iQOO 7 Legend Review: Not quite legendary but still remarkably good for its price

It has been two years since iQOO launched its first smartphone in India as an independent brand. After a long wait that has surpassed a full year, the iQOO 3 (Review) finally received a successor in the country. The two new editions to the lineup include the iQOO 7 and iQOO 7 Legend. While the iQOO 7 is impressive in its own rank, our focus today is on the Legend.

The iQOO 7 Legend follows the same principles as its predecessor and flagship killers in general by offering flagship performance at an affordable price. However, unlike the iQOO 3, the Legend goes even further, making several improvements in the camera, display, and design departments, helping it blur the lines between flagship and flagship killer. While the iQOO 7 Legend does feel like a generational upgrade over the iQOO 3, in this review, I’m keener on finding out how it fares as a flagship killer in 2021.

Design and Build

iQOO developed the iQOO 7 Legend in partnership with BMW Motorsport, giving it a unique aesthetic. In terms of the build, both the back and front of this device is protected by Gorilla Glass, while the back of the phone curves nicely into the matte aluminium frame. The phone has a matte finish, ensuring fingerprints don't ruin the overall look of that back panel.

Additionally, the white colour back panel also boasts the BMW Motorsport tri-colour stripes, while the iQOO logo sits under the camera module. The iQOO 7 Legend doesn’t look like your conventional smartphone with a gradient finish on the back or feature or one with an over-the-top gaming aesthetic. Instead, the iQOO 7 Legend borrows the best aspects of both gaming and premium smartphones to pump out a unique finish that stands tall in a traditional crowd.

The phone was slightly on the heavy side, with an overall of 209 grams and felt a tad bit heavy. The iQOO 7 Legend has a hole-punch camera cutout on the front and a box-shaped camera module on the back. The phone has a speaker grille, a USB Type-C port, and a SIM tray at the bottom. Additionally, the power button and a volume rocker on the right. You also get a phone cover, a pre-applied screen protector, and a 66W charging adapter in the box.

Display

In terms of the display, you get a 6.62-inch FHD+ AMOLED E4 panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen supports Widevine L1 and HDR10+ playback and has a peak brightness of 1300 nits. Apart from the high-refresh rate, you also get a touch sampling rate of 300Hz as well as an Instant Touch Sampling Rate that ramps up the sampling rate to 1000Hz.

All of which are tailored towards enhancing the overall gaming experience. iQOO’s claim that the screen gets very bright under direct sunlight, tends to hold true for the most part. There wasn’t an instance where content on the screen was difficult to read. Additionally, the screen also features an Eye Protection mode to filter out blue light and DC dimming to make reading in darker environments easier.

You do get a Smart Switch mode to automatically adjust the refresh rate between 60Hz to 120Hz, but I preferred running the screen at 120Hz. In terms of quality, the display is top-notch, delivering vibrant and accurate colours, deep contrast, and optimal viewing angles. You also get on-screen pressure-sensitive sensors as opposed to shoulder buttons. The two Monster Touch buttons are two pressure-sensitive sensors underneath the display tucked away on the left and right side. These sensors work by simply tapping hard on the display. The sensors can be mapped to in-game actions and function smoothly with zero input lag.

As compared to the iQOO 3, the iQOO 7 Legend makes generous upgrades in the display department. However, despite being exceptional in most areas, it does tend to fall short against devices like the OnePlus 9 and Asus ROG Phone 5. On the other hand, it is almost Rs 10,000 less, so “no complains here”.

Performance

For performance, the iQOO 7 Legend is powered by the Snapdragon 888 SoC paired with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. When it comes to gaming, the iQOO 7 Legend handled most gaming titles with little effort on max settings, including Call of Duty: Mobile, Asphalt 9: Legend, and Black Desert Mobile. In Geekbench, the iQOO 7 Legend managed a single-core score of 1126 points and a multi-core score of 3714 points. In AnTuTu, the phone managed an overall score of 738715 points.

I ran Call of Duty: Mobile for a little over an hour on the iQOO 7 Legend without experiencing any frame drops. I also ran a second AnTuTu test after 30 minutes of gaming, which resulted in an overall score of 725500 points. The phone also seemed to get a bit toasty after an hour of gaming, which suggests that the cooling system is doing its job, although heat dissipation could be better here. Overall, the iQOO 7 Legend is the best performing smartphone I’ve used so far, although the ROG Phone 5 tends to do a better job with sustained peak performance.

