Tencent Digital | Li Xincao
iQOO8 was released in August and iQOO9 was released in January of the following year. On the speed of replacement, iQOO has never served anyone.
With the official debut of the new generation of Snapdragon 8 platform, who grabs the first launch who has the goods has ended in the past month, in this quarter, there will be a number of manufacturers began to come up with their flagship mobile phones equipped with this chip.
The iQOO9 series caught up with the first release, and it can also be seen that vivo and Qualcomm have a close cooperative relationship. Of course, I am more concerned about the machine itself, as a new generation of iQOO flagship, this year vivo added quite a few new elements to this iQOO9 Pro.
It seems that testing the waters and innovation have long ago become vivo's label on the sub-brand of iQOO, and this time, what does vivo bring?
New LTPO technology under a new screen
In the past 2021, I have seen many manufacturers start to abandon curved screens and bring straight screens back to flagship products, you say antique, you say learn iPhones, but it is true that many manufacturers have done so.
As a strong supporter of the curved screen, I am very happy to see the curved screen still appear on the mobile phone on the iQOO9 Pro mobile phone, regardless of whether the curved screen has flaws in function, but in terms of appearance, the curved surface is justice, which is still applicable at the moment.
This is a brand new screen. Last year, on iQOO8, vivo used the screen of Samsung E5 luminescent materials, which is also the best screen that third-party manufacturers other than Apple can buy from Samsung, and iQOO9 Pro continues to use this screen.
But with last year's iQOO8 Pro is a little different, the LTPO technology on the iQOO9 Pro has been re-sorted and designed, last year can only achieve LTPO at 120Hz, this year's iQOO9 Pro has been improved.
iQOO9 Pro can now implement more scenario adaptations, such as:
1. In video, game, camera preview and other scenarios, it automatically matches the native frame rate of 24/30/60/90/120Hz.
2. In addition to scenes such as games, cameras, and videos, the refresh rate of the global APP is 120Hz when touched.
3. In no touch, only small animation scenes, the refresh rate is 30fps or 60fps.
4. In still scenes without touch and animation, the refresh rate is 10Hz.
As a result, last year's criticized LTPO is finally no longer a decoration on this generation of iQOO9 Pro, and I tested three more typical scenarios, including native apps like vivo store, information streams like Tencent News, and social media like Sina Weibo.
Dynamic frame rate when iQOO9 Pro is running native app store
As can be seen from the actual screen frame rate curve, this set of LTPO technology on the iQOO9 Pro can achieve a relatively dynamic picture frame rate change, when I quickly swipe the screen, the screen can be refreshed at a frame rate of 120fps, and when I slide the screen very slowly, the frame rate will be reduced to 30fps or even lower frame rate.
Of course, it is not to say that the LTPO of the IQOO9 Pro I am testing now is perfect, in the Android system, this set of technology is limited by the third-party App strategy formulated by Google, resulting in more LTPO optimization needs to be developed for specific applications, which is why almost all Android applications will first identify the program, and then achieve frame rate limitations. There is no way to achieve a global dynamic frame rate like ProMotion on iOS.
However, in terms of the Android system alone, iQOO9 Pro's optimization of LTPO technology this time is obviously much better than last year's iQOO8 Pro, especially in commonly used application scenarios, and indeed a more flexible dynamic refresh rate can be achieved. And the phone I got is still a test machine, the system is not a retail version, so for the LTPO performance after the listing, you can still look forward to it.
The new generation of Snapdragon 8 is standard
This year, Qualcomm released a new generation of Snapdragon 8 processors, and there are two things that many people did not expect.
The first is this year's naming conventions, there is no longer such a sequence as 888 and 898, Qualcomm learned Apple, and defined the Snapdragon according to the sequence number, high and low, at a glance. However, this also pains Chinese smartphone manufacturers, who want to add a new line of slogans to the promotional page that makes many people scratch their heads - "equipped with a new generation of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 mobile platform".
