The Nothing Phone 1 (Review) has been one of the hyped smartphones out there in the market that brings with itself a unique design with the Glyph LEDs at the back and does provide all the necessary specifications like a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 778G+ chipset, a 4500mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging and 15W wireless charging, a dual set of cameras, etc.

On the other hand, there is the iQOO Neo 6 (Review) which has been a successful smartphone as it brings some very good specifications along with the best gaming experience in the premium mid-range segment. It brings along a good design, a 120Hz AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 870 chipset for gaming and performance, and a good set of triple cameras with a 4700mAh battery with support for 80W fast charging.

So will the Iqoo Neo 6 continue to be the king in the premium mid-range segment or will the Nothing Phone 1 take this spot away from the iQOO Neo 6? Let's find out in the full comparison.

In terms of build and design, both have a completely different designs as the Nothing Phone 1 looks more like an iPhone and is slightly smaller than the iQOO Neo 6. The design is unique with a transparent back and a set of Glyph LEDs that are placed at the back to light up when you receive messages, during calls, and also while you receive a notification. 

The Nothing Phone 1 has a flat back and is very much curved around the edges whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has a back that curves to the sides.  On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 has a polycarbonate back with a smooth matte finish at the back that does provide a good grip while holding hands. But still, the back of the Nothing Phone 1 has Gorilla Glass 5 for protection which feels solid compared to the iQOO Neo 6. 

In terms of weight distribution, the iQOO Neo 6 weighs around 190grams compared to 193.5grams on the Nothing Phone 1. But while holding in hands, the iQOO Neo 6 feels lighter whereas the Nothing Phone 1 feels slightly heavy but is compact and fits in hands easily. Both of them have an IP53 rating at the back which makes them splash-resistant. 

Around the sides, the Nothing Phone is thinner at 8.3mm compared to 8.5mm on the iQOO Neo 6. The Nothing Phone 1 has an aluminum frame whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has a polycarbonate frame and both of them house the power button with the volume buttons. On the top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone on both smartphones but the iQOO Neo 6 has an additional IR Blaster. 

At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a primary microphone, and a dual SIM card slot on both of them. Neither of them has a microSD card slot for storage expansion nor a 3.5mm headphone jack. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display on both smartphones with thicker bezels on both. 

Overall, it all depends on personal preference whether you like the unique design of the Nothing Phone 1 or the iQOO Neo 6.

In terms of display, the Nothing Phone 1 sports a 6.55-inches display whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has a 6.62-inches display with both of them having Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) display and you get 120Hz refresh rate which makes things smoother while multitasking between applications. Since both have AMOLED displays, the color reproduction and viewing angles are good on both.

Talking about the 120Hz refresh rate, none of them have dynamic refresh rates instead have a standard refresh rate that either switch between 60Hz or 120Hz only. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, the Nothing Phone 1 gets a 240Hz touch sampling rate compared to the 360Hz touch sampling rate on the iQOO Neo 6, so the latter does provide slightly faster touch responses during gaming.

In terms of brightness, the display on the iQOO Neo 6 can achieve a peak brightness of 1500nits compared to 1200nits on the Nothing Phone 1 but under direct sunlight, both have good visibility but the iQOO Neo 6 has slightly punchier and saturated colors compared to the Nothing Phone 1. Both smartphones get their respective color modes to choose from and can be set to warmer or cooler tones.

Since both these smartphones have an AMOLED display, they have an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works fast. Both of them also get HDR support on YouTube and Widevine L1 so you can steam HDR content on OTT platforms but currently, there is support for HDR on Netflix only on the iQOO Neo 6 whereas the Nothing Phone 1 lacks, and this may be fixed in a future software update.

Overall, both these smartphones have an excellent display for media consumption but with slightly better brightness levels and support for HDR, the iQOO neo 6 edges slightly ahead of the Nothing Phone 1.

The Nothing Phone 1 sports a powerful Snapdragon 778G+ chipset compared to the Snapdragon 870 chipset which is one of the flagship chipsets of 2021 found on the iQOO Neo 6. In terms of daily usage, both smartphones feel smoother to use as they can handle almost all the tasks like scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, playing games, etc.

However, in in-app opening/closing speeds, the iQOO Neo 6 feels slightly faster compared to the Nothing Phone 1. Games like Call Of Duty Mobile, BGMI, etc. ran smoothly without any stutters or lags. In BGMI, we could achieve Smooth graphics with a 90fps frame rate whereas the Nothing Phone 1 can run only at HD graphics with HDR graphics but it can also run on Smooth graphics with Extreme frame rates.

