camera had noisy midtones - something we didn't see much with the primary camera in Photo and High-Res modes. Some ultrawide clicks also had noise in shadows, while pictures captured with the primary camera in High-Res had shadows with more resolved details compared to Photo mode and ultrawide pictures.

At night, there was inconsistency in sky colors since sometimes those were close to the source in Photo mode and sometimes in High-Res mode when clicked with the primary camera. They also had a purple-ish tinge at times. The pictures captured with the primary camera in High-Res mode had more sharpness, especially the text.

Some pictures captured in Photo mode had more sharpness, but their shadows were darker and had less detail. The highlights had more resolved details, though. When captured in High-Res mode, these same scenes had more noise around the edges.

At times, the light sources were also overexposed in pictures taken with the ultrawide camera and the primary camera's Photo and High-Res modes, with the surrounding midtones being soft and lacking details. Overall, the primary camera clicked photos at night which should be good enough for social media, but the ultrawide camera was less impressive.

We don't have many complaints about the portraits clicked with the primary camera in Portrait mode. They had nice subject separation at 1x and 2x magnification levels. They were actually better than we expected them to be.

Circling back to the AI Erase feature, the Smart circle method worked better than the Manual smudge, and we absolutely enjoyed using it. It's not perfect, of course, but it worked well.

Daylight Photos

Let's take a look at the daylight pictures first captured with the 8MP ultrawide camera, followed by photos taken with the 50MP primary camera, which has an output of 12.6MP in the default Photo mode.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification (16mm).

Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification (16mm)

Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification (26mm).

Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification (26mm)

Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification (26mm).

Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification (26mm)

Now, here are some pictures clicked in Portrait Mode at 1x and 2x magnification.

Portrait Mode, 1x magnification (26mm).

Portrait Mode, 1x magnification (26mm)

Portrait Mode, 2x magnification (52mm).

Portrait Mode, 2x magnification (52mm)

Low-light Photos

Now, let's take a look at some low-light photos. Once again, these were taken with the 8MP ultrawide and the 50MP primary camera.

Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification (16mm).

Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification (16mm)

Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification (26mm).

Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification (26mm)

Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification (26mm).

Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification (26mm)

AI Erase (AI Object Remover)

The AI Object Remover is one of the key camera features of the iQOO Z9s Pro. We used it to remove human subjects from some pictures; you can see it in action below.

Original Photo • Photo with AI Object Remover used

Original Photo • Photo with AI Object Remover used

Original Photo • Photo with AI Object Remover used

Original Photo • Photo with AI Object Remover used

Next up, we have a couple of 1080p videos recorded at 30FPS with Standard stabilization.

Now, we have two 1080p 30FPS videos recorded with Ultra stabilization. We went with 1080p resolution since the Ultra stabilization currently only works with 1080p 30FPS videos.

Battery

The iQOO Z9s Pro has a 5,500 mAh battery under the hood with 80W wired charging and 7.5W reverse wired charging support, allowing you to charge other devices with the smartphone.

We couldn't run our standard battery tests on the iQOO Z9s Pro. However, anecdotally speaking, the Z9s Pro should easily last most people a day on a single charge with moderate usage, 120Hz refresh rate, 5G mobile data, and Wi-Fi hotspot turned on.

We got a screen-on time of about six hours with a 120Hz refresh rate, 5G mobile data, and Wi-Fi hotspot enabled the whole time. Our usage consisted of web browsing, using social media apps, watching YouTube videos, and about an hour of heavy gaming. There were also times when we got 8-9 hours of SoT when we used the phone only for watching videos and using social media apps with the Wi-Fi hotspot turned on.

Once the iQOO Z9s Pro's battery is drained, you can juice it up with the bundled 80W power adapter. It's advertised to fill the cell from 1 to 30% in 11 minutes, 50% in 21 minutes, and 100% in 46 minutes, which wasn't the case in our charging tests.

In our testing, the iQOO Z9s Pro charged from 1% to 9% in 5 minutes, 19% in 10 minutes, 28% in 15 minutes, 38% in 20 minutes, 50% in 26 minutes, 58% in 30 minutes, and 100% in 52 minutes.

We ran the charging test with the 5G mobile data turned on and the Wi-Fi hotspot disabled. With the Wi-Fi hotspot enabled, the iQOO Z9s Pro went from 1% to 100% in 60 minutes; hence, your mileage will likely vary depending on your usage and the ambient temperature when charging the phone.

Conclusion

The iQOO Z9s Pro is one of the best smartphones you can buy in its segment in India right now. It has a nice build with a slim design and IP64 rating. The Z9s Pro is not the snappiest phone we've used, but it does offer a smooth performance and handles games well.

The iQOO Z9s Pro has an impressive battery life, backed by fast charging. Moreover, the smartphone takes nice daylight pictures, and portraits are good, too, but the cameras can sometimes be inconsistent. We would have also liked to see longer software support from iQOO.

The iQOO Z9s Pro starts at INR24,999 ($300/€275) in India and is worth considering.

vivo iQOO Z9s Pro

• 128GB 8GB RAM₹ 24,998

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