Check out the iQOO 12's camera samples from a weekend in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

01 December 2023

The iQOO 12 unveiled earlier last month in China is set to debut in India on December 12 as the country's first Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered smartphone. Beyond impressive performance, the iQOO 12 also sports a triple camera system on its rear comprising 50 MP primary, 50 MP ultrawide, and 64 MP periscope telephoto units.

The 50 MP primary and 64 MP periscope units have OIS, with the latter being used for 3x Portrait Mode and Telephoto Macro Mode, which will be some of the highlights of the "grand debut" this month. The 50 MP ultrawide camera has an FOV of 119˚ and expectedly doesn't have OIS.

We got our hands on the iQOO 12's Legend Edition this past weekend in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan in India, where we took some quick photos and videos. We are sharing them below so you can pixel-peep them yourselves. You can also use our Compare tool on the desktop version of the website to compare two images.

Daylight Photos

Let's look at the daylight photos first taken with the 50 MP ultrawide camera in the default Photo mode, having an output of 12.5 MP, followed by pictures captured with the 50 MP primary camera having an output of 12.6 MP at 1x and 2x magnification and 15.9 MP at 3x and 10x magnification.

Ultrawide camera, 12.5 MP, 0.6x magnification.

Primary camera, 12.6 MP, 1x magnification.

Primary camera, 12.6 MP, 2x magnification.

Primary camera, 15.9 MP, 3x magnification.

Primary camera, 15.9 MP, 10x magnification.

Here are a couple of 50 MP pictures taken in High Resolution mode.

Now here are some pictures taken with the 64 MP periscope camera in Telephoto Macro mode. It has an output of 12.5 MP at 1x and 2x magnification and 15.9 MP at 3x and 6x magnification. Interestingly, you get the Manual Focus slider in the Telephoto Macro Mode, which isn't the case with the default Photo mode regardless of the magnification level.

Periscope camera, 12.5 MP, 3x magnification.

Periscope camera, 12.5 MP, 6x magnification.

We also have a couple of Portrait Mode pictures, with their resolution the same as the Telephoto Macro Mode at 2x and 3x magnification.

Low-light Photos

Now, let's take a look at some low-light photos. These are taken with the 50 MP primary camera in the default Photo mode.

First, we have pictures captured at 1x, 2x, 3x, and 10x magnification levels.

Now, we have a couple of photos taken in the default Photo Mode and Night Mode.

We also have pictures taken in Telephoto Macro Mode with the 64 MP periscope camera at 3x and 6x magnification levels in low light.

Next up, we have a 1080p slow-mo video at 120 FPS.

And here's a 1080p slow-mo clip at 240 FPS.

We can only give you a detailed verdict for the iQOO 12's camera quality once we've completed our usual tests, but you can tell us what you think about the photos and videos in the comments below.

It's also worth mentioning that our unit is the international model running Android 14-based Funtouch OS 14. However, it's running a pre-release firmware, and iQOO has told us the smartphone will receive some OTAs before it goes on sale in India to further polish the camera performance. We'll make sure to examine that in detail when we get our hands on a retail unit.