Will the OnePlus Nord 3 or the iQOO Neo 7 Pro take away the honours?
The battle for premium mid-range smartphones has been very competitive in the market as each manufacturer is putting out their best offering and similar is the story with both iQOO and OnePlus which have been very successful when it comes to their smartphones. Recently, OnePlus launched its third iteration of its Nord i.e. OnePlus Nord 3 (Review) and on the other hand, iQOO has come up with the iQOO Neo 7 Pro (Review).
Both these smartphones deliver very promising specifications as both have many things in common like 120Hz AMOLED displays with stereo speakers, premium design, 50MP triple camera setup, 5000mAh battery with fast charging, provide good performance and gaming, etc. But there are a lot of differences between both smartphones.
So which is the better option of the two and based on what aspects should you consider either of them? Let's find out in the full comparison.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Design:
In terms of build and design, both smartphones have a premium look but there are certain differences. With the Oneplus Nord 3, you get a smooth matte finish at the back that provides good grip and fewer fingerprints if you consider the Tempest Grey colour variant but if you choose the Misty Green colour variant, you will also get a glass back with a glossy finish that does attract quite some fingerprints.
On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro gets a vegan leather finish if you choose the Fireless Flame variant and the back looks premium and provides a solid grip while holding it in your hands. The Dark Storm variant has an AG glass with a smooth matte finish that shows a blue-to-grey hue at the back. The back of both smartphones has an IP54 rating at the back making them splash and dust-resistant.
The iQOO Neo 7 Pro weighs around 197 grams whereas the OnePlus Nord 3 weighs around 193 grams. At the back, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro gets a rectangular camera setup that houses a triple set of cameras whereas there is no such camera module on the OnePlus Nord 3 as you get two camera rings consisting of triple cameras.
Around the sides, both smartphones have a polycarbonate frame that houses the power button and volume buttons but the OnePlus Nord 3 gets the signature alert slider for setting different sound profiles. On the top, both smartphones get an IR Blaster with a secondary noise-cancelling microphone whereas, at the bottom, both of them get a USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker grille, a dual SIM card slot and a primary microphone.
Neither of them provides a 3.5mm headphone jack nor an additional slot for a microSD card for storage expansion. On the front, both smartphones have a punch-hole display with the punch-hole located on top to the centre. Around the display, both smartphones have thinner bezels. Overall, the build and design feel premium on both smartphones and it depends on your personal preference which one to choose.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Display:
On the front, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro as well as the OnePlus Nord 3 house a 6.7-inch AMOLED display but there is some difference in terms of resolutions on both of them. The OnePlus Nord 3 has a 1.5K (1240x2772 pixels) resolution compared to the Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) resolution on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. Both of them have a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9.
Since both of them have AMOLED displays, the colours look punchier and you have good viewing angles. Both these displays have a 120Hz refresh rate but the one on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is a dynamic one where the display switches between 30Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz depending on the content in the display whereas the refresh rate on the OnePlus Nord 3 is a standard one that either refreshes between 60Hz or 120Hz.
Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro gets a slightly higher 300Hz touch sampling rate compared to the 240Hz touch sampling rate on the OnePlus Nord 3 for faster touch responses. Both displays have different colour settings to choose from and you can set the display on either of them to a warmer or cooler tone.
In all HDR videos, the colours look saturated and better balanced on the OnePlus Nord 3 compared to the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. In terms of display brightness, the one on the OnePlus Nord 3 reaches a peak brightness of 1450nits which is slightly better than the 1300nits of peak brightness on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro so definitely, the OnePlus Nord 3 has slightly better visibility under direct sunlight of the two.
Since both these smartphones have an AMOLED display, both of them get an optical in-display fingerprint scanner that works faster and is accurate. Both smartphones have support for HDR on YouTube and there is support for Widevine L1 so you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Prime, Netflix, etc. and both them have support for HDR on Netflix.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Performance:
In terms of SoCs, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro holds the clear edge as it gets a powerful Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset compared to the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset on the OnePlus Nord 3. With daily activities like scrolling between web pages, streaming videos, playing games, etc., both smartphones could easily handle all of the tasks without breaking a sweat.