Cameras

The cameras on the iQOO 7 Legend have got a nice upgrade from the iQOO 3. You get a 48 MP primary Sony IMX598 sensor, a 13 MP ultrawide shooter with an f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree FOV, and a 13 MP, f/2.5 telephoto camera with 2x optical zoom. The main camera features OIS, while the telephoto camera is designed for portrait shots.

The primary camera takes good photos in daylight, maintaining a ton of detail and sharpness. But most photos taken across different lighting conditions reproduce fairly accurate colours with just the right amount of contrast and saturation. Enabling HDR ramps up the colours and saturation, giving your photos that extra flare with overexaggerating colours. It is worth noting that the camera doesn’t do as well in challenging scenarios, prioritizing exposure over detail. The iQOO 7 Legend also does a good job in low light, brightening up scenes without sacrificing colour accuracy.

So long as you aren’t zooming in to a photo and you have enough ambient light, the night mode works really well. While the camera did a great job, for the most part, Portrait mode did tend to fall short, not doing so well with accurate edge detection. Additionally, there was a colour variance in portrait and normal shots. Skin colours also tended to look a bit unnatural in some scenarios in portrait mode. Lastly, the iQOO 7 Legend also gets a 48 MP mode that lets users take photos in full 48 megapixels.

The ultrawide camera maintained colour consistency across the main sensor in most lighting scenarios. However, it does tend to fall short in the detail department. The ultrawide features a low light mode, but it can’t keep pace with the primary sensor. The ultrawide camera also doubles as a macro camera which is better than the low-resolution dedicated macro sensors, we’ve become accustomed to. So long as you’ve got bright sunlight, you’ll be able to get some pretty good shots using the Macro mode.

iQOO is touting the third sensor as a Portrait camera rather than a zoom lens, which means you only get 2x optical zoom. Photo quality on this third sensor is in line with the main camera but comes at a cost of sharpness. You can also take photos up to 20x digital zoom, although don’t expect a lot of details in those shots. There’s no hiding the fact that the third camera is not built for zooming, but strictly for portrait shots.

The iQOO 7 Legend can capture 4K video at up to 60fps and 1080p video at up to 60fps. The main camera features OIS, although it isn’t available at 4K 60fps. In good lighting, the iQOO 7 Legend can record high-quality videos with a good amount of detail and accurate colours. OIS also ensures good levels of stability. Lastly, the iQOO 7 Legend’s 16 MP front camera takes good selfies in bright outdoor and indoor light. Selfies are well detailed with natural-looking colours, good subject separation, and nice levels of exposure. Selfies tend to become unusable in low light even with the Night mode turned on.

Battery

The 4,000 mAh battery on the iQOO 7 Legend may not be the best around. The phone does pass the all-day battery standard, with an hour of Call of Duty: Mobile draining around 20 percent of battery life. The powerful performance and high-refresh-rate display take a major toll on battery life, but the silver lining here is the super-fast 66W charging. The iQOO 7 Legend takes less than 30 minutes to gain full power, which was quite impressive.

Software

The iQOO 7 Legend runs Android 11 based FunTouch OS 11. The software is one of the least pleasant parts of this device, especially in terms of bloatware. There are tons of features here, but the skin feels a bit too heavy. It was also disappointing to see no custom theme, considering the BWM partnership. iQOO has promised two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates for the Legend.

Verdict

With a starting price of Rs 39,990, the iQOO 7 Legend is the cheapest Snapdragon 888-powered smartphone in India, picking up where the iQOO 3 left off. However, unlike the iQOO 3, the iQOO 7 Legend has very few compromises across the board. iQOO also manages to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the Snapdragon 888 chipset, outpowering most of the competition. The display has also got a nice upgrade, allowing it to stand tall against 2021’s top flagships.

The major concerns I had with battery life and software were also mitigated by super-fast charging and the ability to uninstall a lot of the pre-added bloatware. Lastly, the camera department has got some significant improvements over the iQOO 3 but isn’t quite at the same level as some of the more premium competition. In most areas, including the camera, the iQOO  7 Legend punches well above its price, enabling it to make one of the most compelling cases for the best flagship killer of 2021.