iQoo might be a relatively new name in the gaming smartphone space, but the company is looking to change that with the launch of the iQoo 7 series in India. Scheduled for later this month, it could claim the title for quite a few segment-firsts – unless there are some major changes.
iQoo entered the Indian market in February 2020 with the iQoo 3, which was also the country’s first 5G smartphone. But since then, the company remained quiet and did not launch any other product. That is set to change in a few weeks with the iQoo 7 series and a few other devices later.
The iQoo 7 Legend will be the gaming brand’s best phone of the season, promising to create a new benchmark in terms of performance, regardless of the price. It could also be the pheon with the fastest charging when it launches, offering a full charge in under 20 minutes.
There will be other iQoo phones coming to India in the near future too, with leaks pointing at the iQoo Neo 5 and the iQoo Z3. For this, this is everything we know about the iQoo 7 in India.
Cut to the chase
iQoo 7 price and launch date
Before we talk about the upcoming phone(s), let’s try to make sense of the lineup. The ‘iQoo 7 Legend’ moniker being used by the company in all its communications does not exist in China, but the specs line up with the iQoo 7. We also know that the phone will have the Snapdragon 888 and will come in multiple variants, which rules out the possibility that Legend is a suffix for the top-of-the-line model.
All things considered, we believe that the Indian iQoo 7 Legend will be the Chinese iQoo 7, and the Indian iQoo 7 will be some other device entirely. Both of them will be unveiled together, forming the iQoo 7 series. The BMW Edition will also be available.
Gagan Arora has confirmed that the iQoo 7 India launch will take place towards the end of April, which is just a few days from now. The official date should be announced very soon.
Interestingly, the company has also teased about its pricing — aiming to steal the thunder from the OnePlus 9 series. The iQoo 7 Legend’s top variant (presumably with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage), will be priced under Rs 40,000 in India. This means that iQoo could have the cheapest Snapdragon 888 smartphone in India, unless Xiaomi pulls off a miracle with the Mi 11 series on April 23.
iQoo 7 Legend specs and features
For a mobile phone in India under Rs 40,000, the iQoo 7 Legend seems to have decent specs, at least on paper. Along with the Snapdragon 888 chipset, it has up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM (along with 3GB of additional virtual RAM) and 256GB of non-expandable UFS 3.1 storage. There’s a multi-layer cooling structure inside for thermal management.
Gamers will appreciate that the iQoo 7 Legend has a refresh rate of 120Hz for smoother visuals, on the 6.62-inch AMOLED display with HDR10+ support and105% NTSC coverage. There’s also an optical in-display fingerprint scanner. The screen is pressure-sensitive, where a deeper touch can be mapped as additional input options. You also get dual stereo speakers.
Display | 6.62-inch AMOLED, 120Hz |
Processor | Snapdragon 888 |
Camera | 48MP + 13MP + 13MP |
Battery | 4,000mAh + 120W charging |
For smartphone photography, the iQoo 7 Legend has a triple-camera setup with a 48MP f/1.8 primary sensor, a 13MP ultra-wide lens and a 13MP telephoto shooter with 2x magnification and 20x digital zoom. For selfies, there’s a 16MP camera on the front. Shooting modes include night scene, portraits, dynamic photos, time-lapse, document correction, etc.
Last but not least, the iQoo 7 Legend houses a 4,000mAh battery. While that might not sound extraordinary, it supports 120W fast charging which is claimed to take only about 15 minutes for a full charge — making it the fastest charging phone.
iQoo 7: what we want to see
120W fast charging
The Chinese iQoo 7 is one of the few smartphones in the world to support 120W fast charging. We hope to see the Indian iQoo 7 Legend offer this as well — perhaps as an optional accessory
A larger battery
At 4,000mAh, the iQoo 7 has a pretty average-sized battery running the show, which is unlikely to be enough for the power-hungry Snapdragon 888. If not for fast charging, the phone should at least offer a larger battery in the Indian variant
Origin OS
Historically, iQoo phones have used a customized version of Vivo’s FunTouch OS, which is one of the heaviest and most convoluted skins on any Android smartphone. We would like to see the global version of the iQoo 7 boot to Origin OS, which is Vivo’s new operating system.