Another thing is that almost all the head manufacturers this year followed up very quickly, in early December, according to the communication release Snapdragon 8, Motorola with their advantages in north America near the water tower first grabbed the first launch, Millet, iQOO, realme, glory these brands are not willing to be behind, quick follow-up.
iQOO9 Pro is the fourth mobile phone with a new generation of Snapdragon 8 processor that has been released, supplemented by Samsung's LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1 memory, and the core hardware is full, which is commonplace for the flagship mobile phone of the iQOO series.
After turning on the monster mode of the mobile phone, AnTutu's test score was 1.03 million, which was the best of the four products equipped with snapdragon 8 processors that I had tested in the past, of course, the overall leading range was not large, after all, everyone was Snapdragon 8, and the bottom was there.
At the same time, iQOO in this mobile phone, redesigned the heat dissipation system, officially called the eighteen-layer cascading waterfall VC stereoscopic heat dissipation system, in fact, is the use of a large area of VC heat exhaust plate plus more laminated graphite heat dissipation, plus the screen is covered with a layer of fully fitted heat dissipation film, so that the two hottest parts of this mobile phone, including the processor and the screen can get better heat dissipation effect.
When Qualcomm released the 888 last year, the powerful performance of its X1 core and the huge heat it brought made manufacturers headaches. This year's new generation of Snapdragon 8 is still built by Samsung, 4nm process plus the new X2 core, the control of heat generation is still a huge test for mobile phone manufacturers.
iQOO's solution in addition to the above large-area stereoscopic cooling system, they also added a separate display chip on this phone, that is, the one used on neo5S before, which is actually a MEMC chip, which can do it through the algorithm for higher interpolation compensation for the game, helping low frame rate games to achieve a smoother display effect through the MEMC chip.
The beta version of iQOO9 Pro that I got supports the interpolation frame reduction of fifteen games basically includes the current mainstream popular games.
In the actual game testing session, I tested three mainstream applications, namely Glory of Kings, League of Legends mobile games and Peace Elite, of which King of Glory can achieve 120 frames of output on iQOO9 Pro, Peace Elite supports 90 frames of output, League of Legends mobile games, although 60 frames, but can achieve 120 frames of picture perception through dynamic compensation, but because the test software can not record, so the test curve is still completed at a full frame rate of 60fps.
Glory of Kings 120 frames game curves
The test was carried out at cold on + at room temperature. First look at the glory of the king, the 120fps screen has high requirements for hardware, which has been verified on many mobile phones that support 120fps glory before. I tested five innings of iQOO9 Pro and chose a more typical game of data, the game was about 15 minutes, the first 10 minutes or so the phone ran at 120Hz in a fairly stable state, and in the last few minutes, because the fuselage overheating processor began to downscal, the frame rate locked at 90Hz until the end of the game.
From the actual frame rate curve it is not difficult to see that the fluency of the overall picture remains very good, whether in the state of 120fps or 90Hz, the frame rate curve has not appeared significant fluctuations, but because the processor is overheated, the internal is close to the temperature threshold, iQOO9 Pro had to reduce the frequency lock frame, this situation is in line with the expectations at the beginning of the test, after all, it is a mobile phone, for the control of power consumption, almost every mobile phone manufacturer has chosen the same protection mechanism.
League of Legends 60 frames game curve
And in the 60-frame cap of the League of Legends mobile game, the situation is much better, the stability of the entire game screen is still excellent, but with the pressure of 120fps, under the screen of 60fps, iQOO9 Pro can give full play to the ability of the internal heat dissipation mechanism, while maintaining the stability of the screen, the heat of the mobile phone is obviously not as high as the glory of the king.
Peace Elite 90 frame game curves
In the Peace Elite test, the game graphics maintained a relatively good frame rate, almost iQOO9 Pro ran a test of about 25 minutes at full frame, but this was the best multi-game game I tested. After continuous testing, the iQOO9 Pro will also have the same frequency reduction situation as the glory of the king.