After long hours of gaming on both smartphones, the back of the Nothing Phone 1 did feel slightly warmer compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which in turn runs cooler due to the dedicated cooling system present. In terms of CPU throttling tests, the iQOO Neo 6 reached a sustained performance of around 85-90 percent and on the other hand, no thermal throttling was noticed on the Nothing Phone1.

But coming to benchmarks, the scores both in Antutut v8 and Geekbench 5.1 are higher on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Nothing Phone 1. In terms of network connectivity, both smartphones have support for good carrier aggregation and in terms of 5G support, the Nothing Phone 1 has support for 12 bands of 5G whereas the iQOO Neo 6 has support for 4 bands of 5G.

The Nothing Phone 1 is available in three different variants - 8GB RAM with 128GB storage, 8GB RAM with 256GB storage, and 12GB RAM with 256GB storage whereas the iQOO Neo 6 is only available in two different variants - 8GB RAM with 128GB storage and another 12GB RAM with 256GB storage where both have LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 3.1 storage speeds.

Overall, the performance is good on both smartphones but when it comes to gaming, the iQOO Neo 6 holds the edge.

The Nothing Phone 1 runs on the NothingOS whereas the iQOO Neo 6 runs on the FunTouchOS out of the box and both the user interface are based on Android 12 out of the box. In terms of software experience, both the user interfaces provide a lot of features but FunTouchOS has a lot of customizations where you can change the icon shape and size, different styles for Always-On display, and many others.

There are some differences between both user interfaces where Nothing has gone for a dot matrix font found on the back of the smartphone and also in some places in the user interface in the settings. The FunTouchOS, on the other hand, does have any flashy stuff but it comes with some amount of bloatware that can be uninstalled and also you do get very annoying notifications from different applications at times. 

However, this is not the case with the Nothing Phone 1 which provides almost a Stock Android experience with no bloatware present. In terms of software updates, the Nothing Phone 1 is assured of another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security updates whereas the iQOO Neo 6 is assured to get another two years of AndroidOS updates and three years of security patches. 

In terms of software experience, the Nothing Phone 1 holds a clear edge over the iQOO Neo 6.

The Nothing Phone 1 sports a dual camera setup that houses a 50MP f/1.9 Sony IMX766 sensor for the main camera and a 50MP f/2.2 Samsung JN1 sensor for the ultrawide camera and on the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 gets a triple camera setup that includes a 64MP f/1.9 Samsung GW1 sensor for the main camera, an 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera.

On the front, both smartphones get a 16MP camera. In terms of images from the main camera, the details look equally good on both smartphones and there is also no difference in dynamic range between both, but the details look slightly sharper on the Nothing Phone 1, and also it produces natural colors compared to slightly saturated colors on the iQOO Neo 6.

The images taken from the iQOO Neo 6 have better control in HDR and no oversharpening which is clearly seen on the Nothing Phone 1. The noise is also slightly higher on the images of the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Nothing Phone 1. But things completely change when it comes to low-light performance on both the smartphones' main cameras.

When it comes to details and dynamic range, the iQOO Neo 6 images have sharper details and very less noise in the background compared to the Nothing Phone 1 but the difference is marginal. Though the Nothing Phone 1 has natural colors in the background, the exposure takes a hit in low-light scenarios. The iQOO Neo 6 has brighter images and also controls light flair much better than the Nothing Phone 1.

Using the dedicated Night Mode, the Nothing Phone 1 does a good job and is almost equivalent to that of the iQOO Neo 6 images with the Night Mode turned on, but still, the iQOO Neo 6 takes better images compared to the iQOO Neo 6. 

In terms of ultrawide camera performance, the Nothing Phone 1 holds the clear edge as it gets a 50MP ultrawide camera that takes sharper details and has a much better dynamic range compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which has an 8MP ultrawide camera. The colors look equally good on both smartphones and both of them suffer from distortion around the edges. However, still the images come out better on the Nothing Phone 1. 

At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with sharper details and dynamic range on the Nothing Phone 1 and exposure is well under control compared to the iQOO Neo 6 which comes with softer details and a lot of noise is present in the background. Both of them get a dedicated Night Mode on the ultrawide camera but still the Nothing Phone 1 takes better images than the iQOO Neo 6.