However, in some of the scenarios, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro provides faster app opening/closing compared to the OnePlus Nord 3. All heavy games like BGMI, Call Of Duty Mobile, etc. ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings and BGMI could easily run on HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates without any stutters or frame drops noticed.
However, the gaming is much better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro as iQOO has equipped an independent gaming chip that increases the frame rates and many features like a 4D vibration motor, motion-based controls, image quality tuning, etc. compared to the gaming mode on the OnePlus Nord 3 which comes with basic features like blocking necessary calls or notifications during gaming, small pop up of messages, etc.
After longer hours of gaming on both smartphones, the back of the iQOO Neo 7 Pro felt less warm compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 but they do get a dedicated liquid cooling system to dissipate heat faster. In terms of CPU throttling test, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro provides better-sustained CPU performance without any thermal throttling compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 which has some amount of thermal throttling present.
The benchmark scores came out slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro compared to the OnePlus Nord 3. In terms of network connectivity, both smartphones have support for good carrier aggregation and have around 8-9 bands of 5G. Both smartphones have 8/12GB LPPDDR5 RAM with 128/256GB storage having UFS 3.1 speeds. Definitely, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro holds a clear edge in terms of performance.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Software:
The iQOO Neo 7 Pro runs on the latest FunTouchOS whereas the OnePlus Nord 3 runs on the OxygenOS 13.1 both of which are based on Android 13 out of the box. Both the user interfaces provide a lot of customizations where you can change icon shape, size and colour, different styles for Always-On display, fingerprint scanner animation and also multiple wallpapers and themes.
However, there are certain differences between both user interfaces. The FunTouchOS has a simple look and feel whereas OxygenOS resembles ColourOS which looks colourful if you see the settings and some parts of the interface. The one big advantage that OxygenOS holds over the FunTouchOS is that there is no bloatware present whereas the latter one has a lot of pre-installed applications and apps.
However, these applications can be uninstalled but some of them cannot be removed. The OnePlus Nord 3 holds another advantage in terms of software updates where it will receive another three years of AndroidOS updates and four years of security patches compared to two years of AndroidOS updates and three years of security patches on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Cameras:
Both smartphones have a triple camera setup but there are some differences between both of them. The OnePlus Nord 3 has the 50MP f/1.8 Sony IMX890 sensor whereas the iQOO Neo 7 Pro houses the 50MP f/1.9 ISOCELL Samsung GN5 sensor for the primary cameras. The 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, 2MP f/2.4 macro camera and the 16MP selfie camera remain similar on both smartphones.
The images from the main camera come out with good details and dynamic range on both of them but there are certain differences between both. The colours look vibrant on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 which maintains natural colours but the noise is slightly less on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 and also it has a better contrast and white balance of the two.
At night, the images taken from both smartphones' primary cameras come out with good details but the dynamic range comes out slightly better on the OnePlus Nord 3 and the contrast and exposure are well-balanced compared to the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. The colour saturation is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro as it maintains a natural look compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 where a bit of oversharpening can be seen.
The noise level is slightly lower on the OnePlus Nord 3 compared to the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. The dedicated night mode on both, the details and dynamic range look equally good but here the iQOO Neo 7 Pro provides better exposure and details in the shadows do not look crushed. The images from the 8MP ultrawide camera on both smartphones come out with good details and dynamic range.
The colour saturation is well balanced on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro thus subjects look brighter and there is less noise compared to the OnePlus Nord 3. Both smartphones suffer from distortion around the edges but at night. It is definitely the iQOO Neo 7 Pro which provides slightly better dynamic range and contrast compared to the OnePlus Nord 3.
The colours look brighter on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro of the two. The OnePlus Nord 3 tends to oversharpen things during the night and also the details in shadows look crushed which is not the case with the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. Both have 2MP macro cameras and the images from both smartphones come out with average-looking details and dynamic range, a lot of noise and washed-out colours.
