iQOO unveiled the iQOO 15R as the first ‘R’ model in its number lineup in India. It’s primarily aimed at young professionals looking for a smartphone that’s compact and easy to use with one hand, but also packs a powerful chipset under the hood and has a great battery life. Does the iQOO 15R deliver all that? We used it for a couple of weeks to find that.
Design
The iQOO 15R has a 6.59″ 1,260p 144Hz AMOLED screen on the front, surrounded by 1.25mm bezels on the left and right sides, with the top and bottom bezels measuring 1.46mm and 1.77mm, respectively.
The display has a centered punch-hole for the 32MP selfie camera.
Furthermore, the iQOO 15R’s display has a 3D ultrasonic fingerprint scanner embedded, advertised to work even with sweaty fingers. We found the fingerprint scanner to be fast and accurate during our usage, with its placement, which isn’t close to the bottom bezel, facilitating a comfortable phone-unlocking experience.
Flip the iQOO 15R around, and you get a squircle-shaped camera island. Its design reminds us of the iQOO 15 and previous iQOO flagships. We would like iQOO to adopt a new design for the camera island, but we can see iQOO’s loyal fans arguing that Apple also launched iPhones with an identical camera layout for years.
iQOO 15 (left) with iQOO 15R (right)
That said, even though the iQOO 15R camera island’s shape is identical to the iQOO 15 and previous flagships, the cameras inside are arranged differently. The island houses two horizontally aligned cameras – 50MP primary and 8MP ultrawide – with the LED flash placed outside.
It’s also worth noting that the camera island doesn’t protrude much, so the phone hardly wobbles when used on a flat surface, which is nice.
The iQOO 15R comes in Dark Knight and Triumph Silver colors, and it’s the latter that’s the subject of this review. Both models have flat rear panels; however, their thickness and weight differ. With an 8.10mm thickness and 206 g weight, the Triumph Silver version is 0.2mm thicker and 4 g heavier than the Dark Knight version.
iQOO 15R’s Dark Knight model (left) with Triumph Silver model (right)
The Dark Knight model appears greyish in some lighting conditions and features a fiberglass back that smudges easily. It has a stealthy look, though, and is better suited for those who want something for a formal occasion.
The Triumph Silver version, on the other hand, flaunts a glass back that rarely got smudged during our usage. The back cover has a checkered design, and while it might look like the panel has a textured finish, it actually doesn’t. That said, this design looks cool, but it’s only properly visible when light reflects at right angles. It’s good for those wanting something with a casual look.
Like the flat back panel, iQOO 15R’s frames are also flat. They are made of metal and have a matte finish. On the right frame are the volume rocker and power button – both with good feedback. At the bottom is the USB-C port, joined by the SIM card slot, the primary microphone, and a speaker grille. On the opposite side is the secondary microphone with an IR blaster and another speaker outlet.
iQOO 15R’s ports and controls
With a 6.59″ display, the iQOO 15R isn’t exactly a compact phone, but we found it compact enough to comfortably hold and use with one hand. It’s IP68 and IP69-rated, and has a nice build and an in-hand feel. However, the fully flat rear panel might not be to everyone’s taste, and it could have benefited from some curved edges like those on the iQOO Neo9 Pro and iQOO 12 have for a more comfortable in-hand experience.
Display
The iQOO 15R is built around a 6.59″ AMOLED display having 2,750×1,260-pixel resolution and 459 ppi pixel density. It supports a 144Hz refresh rate, but it’s restricted to gaming, which is a bummer. Similarly, the 360Hz touch sampling rate is limited to gaming, while regular usage supports a 130Hz sampling rate. iQOO is also advertising an instant touch sampling rate of up to 3,200Hz, which can be achieved only when gaming.
The iQOO 15R’s screen, protected by Schott Xensation Alpha glass, supports 1.07 billion colors. Additionally, it supports HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG codecs, and is Widevine L1-certified, enabling 1080p video streaming on compatible apps.
The smartphone’s display has 5,000 nits peak brightness, with the lowest brightness possible being 1 nit. The screen is incredibly bright, and we had no issues watching any content even under strong sunlight.
Circling back to the screen refresh rate, the iQOO 15R’s AMOLED panel supports 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and 144Hz refresh rates. You get three refresh rate options in the display settings menu – Smart adaptation, Standard (60Hz), and High (144Hz). When you select High, you get an “Apps running at a high refresh rate” option in that menu, which lets you select the apps/games you want to run at 144Hz.
With the refresh rate set to High and enabled for all apps and games, the refresh rate increased from 60Hz to 120Hz for the system menus and apps when interacting with the screen. It remained at 60Hz when viewing images in the default Photos app, Google Photos, Facebook, Instagram, and X, and when playing videos in YouTube and the Photos apps.
With the Standard mode, everything expectedly remained at 60Hz. The Smart adaptation mode is basically the High mode, with the maximum refresh rate limited to 90Hz in most apps, including YouTube, Google Chrome, Google Photos, Facebook, Instagram, and X. A few apps, including GSMArena and Quora, were restricted to 60Hz.
iQOO says the 144Hz refresh rate is only for gaming. However, when we played some of the games on the iQOO 15R that we usually play on smartphones during reviews, we didn’t see the panel switching to 144Hz in any mode.
