iQOO 15 review

Improved triple 50MP camera setup

Thе iQOO 15 features a familiar camera hardware with some notable improvements. The 50MP main camera remains unchanged, and so does the ultrawide unit. But the telephoto camera has received a sizeable upgrade. It's still 50MP in resolution as before, but the sensor is now much larger, and the optical zoom is 3x, not 2x.

The front-facing shooter, although seemingly the same, is now paired with wider optics, achieving 90-degree field-of-view (FoV), an upgrade over last year's 70-degree FoV, and it now supports 4K video recording at 60fps, up from last year's 4K@30fps support.

• Wide (main): 50 MP Sony IMX921 f/1.9, 24mm, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; 4320p@30fps
• Telephoto 3x: 50 MP Sony IMX882, f/2.56, 85mm, 1/1.95", 0.8µm, PDAF; 2160p@60fps.
• Ultrawide angle: 50 MP Sony ISOCELL JN1, f/2.0, 15mm, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, AF; 2160p@60fps
• Front camera: Front camera: 32 MP Galaxycore GC32E1 / Hynix hi3231q, f/2.2, 1/3.1", 0.7µm; 90-degree FoV; 2160p@60fps

One notable quirk in the camera app is that it effectively offers two Pro modes, or at least the second one behaves like a Pro mode to some extent. iQOO calls it Street Photography mode, and it serves as a more streamlined version of the app with a handful of shooting-related controls, aiming to mimic the experience of using a professional camera. You access it by swiping up from the bottom of the viewfinder, and the camera UI here gives you quick access to settings like filters, exposure, ISO, shutter speed, manual focus, etc. It also provides additional focal length toggles - 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 100mm. The mode prioritizes focus speed and human subject detection, and it produces photos with artificial bokeh by default.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main camera's daylight photos are excellent, leaving little to no room for complaint. The iQOO 15's showing is slightly above what you'd expect from a phone in this price range. The stills are clean, sharp and detailed, while the processing is natural, rendering fine details and foliage very well, and the dynamic range is wide. Colors are lively, although a bit too saturated in the default Vivid mode.

Main camera daylight photos

Surprisingly, the full-resolution 50MP photos look really good. Dynamic range is just as wide, detail is great, and sharpness is a notch worse than on the binned 12.5MP photos. It's not often that we like the full-resolution unbinned images.

50MP main camera photos

And here are some photos of people.

People photos: Photo mode • Portrait mode

2x crop zoom

The 2x crops from the main camera are spotless. Rendition is identical to the 1x photos, and there's close to zero sharpness loss.

2x crop zoom daylight photos

The main camera's 2x crop portraits also look great.

People photos: 2x Photo mode • 2x Portrait mode

3x telephoto camera

The 3x telephoto's camera showing is impressive. The shooter delivers sharp and detailed photos with a wide dynamic range without overprocessing. Color reproduction, contrast and dynamic range closely match the main camera's style. In fact, the telephoto camera seems to rival the main camera's quality. It's quite sharp and detailed.

3x telephoto camera daylight photos

Sadly, the telephoto camera doesn't support close-distance focusing, so you can't really get decent enough close-ups.

But it does take nice portraits.

Telephoto camera: 3x Photo mode • 3.7x Portrait mode

10x crop zoom

Even though the viewfinder has a 10x toggle, we believe it's a bit of a stretch, given the capabilities of the telephoto sensor. The photos are quite fuzzy with noticeable AI involvement. Maybe 6x zoom would be more adequate for the setup. Tapping twice on the 3x toggle switches to 6x zoom.

10x crop zoom daylight photos

On the other hand, the 10x zoom is useful for macro-level photography. Since the telephoto camera can't zoom from up close, the 10x crop seems to be quite good at taking photos of close subjects. Still not terribly sharp though.

10x crop zoom close-ups

Ultrawide camera

Unfortunately, the ultrawide camera's performance is subpar. The photos are very soft, fine detail isn't rendered well, unless it's really close, and dynamic range leaves more to be desired. Color saturation doesn't match the main and telephoto cameras'.

Ultrawide camera daylight photos

Macro photos

The phone offers a dedicated macro mode, but interestingly enough, it uses the main camera. You can shoot at 3x and 6x, both are crops from the main camera. The 6x stills are a bit too soft, but the 3x ones are surprisingly good.

3x macro photos

6x macro photos

Selfies

The selfie camera's performance leaves a bit to be desired. Sharpness and detail aren't amazing, and dynamic range could use some improvement. Part of the problem is that the selfies are taken in the full 32MP resolution from a QuadBayer sensor, which is meant to be at its best at 8MP. Still, the photos look quite good on the phone's screen.

Low-light photos

Main camera

The camera system automatically switches to Night mode when it gets too dark. The photos are once again excellent, with nice contrast and colors and plenty of detail. Sharpness and dynamic range are also good. Shadows are a bit too bright, though, but at least the algorithm doesn't go too crazy with the sharpening. Scenes generally look natural.

Main camera low-light photos

There is a dedicated Landscape and Night mode, which you can switch to and force the Night mode. But even if you do so, you don't get any real benefit. The photos below look pretty much identical to the ones taken in the standard Photo mode.

Main camera Night mode photos

2x crop zoom

The 2x crop zoom photos aren't necessarily great as they appear a bit too fuzzy. On the other hand, forcing the Night mode seems to improve the image quality, at least a little. In fact, the 2x Night mode leaves little to be desired.

2x crop zoom low-light photos

2x crop zoom Night mode photos

3x telephoto camera

The telephoto camera performs very well at night, maintaining relatively natural rendition with and without Night mode. The dynamic range is wide, the level of detail is good, and the sharpness is more than decent. However, we would still choose the Night mode stills here as they have somewhat better definition.

3x telephoto camera low-light photos

3x telephoto camera Night mode photos

10x crop zoom

The 10x crops are expectedly way too soft and hazy. Even with Night mode, we wouldn't recommend using this zoom at night.

10x crop low-light photos

1x crop Night mode photos

Ultrawide camera

Surprisingly, the low-light ultrawide photos are fairly decent. They are not terribly sharp and dynamic range needs improvement, but they are par for the course.

Ultrawide camera low-light photos

Even more surprisingly, the ultrawide stills with the Night mode look considerably worse. They have lower contrast and are notably softer.

Ultrawide camera Night mode photos

Video recording

The iQOO 15 can record 8K videos at 30fps only with its primary camera, while the rest cap at 4K@60fps. And yes, that includes the selfie camera too.

The camera settings allow you to change only the bit rate - 19.2 or 24.0 Mbps. There are no advanced recording features such as HDR10+ or Dolby Vision.

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.

Both the low-light and daylight videos taken with the main camera are somewhat decent, but sharpness leaves more to be desired. Or maybe we are a bit too critical, given the strong photo performance? Either way, contrast, colors and dynamic range seem to be in order.

The 2x crop zoom footage is extremely soft and noisy, even during the day, not just at night.

The 3x telephoto camera produces decent enough videos during the day, albeit not terribly sharp. Dynamic range, contrast and colors are nice, but sharpness and fine detail aren't amazing. The low-light video is way too noisy and soft to be recommended.

The 10x crop zoom is just pushing it too far.

Lastly, the ultrawide camera delivers somewhat unimpressive videos. Both the daylight and low-light footage are not sufficiently sharp, while noise is noticeable in both scenarios.