The iQOO Neo 6 has a dedicated 2MP macro camera which is a fixed focus camera and the images come out with decent details with poor dynamic range and a lot of noise present in the background. On the other hand, the Nothing Phone 1 uses its ultrawide camera as a macro camera, so you get much better details that look sharper and the dynamic range is very good as you can also apply a crop by going closer to the subject.

When it comes to portraits, the details look better on the iQOO Neo 6 and the human skin tones look accurate with natural colors compared to the Nothing Phone 1 which tends to oversharpen the skin tones. The edge detection is perfect on both but the level of background blur is better on the iQOO Neo 6 and also the noise is lower compared to the Nothing Phone 1.

In terms of selfies, both the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQOO Neo 6 do a good job in terms of details and dynamic range but skin tones look natural on the iQOO Neo 6, and also at night, the selfies come out brighter on the iQOO Neo 6 compared to the Nothing Phone 1. The portrait selfies have slightly better details on the iQOO Neo 6 whereas both are good when it comes to background blur and edge detection.

The Nothing Phone 1 can shoot only 4K videos at 30fps whereas the iQOO Neo 6 can record 4K videos at 60fps. The videos come out with sharper details and good dynamic range on both smartphones but the stabilization is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 6 and also it has saturated colors when compared to the natural colors of the Nothing Phone 1.

Both smartphones can record 1080p videos at 30fps on their ultrawide cameras, the Nothing Phone 1 takes videos with better dynamic range and noise is also lower compared to the iQOO Neo 6. On the front, both smartphones are restricted to 1080p videos at 30fps and iQOO Neo 6 takes better videos as it has EIS present and the dynamic range is also better compared to the videos on the Nothing Phone 1.

In terms of battery capacity, the iQOO Neo 6 sports a slightly larger 4700mAh battery compared to the 4500mAh battery on the Nothing Phone 1. Both these smartphones can easily last for two days with normal usage that includes casual gaming, web browsing, streaming social media, etc with the display set to 120Hz, and with heavy usage, both smartphones can last for one day and some more.

The standard screen-on time was around 7-8 hours on the Nothing Phone 1 which is slightly better than the 6-7 hours of screen-on time on the iQOO Neo 6. NothingOS seems to be very well optimized compared to FuntouchOS in terms of battery life. When it comes to charging, there are a couple of differences between both smartphones.

The iQOO Neo 6 sports an 80W fast charger bundled inside the box which charges it from 0 to 100 percent within 40-45 minutes whereas on the other hand, the Nothing Phone 1 supports only 33W fast charging and there is no charger bundled inside the box. But the Nothing Phone 1 gets 15W fast wireless charging and 5W reverse wireless charging speeds. 

So it all depends on personal preference whether you like faster-charging speeds or need that wireless charging feature.

Both the Nothing Phone 1 and the iQOO Neo 6 get a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds adequately loud and clear on both but the sound output through the speakers is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 6 and also it has a 3.5mm to USB Type-C converter inside the box which the Nothing Phone 1 lacks. Both do also get Dolby Atmos setup for enhanced sound profiles.

The premium mid-range segment battle between the iQOO Neo 6 and the Nothing Phone 1 has been very close as each of them has a great set of capabilities and there are very few things are common except for the 120Hz refresh rate on the display and the presence of stereo speakers. If you look at the Nothing Phone 1, you get a unique design with those Glyph LEDs present on the transparent back.

Other than that you get a good 120Hz AMOLED display and set of stereo speakers for media consumption, the software experience is very good though it has few bugs, you do not get any bloatware and the update cycle is also better than the iQOO Neo 6. The cameras are also very good especially when it comes to the main camera and ultrawide camera in most scenarios.

The battery life is also better compared to the iQOO Neo 6 and comes with some interesting features like support for wireless charging and daily performance and the gaming experience are very good on the Nothing Phone 1. On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 6 has a slightly better display, provides an excellent gaming experience, and feels faster in daily activities than the Nothing Phone 1.

The cameras are good on the iQOO Neo 6 when it comes to low-light performance, selfies, and also in terms of videos. The 80W fast charging is a great feature for those quick top-ups and provides a feature-rich software experience though it has some bloatware pre-installed. So if design, clean software experience, and battery life are your highest priority, then the Nothing Phone 1 is a great buy.

But if you are someone who is more focused on gaming and performance, a great display for media consumption, and those faster-charging speeds without caring about the bloatware, then the iQOO Neo 6 is a perfect buy. So it all depends on personal preference and you cannot go wrong by choosing any of the two.