vivo iQOO Z3 5G hands-on review

Design and handling

It's not only about the looks; the phone has to feel nice in hand. And the iQOO Z3 is kind of a mixed bag when it comes to build quality and handling. Since it's entirely made of plastic, it may not appeal to some. Sure, not all rivals are made of glass, like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, but we didn't find the Z3's finish very convincing. Vivo was perhaps going for the frosted glass-like finish and didn't exactly nailed it. We are not saying the plastic feels cheap, but you can definitely tell.

The side frame is also made of plastic, while the front panel is protected by Panda Glass, as opposed to the more popular Gorilla Glass solution.

On the bright side, the overall feel of the iQOO Z3 is sturdy, yet lightweight. The frame doesn't creak or bend, and the chassis lies well-balanced in hand. It's just 185g after all and isn't all that thick either, measuring 8.5mm without the camera bump.

Also, the Cyber Blue color does look awesome. Subtly changes color depending on the angle, while the gradient itself looks super smooth.

From usability standpoint, the handset should have gotten a slightly curvier back but still doesn't feel too heavy. Binging TV shows or playing games is comfortable and doesn't take a toll on your palms. Mostly due to the lightweight design, though.

The camera bump is big enough to cause some wobbling when you place the device on its back; slapping the bundled case on fixes that. The design of the bump, which is one of the few distinctive features in today's handsets, is in line with vivo's other phones.

We rate highly the usability of the buttons placed on the side too. They are just within thumb's reach; the power button that doubles as a fingerprint reader is easy to "feel" too. We are quite happy with the performance too - fast, accurate, reliable.

All in all, we don't have any major complaints about the build, it's just that there might be some better options build-wise. If you are in for the dazzling Cyber Blue color, though, we would understand.

Hardware overview

One of the key selling points of the Z3 is the 5G connectivity. Rocking a capable Snapdragon 768G is admirable enough, so the 5G modem is just a bonus. After all, 5G deployment in India and most parts of the world is rather slow, so not many people would benefit from the next-generation network. Even though vivo says this is the most sought after feature these days, hence why they opted for such chipset and name.

The Snapdragon 768G is still a capable midranger based on the 7nm manufacturing process and taking advantage of ARM's DynamIQ architecture, meaning it has a big, higher-clocked core doing the hardcore number crunching in addition to the usual ones you'd find in a typical mid-range SoC. The CPU is still octa-core, though.

India gets almost all memory variants excluding the beefiest possible version - 12GB/256GB. So you can choose between 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB and 8GB/256GB. You can expand the storage with a microSD card, which uses a shared SIM slot, no matter which one you choose.

The display is another highlight feature as it features a 1080 x 2408px resolution and runs those pixels at 120Hz. It all fits in a 6.58-inch diagonal. This may not sound like a big issue for some, quite the opposite actually, if we can trust the comment section, but the Z3 uses a standard IPS LCD panel instead of OLED, which has become a standard in the mid-range segment in recent years. There's also a teardrop notch on the top, and we really thought this design had been phased out. Punch-hole cutouts are the new thing.

On the other hand, you get some bonus features such as HDR10, HLG codecs support, and the handset is Widevine L1 compliant, so you can watch 1080p movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

The bundled 55W charger is supposed to get 50% of the charge in just 19 minutes, while a full one would take 50 minutes. Given the 4,400 mAh battery, that's pretty fast. However, our testing shows 55 minutes to a full charge, so there might have been some thermal throttling along the way. Still quite fast, though. Speaking of the battery, we found that it easily gets us through the day at a 120Hz refresh rate and Wi-Fi most of the time.

The camera setup is lead by Samsung's budget ISOCELL GW3 64MP sensor. We say budget because it's relatively smaller than the more common 64MP, 1/1.72" units with 0.87µm pixels. This one has smaller 0.7µm pixels and measures 1/1.97" in size. The sensor is paired with f/1.8 aperture, while the 8MP ultrawide gets a smaller f/2.2 opening, though with a rather wide field of view - 120˚. The usual 2MP, f/2.4 macro camera is around too. And as for selfies, a 16MP, f/2.0 shooter sits inside the notch.

Performance

The Snapdragon 768G has been in our office, so we know what to expect. The benchmark results seem just about within the normal margin of error. From a day-to-day usability standpoint, the Z3 held up pretty well and handles those 120Hz animations with ease. Everything is smooth and snappy.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  2055
• Motorola Edge
  1862
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  1812
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  721
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  641
• Motorola Edge
  586
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  453223
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  372800
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  318672
• Motorola Edge
  305989
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  45
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  25
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  19
• Motorola Edge
  19
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  19

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  21
• Motorola Edge
  18
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  17
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• vivo iQOO Z3 5G
  1954
• OnePlus Nord CE 5G
  1103

We even had a long gaming session on Call of Duty Mobile with no issues whatsoever. The phone didn't get uncomfortably warm. However, none of the games we've tried ran at 120Hz - they were locked at 60fps, including CoD.