The Neo 12 has been launched in China, and it’s essentially a more affordable gaming phone than the recently released iQOO 16. It has a last-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor and a cooling fan along with 185Hz display. The initial price for launching is approximately $659.
Vivo’s iQOO 16 was one of the first smartphones to integrate the latest Snapdragon 8 Extreme Gen 6 processor. It is an acceptable upgrade of its predecessor, but it is on the high end of the price spectrum, costing about $900 in China. Vivo has now unveiled the Neo 12 for those who may want something on the cheaper side that can be used for gaming.
It’s not the latest and greatest phone, but it’s got the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside to deliver flagship-level gaming performance. The SoC will be paired with an 8,200 mm² vapor chamber and an active cooler, and should allow for this to maintain stable performance for extended periods of time.
The Q3 esports chipset promises multiple gaming enhancements, and Vivo notes that over 50 games have native 185FPS support. On this front, the phone has a 6.83 AMOLED display with 185Hz refresh rate. The company points out that it is equipped with the same touch chipset as the iQOO 16 (12/256GB, available for $976.19 right now on TradingShenzhen), which has a 5,000Hz touch sampling rate.
This AMOLED panel also offers a peak brightness of 2,200 nits, with the built-in eye protection features offering pleasing viewing. The rear of the phone now has a dual camera setup of 50MP and 8MP with the ultrawide sensor, whereas the front has a 16MP selfie shooter.
Another notable highlight is the 9,000mAh battery, which is larger than the one inside the flagship iQOO 16. It supports 100W fast charging and bypass charging. Other highlights include WiFi 7, IPX8 and IPX9 water-resistance ratings, and speedy UFS 4.1 internal storage and LPDDR5X “Ultra” memory.
The iQOO Neo 12 is priced at CNY 4,399 (approximately $659) for the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant at retail in China. The top-end configuration with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage goes for CNY 6,499 (around $974).