From the real situation reflected in the current game, the new generation of Snapdragon 8 for the test of mobile phone temperature control is still very strict, especially in the relatively limited use scenario of the king 120fps, the down-lock frame is almost a path that all mobile phone manufacturers will choose, the only difference is the adjustment of the frame rate stability and temperature critical point of each manufacturer.
Purely from the iQOO9 Pro game experience, you can clearly feel that iQOO in the tuning of this phone, in the time of extending this limit of the experience, especially when the 120fps of the king of glory running process, the fuselage temperature is too high, the phone will not experience the processor frequency repeatedly jumping situation, even in the down-frequency lock frame critical value a few seconds before, the stability of this picture is still maintained very well.
The first Samsung GN5, Samsung family barrel with full
Since vivo debuted the Darkstar Exynos 1080 processor on the X60 series, it seems that the partnership between Samsung and Vivo has become more and more dense. Disassembling the iQOO9 Pro, it is not difficult to find that this phone from the screen to the memory to the flash memory and then the lens is all from Samsung.
Vivo is equipped with a three-camera lens module for the iQOO9 Pro, all three lens sensors from Samsung. Among them, the main lens debuted Samsung's new GN5, the ultra-wide angle use of 50 million pixels of Samsung GN1, and the portrait lens used a 16 million pixel Samsung 3P9, equivalent to 60mm focal length.
The sensor used in this main lens is a new high-end lens sensor released by Samsung in October this year. It has 50 million pixels, 1/1.57-inch sensor area, 1.0μm per pixel, supports ISOCELL 2.0 technology and Dual Pixel Pro omnidirectional autofocus technology, pixel four-in-one technology, etc., can shoot 8K 30fps/4K 120fps/1080P 240fps video.
You can understand in a simple sense that this is a Sony IMX766 built by Samsung, and the physical gap between the two sensors is quite small, in addition to the difference in factory manufacturers and drivers.
At the same time, this main lens adds vivo's ancestral micro-PTZ stabilization technology, while the telephoto portrait lens supports OIS optical image stabilization technology.
However, it is a bit of a pity that iQOO did not debug this lens module before the conference, so the link of taking photos and testing, after the official version of the system update, we will complete it together.
Ultrasonic fingerprint + smaller 120W charging head are available
The ultrasonic fingerprint module used on the previous iQOO8 series still appears on this iQOO9 Pro, and all the advantages are completely inherited, including fingerprint verification entry that only needs one time, as well as a larger fingerprint unlock area and so on.
At the same time, on the iQOO9 Pro, it also continues to use the 120W wired + 50W wireless charging combination, and the battery capacity is increased to 4700mAh, still using a dual-cell design.
On the right is the new 120W charger
However, a little different is this generation of 120W charger, iQOO redesigned a gallium nitride charging head, the entire volume and weight is much smaller than the previous generation of 120W charging head.
In terms of actual charging speed, the charging power of 120W is still very fast, and the measured 20-21 minutes can fully charge this 4700mAh dual-cell lithium battery from 1% to 100%.
iQOO's new Snapdragon 8 answer sheet, are you still satisfied?
Obviously, last December and this year's Q1, will become the time period for major mobile phone manufacturers to release the new Snapdragon 8 smartphone, as the world's fourth smartphone manufacturer to release the chip, IQOO9 Pro is an answer sheet handed over by iQOO.
From the actual experience, this year's new Snapdragon 8 has extended the shortcomings of last year's Snapdragon 888 to a certain extent, and the substantial improvement of GPU performance has greatly improved the ability of mobile phones in graphics processing. But then comes the test of heat dissipation, last year's 888 has allowed all manufacturers to see the power of the dragon, and this year, manufacturers are also in the heat dissipation of their own ability.
Judging from the performance of the game link, the overall situation of iQOO9 Pro is good, although there will still be a frequency reduction, but the overall amplitude is not large, and it can be seen that the heat dissipation system in the mobile phone is still very solid.
On January 5, 2022, iQOO gave this New Year's answer sheet, are you still satisfied?