iQOO 13 Goes Official With Snapdragon 8 Elite

Among the Snapdragon 8 Elite phones announced last week was the iQOO 13, and the phone has finally been launched in China. This makes it the second phone in the world to launch with Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, the first being the Xiaomi 15 series. There’s a lot to iQOO 13 besides its SoC though, including its battery, display, and cameras, so here’s everything you need to know about it.

iQOO 13: Specifications

Starting with the display, the iQOO 13 boasts a BOE Q10 6.82-inch 2K OLED panel with a 144Hz refresh rate and 300 Hz sampling rate. It’s a 19:8:9 flat display that maxes out at 1800 nits of peak brightness and gives the phone a screen-to-body ratio of 93.87%.

Powering the phone is, of course, the Snapdragon 8 Elite which is built on Qualcomm’s 2nd Gen Oryon cores and is over 50% faster and efficient than Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. It also delivers around 45% faster AI performance which the iQOO 13 will leverage thanks to a host of AI features that come built into OriginOS 5. Besides, the phone also has an iQOO-developed Q2 display chip for gaming.

In the storage department, there’s UFS 4.0 storage combined with LPDDR5X RAM. The battery is a whopping 6,150 mAh unit which can charge at 120W. This is made possible thanks to iQOO using two cells which are 2990 mAh capacity (typical) each.

As for the camera, the rear has a 50MP primary f/1.88 LYT-702 sensor, a 50MP wide f/2 secondary sensor, and a 50MP telephoto f/1.85 shooter with 2X optical zoom, all with OIS. The front camera is a 32MP selfie unit.

Connectivity-wise, there’s Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, IR blaster, and a USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port. The phone also gets an on-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and facial recognition, albeit software-based.

The phone comes running OriginOS 5 based on Android 15 and brings, as you may have guessed, many AI features. Besides, Vivo claims that it vastly improves power scheduling, has better animations, and improves the overall battery life. Moreover, it brings many personalization features to the lock screen, improving the overall UI elements, and Apple’s Dynamic Island-inspired, Atomic Island.

Pricing, Colors, and Availability

Finally, the iQOO 13 is now available for pre-orders in China on the official Vivo shop. Shipping starts on November 10. There are five storage variants to choose from and their prices:

• 12 GB + 256 GB – ¥3,999 ~ $561 ~ Rs 47,000
• 16 GB + 256 GB – ¥4,299 ~ $603 ~Rs 50,000
• 12 GB + 512 GB – ¥4,499 ~ $631 ~ $ Rs 53,000
• 16 GB + 512 GB – ¥4,699 ~ $659 ~ Rs 55,000
• 16 GB + 1 TB – ¥5,199 ~ $730 ~ Rs 61,000

The phone will be available in four colors — Track Edition, Legendary Edition, Nardo Grey, and Isle of Man (as tranlated from Chinese). Track Edition is sort of a matte black color, Legendary vibes with BMW accents just like iQOO 12. Nardo Grey is, well, a lighter gray, and the Isle of Man is sort of like a lighter Matcha Green.

iQOO India has been teasing the phone for quite some time. So, the iQOO 13 should launch sometime next month in the subcontinent. What are your thoughts on the iQOO 13 launch? Let us know in the comments below.