vivo iQOO 3 hands-on review

Design and controls

Kicking things off with design, we just have to talk about the color options. Tornado Black and Quantum Silver are both pretty slick and could blend-in nicely in practically every environment, but Volcano Orange is something else. It even feels a bit different, texture-wise. A bit "silky". We're sure it's not going to be to everybody's taste, but it is undeniably distinct and eye-catching. Even so, the specked paint job manages to come off surprisingly subdued, especially for a "gaming" design.

Generally, gaming design tends to go a bit overboard and relies heavily on red, green and sometimes blue, with strong angles and lines. However, coming from a PC gaming scene perspective, yellow and orange shades definitely have their established place underneath the sun. In this sense, the vivo iQOO 3 instantly reminded us of certain popular Gigabyte "gaming" paint jobs, instantly conveying a gaming pedigree in the right crowd. Props to vivo on that front.

Plus, shying away from harsh and bold corners and angles, as vivo tends to do for its iQOO line, allows for arguably more relaxed and comfortable body shape. Even with its relatively big and flat, 9.2 mm metal frame, the iQOO 3 fits snug in the palm. The arching back is also just the right kind of familiar and allows surprisingly good ergonomics on a 158.5 x 74.9 body. The 214.5 gram weight of the unit is a bit on the heavier side and could take some getting used to. But, overall, if you are coming from any other recent smartphone, the iQOO 3 won’t require any major readjustment.

vivo iQOO 3

The standard control placement helps in this respect as well. A single speaker on the bottom, alongside the Type-C port and main microphone. Also there - a dual nanoSIM card slot. Unfortunately, no microSD for storage expansion. A few "gamer" points off for that. On the top side - the secondary microphone and a good, old 3.5mm audio jack. Arguably, a great addition, or rather, retention on a gaming phone, for several reasons. On the left side - just a single Ai assistant button, which is hopefully re-mappable and on the other side - the power button and volume rocker. The former nicely accented in orange in all of the iQOO 3's color options. These buttons feel nice and "clicky".

One of the main "gaming" attractions on the iQOO 3 is the pair of touch-sensitive capacitive trigger areas, also housed on the right frame. These are positioned on the far sides of the phone, just right for your index fingers to reach and placed inside little grooves for easy feeling around. Vivo calls these Monster Touch Buttons and they are not a new concept, also appearing on the iQOO Pro.

But that should be interpreted as praise, rather any sort of complaint, since such controls actually make a lot of sense for a gaming device and provide a tangible advantage while playing. Vivo's particular realization of the feature might not be as advanced as what Asus has on the ROG line, but the Monster Touch Buttons still feel solid.

Pressing on the capacitive areas is also, surprisingly, not devoid of feedback, thanks to an advanced 4D haptic vibration system inside the iQOO 3. It promises to properly simulate recoil when shooting and steering feedback in racing games. We'll just have to verify that once we get to review the phone. The top Monster Touch Button, in combination with the Ai button, is also used to quickly activate the predictably named Monster mode. But, more on software in a bit.

First, a few words about the iQOO 3's display. Vivo refers to the 6.44-inch unit as Polar View Display, but is also not shy about calling it Super AMOLED, which likely reveals its Samsung origins. It definitely looks the part in person, with bright and punchy colors. It's advertised peak brightness is a whopping 1200nits, it has HDR10+ certification and its touch-polling rate is set at 180Hz, instead of the mass 60Hz and even better than some other gaming phones, operating at 120Hz.

The particularly tight and small punch hole for the front-facing 16MP, f/2.5 camera also has Samsung's tech written all over it.

As for the more disappointing bits, the display on the iQOO 3 is only capable of a 60Hz refresh rate. Kind of unfortunate. Its FullHD resolution is also worth mentioning. Though, that can be both a minus and a plus, depending on how you look at things since a lower resolution will net you generally smoother gaming experience.

Rounding-off display hardware, the iQOO 3 has an in-display fingerprint solution, which vivo claims is upgraded. Thanks to a GX chip, it promises unlock time of just 0.29 seconds when the display is on and 0.31 seconds, while it is off.