vivo iQOO 3 5G review

Design

The iQOO 3 5G is a built-in a familiar fashion for a modern smartphone from the upper echelons. An aluminum framework keeps things together and is exposed all around, while both the front and back panels are made of glass - Gorilla Glass 6, the specs say.

That's the basics, but there are details that are specific to the iQOO 3. Chief among those are the Monster Touch buttons. On the right side of the phone (or, rather, on top when you hold in right side up), in the opposite ends, there are these flattened zones in the frame which serve as shoulder buttons for in-game actions. They are labeled 'L' and 'R' in case you forget which way is which.

The buttons have 'touch' in their name, and we initially thought they worked capacitively, but after more careful examination, we're confident they require an actual press, a reasonably firm one. Think of it like the squeeze function on Google Pixels.

Monster Touch buttons

On this same side of the phone, there's also the power button and the volume rocker. Both are made of metal and have a very reassuring click action. The power button itself is textured so you can recognize it by touch alone. It's also orange which serves as a nice accent against the black satin frame.

While on the subject of colors, our review unit is in the Tornado Black color scheme. Well, black it isn't - strictly speaking, it's more of a dark purple around the periphery with a lighter hue in the middle. There's also a dotted pattern to be seen under the glass.

The camera assembly is in the top left corner with all the bits housed in a common raised area. Top to bottom, we have the flash, the 2MP depth sensor, the primary 48MP module, and the ultra-wide shooter. Alone to the right is the 2x zoom telephoto. A fairly discreet set of camera specs is printed here too.

Two other options are available - a Quantum Silver one we only caught a glimpse of at announcement time and the Volcano Orange one we got to play with a bit more.

That last one is the closest that the iQOO 3 5G gets to having the amount of flair expected from a gaming device. But even that is somehow more of a whacky and eye-catching colorway on an ordinary phone than a true gaming aesthetic. We can't say we don't appreciate the design restraint.

On the left side of the iQOO3 5G, directly opposite the volume down button, is what vivo interchangeably calls the AI button or Smart button. We'll talk more about it in the software section of this review, but let's just quickly mention here that you can disable it completely if that's what you wish.

The same flattened areas at the ends of this side of the frame don't have the 'L/R' designation, and unsurprisingly don't function as buttons.

On the bottom of the phone is where you'll find the USB-C port, centered. To the left of it is the primary mic for voice calls and the card slot - sadly, that'll only take two nanoSIMs but no microSD. The loudspeaker is to the right.

Up top is the secondary mic for in-call noise canceling. Here you'll also find the 3.5mm headphone jack - we've almost forgotten what these looked like, but we're always happy to see one.

Bottom view • Top view

A grille drilled out of the frame above the display serves to let out the sound of the earpiece, we don't recall quite the same particular placement. It's more than a little disappointing that this earpiece doesn't double as the second speaker - stereo sound is a must for a gaming phone, the way we look at things.

The 6.44-inch AMOLED display is surrounded by reasonably-sized bezels, equally sized on the sides and the top, a bit thicker on the bottom. A tiny cutout in the top right corner of the panel lets the selfie camera see the light of day - and it is one of the smallest punch holes we've seen.

The phone does come with a factory-installed screen protector, which is nice and all, but it just bugs us immensely that the hole for the selfie camera isn't centered around the actual selfie camera.

The tiniest of punch holes • Chin isn't too thick.

The iQOO 3 5G is quite the hefty unit, tipping the scales at 215g. That's kind of the norm for the segment though with the Redmi K30 Pro weighing in at 218g and the Realme X50 Pro 205g. It's a marginally chunkier unit too - it's 9.2mm thick next to the 8.9mm of each of these other two. The iQOO 3 5G's footprint is similar to the Realme's with which it shares a 6.44-inch display diagonal, while the Redmi is slightly bigger physically because it has a larger 6.67-inch screen.