Poco F7 vs iQOO Neo 10: Which phone is a better buy under ₹35,000?

Mint

10 hours ago

The mid-range smartphone segment is currently at a boiling point with a launch of number of good offerings, two of which that most catch the eye being the Poco F7 and the iQOO Neo 10 - both of which compete for more or less the same spot. But if you are in the market for a new phone, which one of them should you consider? Let's take a deep dive in this article.
Poco F7 features a 6.83 inch 1.5K OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and 2560Hz of instant touch sampling rate. The phone packs a peak brightness of 3200 nits and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i on top.
One good thing with the Poco F7 is that it comes with IP68 and IP69 rating which translates to the phone potentially being able to handle being submerged in 1.5 meters of water for up to 30 minutes and taking in hot/cold jet sprays from any direction.
Meanwhile, the iQOO Neo 10 packs a slightly smaller 6.78 inch 1.5K AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate and 5,500nits of peak brightness. The Neo 10 comes with IP65 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it isn't completely waterproof and can only potentially handle splashes and light rainfalls.
The iQOO Neo 10 and Poco F7 are equally matched in the power department with both the devices being powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor with Adreno 825 GPU. They also have the same LPDDR5x RAM and UFS 4.1 storage options.
One thing to be noted here is that iQOO comes with a lower RAM option on the base variant (8GB) compared to the Poco F7 (12GB). The Neo 10 also only supports UFS 4.1 on the 256GB and 512GB variant while the F7 gets UFS 4.1 on both the variants.
A big caveat with the camera comparison is that I haven't physically tried on the Poco F7 yet which means it won't be possible for me to give the readers an empirical analysis on the mid-range phone's camera performance. That being said, even the camera specifications could give us much to differentiate the two phones by.
Poco F7 comes with a 50MP Sony IMX882 primary shooter with OIS and EIS and an 8MP ultra-wide angle lens. On the front, it gets a 20MP shooter. The rear camera can shoot at a maximum of 4K 60fps while the selfie shooter can record at a maximum of 1080p at 60fps.
The iQOO Neo 10 also comes with the same Sony IMX882 primary shooter with OIS and an 8MP ultra-wide angle lens. However, there is a higher resolution 32MP shooter on the front with support for 4k 60fps video recording.
In case you want a clean software experience, both these phones aren't necessarily made for you. If you buy any of these devices, brace yourselves for a plethora of bloatwares and ads throughout the UI.
Poco runs on HyperOS 2.0 based on Android 15 with the promise of 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security patches.
Meanwhile, iQOO Neo 10 runs on Funtouch OS 15 with the promise of 3 years of OS updates and 4 years of security patches.
Poco F7 comes with a 7,550 mAh battery with support for 90W of wired fast charging. Meanwhile, iQOO Neo 10 comes with a 7,000mAh battery with the same 90W of wired fast charging. Both phones don't come with support for wireless charging but the massive battery size mean that unless there is a major software optimization issue one should easily get over one day of usage on either phone.
iQOO Neo 10 comes at a price of ₹ 31,999 for the 8GB RAM/128GB storage variant and goes up to ₹ 40,999 for the top end 16GB RAM/512GB storage model.
Poco F7, on the other hand, comes in only two variants with a price of ₹ 31,999 for the 12GB RAM/256GB model and ₹ 33,999 for the 12GB RAM/512GB variant.
Poco F7 presents itself as a solid option in the sub- ₹ 35,000 price bracket and brings much of the same features as the iQOO Neo 10 with a lower price tag including the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor, the 50MP Sony IMX882 primary shooter, a UFS 4.1 storage and LPDDR5x RAM. It also comes with a slightly bigger 7,550mAh battery with the same 90W of fast charging.