In terms of portraits, the edge detection is equally good on both smartphones but the details look slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and also it has natural-looking skin tones compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 which does introduce some artificial skin tone and oversharpening. The background blur and dynamic range are slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro but the difference is marginal.
The selfies come out with good details and dynamic range on both smartphones. The details look slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the skin tones have a natural look with less noise in the background compared to the OnePlus Nord 3. But the selfies on the OnePlus Nord 3 have a wider field of view compared to the iQOO Neo 7 Pro which does crop in some of the details to reduce noise.
In terms of videos, the primary camera on both smartphones can record 4K videos at 60fps and the videos come out with good details and dynamic range but the colours look vibrant on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro whereas the OnePlus Nord 3 maintains a natural look. The noise is slightly less in the videos taken by the iQOO Neo 7 Pro compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 if you consider 4K videos.
At 1080p video recording at 60fps, both smartphones provide excellent details and dynamic range with less noise in the videos. The 1080p videos at 30fps from both the ultrawide cameras come out with good details but the dynamic range is slightly better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and also it has less noise compared to the OnePlus Nord 3.
On the front, both smartphones are restricted to 1080p video recording at 30fps and clearly, the videos from the iQOO Neo 7 Pro have better details, natural-looking colours, and less noise compared to the OnePlus Nord 3 which does have punchier colours and the stabilization is not so good. However, the dynamic range is good on both and in terms of portrait videos, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is better.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Battery Life:
Both smartphones have a 5000mAh battery and in terms of normal usage which includes scrolling between web pages, streaming social media, viewing images in the gallery, etc., both of them could easily last for one and a half days with some charge left with the display set to 120Hz. The standard screen-on time was around 6-6.5 hours on both of them with heavy usage.
With heavy usage that includes playing games like BGMI, taking videos or images, running benchmarks, etc. both smartphones easily lasted for a single day with the display set to 120Hz. The standard screen-on time was around 3-4 hours on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro which is slightly better than the 3.5 hours of screen-on time on the OnePlus Nord 3.
In terms of charging, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is bundled with a 120W fast charger inside the box that takes it around 0 to 100 per cent within 25-30 minutes whereas the OnePlus Nord 3 is bundled with an 80W fast charger inside the box that takes it from 0 to 100 per cent within 35-40 minutes for a full charge completely.
iQOO Neo 7 Pro vs OnePlus Nord 3 Audio Quality:
Both the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the OnePlus Nord 3 come with a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds equally good but the sound feels better balanced and also the bass level is good on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro but you get better loudness on the OnePlus Nord 3 at the highest volume settings. There is support for Dolby Atmos on both smartphones for enhanced sound output.
Verdict:
Overall, both the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the OnePlus Nord 3 are well-balanced premium mid-range smartphones that have good specifications for the price which include good build and design, 120Hz AMOLED displays with stereo speakers for multi-media consumption, a good set of cameras, good performance and battery life with support for faster charging.
However, there are some differences in both smartphones. When it comes to the build and design, both smartphones are well built and feel premium, the display is slightly better on the OnePlus Nord 3 in terms of brightness levels and colour saturation compared to the iQOO Neo 7 Pro, and with the OnePlus Nord 3you get better software update policy and a cleaner software experience.
On the other hand, the iQOO Neo 7 Pro provides better performance and gaming experience, has a better set of cameras whether it is images or videos, the battery life with slightly faster charging is better on the iQOO Neo 7 Pro compared to the OnePlus Nord 3. So if gaming and cameras are your highest priority, then the iQOO Neo 7 Pro is the better option of the two.
But if you want the brand value of OnePlus and a cleaner software experience with no bloatware with well-balanced specifications, then the OnePlus Nord 3 is the perfect buy. So it all depends on your personal preference which one to choose but on an overall basis, it is the iQOO Neo 7 Pro that holds the clear edge over the OnePlus Nord 3.
This post first appeared on OnePlus 8 Pro Vs Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra: Which Is The Better Flagship Of The Two?, please read the originial post: here
