A specification list for the upcoming iQOO 16 is doing rounds online. The list claims the new iQOO 16 will feature a 6.85-inch 2K Samsung screen at 165Hz, an 8,400mAh battery with 100W charging, three 50-megapixel cameras and a 2nm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip inside the phone. The list comes from Digital Chat Station, a Weibo account that leaks vivo hardware regularly.
iQOO is vivo’s performance brand. It sells devices in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Russia, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. vivo Kenya only brings the X, V and Y series here. So the iQOO devices on sale here come through independent retailers.
What the leak claims
As we reported on September 5, Samsung Display’s M16 material and its LEAD panel structure are tipped for the iQOO 16 and for Apple’s first folding iPhone. Digital Chat Station’s figures for the panel are 40% higher light transmission, 44% lower power draw and a 50% longer lifespan than the current generation. The panel is flat, 6.85 inches and 2K, and it runs at 165Hz with LTPO, which drops the refresh rate when nothing on screen is moving to save battery. The iQOO 15 has the same size and resolution at 144Hz.
The battery is 8,400mAh with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging, per the same account. On the biggest phone batteries we ranked, 8,400mAh would land mid-table, below iQOO’s own Neo11 Ultra at 9,100mAh.
The cameras are three 50-megapixel units:
- a 1/1.3-inch main sensor at f/1.68,
- an ultrawide at f/2.0 and
- a 3x periscope telephoto with a 1/1.95-inch sensor at f/2.65.
The main camera is the huge upgrade, because the iQOO 15 uses a smaller 1/1.56-inch Sony IMX921 at f/1.9. Its periscope already has a 1/1.95-inch sensor at 3x, so that camera may carry over unchanged.
Memory moves to LPDDR6, the standard after the LPDDR5X in the iQOO 15. The software is OriginOS 7 on Android 17.
The chip has no name yet
The list calls the processor a Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 on a 2nm process. Qualcomm has confirmed only that two Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips arrive at its Snapdragon Summit in Maui, Hawaii, which runs from September 22 to 24. It has not named them, given a process node or listed launch partners. Until September 22, the name, the node and the clock speeds all remain unconfirmed.
The iQOO 16 will also get iQOO’s own Q4 chip, the successor to the Q3 gaming chip in the iQOO 15.
When it launches
iQOO has not announced a date.
The iQOO 15 launched on October 20 last year at CNY 4,199, about KES 80,000 at today’s rate. A May report from GSMArena, which found the phone’s I2601 entry in the GSMA’s IMEI database, put the 16’s starting price at CNY 5,000 for 12GB and 256GB.
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