The frame rate and refresh rate remained at 60FPS and 60Hz when playing Call of Duty: Mobile, regardless of the refresh rate mode, while Sky Force: Reloaded ran at 60FPS in High mode, with the panel reaching 120Hz. Dead Trigger 2 was playable at 120FPS and 120Hz in both High and Smart adaptation modes.
To conclude, if you want the smoothest experience possible on the iQOO 15R, the High refresh rate mode is your best option.
Software and Performance
The iQOO 15R has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 SoC at the helm, unlike the flagship iQOO 15, which is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip. The 15R comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X Ultra RAM and 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. The unit we have is the top-end 12GB/512GB model.
Additionally, the iQOO 15R has the Supercomputing Chip Q2 under the hood, designed to support low-latency gaming with improved frame stability and enhanced image processing. The Chip Q2 is also advertised to support 1.5K Game Super, enabling stable 144 FPS gaming through game frame interpolation, which didn’t happen when we played the games mentioned above.
On the software side, you get Android 16-based OriginOS 6 with the promise of four years of OS upgrades and six years of security updates. iQOO told us that security updates will be released monthly for the first four years and quarterly thereafter.
The iQOO 15R comes pre-loaded with eight third-party apps and games, all of which can be uninstalled.
The overall software features and experience you get with the iQOO 15R are almost identical to the iQOO 15, so you can read our iQOO 15 review to learn more about OriginOS 6.
Regarding performance, the iQOO 15R was very smooth in everyday use, and there were no stutters, even when playing games such as Call of Duty: Mobile for over an hour. The phone did get hot after long gaming sessions, but not to the point that it affected the performance or hampered the user experience.
You can check the charts below to see how the iQOO 15R performed in synthetic benchmarks. Its scores are in line with other Snapdragon 8 Gen 5-powered smartphones we tested; however, the 3DMark scores were quite low.
And now we have a couple of screenshots showing the iQOO 15’s sustained performance in CPU and GPU stress tests.
CPU test • GPU test
Camera
The iQOO 15R comes with three cameras – one on the front and two on the back. The front camera uses the 32MP GalaxyCore GC32E1-WA1XA sensor, has an f/2.45 aperture, and can record videos in up to 4K resolution at 60 FPS.
The dual camera setup on the rear comprises a 50MP primary and an 8MP ultrawide camera.
The primary camera uses the Sony LYT-700V sensor, has OIS, f/1.88 aperture, and is capable of recording videos in up to 4K resolution at 60 FPS. The ultrawide camera uses the OmniVision OV08F10-GA5H-001B sensor and has an f/2.2 aperture.
Needless to say, this camera setup won’t give you the same results as the one on the flagship, more expensive iQOO 15. However, it does take daylight pictures that are good enough for social media. The camera system isn’t the iQOO 15R’s KSP after all.
We took some pictures with the iQOO 15R, which you can check below.
Daylight Photos
Let’s see the daylight pictures first, captured with the iQOO 15R’s 8MP ultrawide camera, followed by the 50MP primary camera.
Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification.
Ultrawide camera, 8MP, 0.6x magnification
Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification.
Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification
Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification.
Primary camera, 50MP (High resolution), 1x magnification
Low-light Photos
We also took a few quick photos in low light with the iQOO 15R’s primary camera.
Primary camera, 12.6MP, 1x magnification
Battery
The iQOO 15R is fueled by a 7,600 mAh battery, having 100W wired charging and 7.5W reverse wired charging support. It also supports bypass charging.
We couldn’t run our standard battery tests on the iQOO 15R as those can only be run at our HQ. However, anecdotally speaking, the smartphone easily lasted an entire day on a single charge with moderate usage when 5G mobile data and Wi-Fi hotspot were turned on, and the High (144Hz) refresh rate and 2,750×1,260-pixel resolution were enabled.
The iQOO 15R’s battery is advertised to charge up to 50% in 33 minutes and to 100% in 63 minutes with the bundled 100W FlashCharger. However, that wasn’t the case in our charging tests.
In our testing, the iQOO 15R charged 17% in 15 minutes, 36% in 30 minutes, 50% in 42 minutes, 71% in 1 hour, and 100% in 1 hour and 19 minutes. It took another 5 minutes for the battery full status to appear on the screen.
Your mileage will likely vary depending on your usage and the ambient temperature when charging the iQOO 15R.
Conclusion
At the beginning of this review, we stated that the iQOO 15R is aimed at young professionals looking for a smartphone that’s easy to use with one hand, comes with a powerful chip, and offers good battery life. Does the iQOO 15R deliver on that? Yes, absolutely.
The iQOO 15R is easy to use with one hand, offers smooth, lag-free performance, and has a great battery life. The smartphone’s display is incredibly bright, and while the rear cameras aren’t flagship-grade, they produce photos good enough for social media.
The iQOO 15R comes in Dark Knight and Triumph Silver colors with three memory options in India – 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB, and 12GB/512GB, priced at INR44,999 ($480/€415), INR47,999 ($510/€440), and INR52,999 ($565/€490), respectively.
All things considered, the iQOO 15R gets our recommendation.