iQOO Z11x review: Good performer with long battery life

If you are looking for a cost-effective budget phone, particularly for multimedia consumption and playing games, this Android-powered iQOO Z11x series phone is a good option.

After launching the premium iQOO 15R series, the company recently rolled out the budget Z11x series in India.

It comes in three variants-- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage-- with prices starting at Rs 18,999.

Design, build quality and display

The device comes with standard candybar design language. The flat rails around the sides offer a good grip to hold the device firmly.

The frame and the back panel are made of plastic-based materials and are very sturdy. In addition to MIL-STD-810H military durability certification. The device comes with an IP68+IP69 water-and-dust-resistant rating. It means, iQOO Z11x can survive a drop in a swimming pool or a water body for up to 1.5 metres (around five feet) for close to 30 minutes.

iQOO Z11x with silicone cover case on.

Further, the company offers a silicone cover case free of cost with the retail box. It protects the device from cracking during an accidental fall on a hard surface.

On top of the display, it has put an additional screen guard for protection against scratches. iQOO has covered all bases to ensure the device serves the customer for several years, unless it gets run over by a vehicle.

iQOO Z11x is available in two colours: titan black and prismatic green. Our review unit is the latter. It features a stylish design on the back with prism-like reflective lines, visible when viewed from certain angles.

iQOO Z11x.

It comes with a 6.76-inch full HD+(2408×1080p) LCD panel with 120Hz refresh rate, up to 1200 nits peak brightness, and comes with pixel density of 382 ppi (pixels per inch).

The device's display is decent, good enough to consume multimedia content indoors. However, outdoors, it faces a reflection issue. But, this is not a deal breaker, as all rival brands have the same weakness. In India, only a handful of devices come with an anti-reflective coating, and all cost more than Rs 70,000.

On the bright side, it comes with TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light certification and a newly upgraded Eye Comfort system to help reduce eye strain during prolonged usage, such as reading e-books or watching movies for hours.

iQOO Z11x.

It also features Sleep Comfort Mode, which gradually adjusts the screen’s colour temperature before bedtime to reduce blue light impact and support better sleep quality.

It boasts of Anti-Motion Sickness Mode, which comes in handy during long journeys on trains or buses. When turned on, it shows animated on-screen cues that follow vehicle movement, helping reduce motion-related discomfort and enabling a more comfortable viewing experience during long journeys.

iQOO Z11x.

It also comes with stereo speakers, a Type-C USB port, dual-SIM slots, and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. The latter works fine with a lower false rejection rate.

With an infrared sensor, users can control Internet-of-Things (IoT) smart home appliances such as smart geysers, smart TVs, and smart ACs.

iQOO Z11x.

Performance

It also houses a 4nm class MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Turbo processor with Mali-G615 MC2 GPU, Android 16-based OriginOS 6, 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM, and 128GB / 256GB (UFS 3.1) storage.

The device performs smoothly. Be it day-to-day activities like app loading, switching between apps, or apps running in the background, operating the camera, the device did not show any noticeable lag-ness as such. It can handle most of the popular battle royale gaming titles available on the Google Play Store.

iQOO Z11x's CPU and GPU performance score on Geekbench 6.0.

It runs Android 16-based OriginOS 6. It is easy to navigate through the settings. It offers several customisation options to enhance the user experience. The device is guaranteed to get two years of Android OS updates and four years of security software patches for protection against cyber threats up to 2030.

iQOO Z11x.

With a 7,200mAh cell capacity, it is able to deliver close to two days of battery life under normal usage. If you spend too bingewatcing TVs or consuming too many short videos on social media platforms, or in extreme gaming, the device will be able to last a whole day.

It supports 44W fast charging, and by the way, the company offers the charging adaptor and the cable free of cost with the retail box.

The device takes a little over 40 minutes to reach 50 per cent and hits the 100 per cent mark in around 90 minutes.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

Photograpbhy

iQOO Z11x houses dual-camera module-- main 50MP (with Sony IMX852 sensor, f/1.8) + 2MP (f/2.4) depth sensor with LED flash.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

It takes decent pictures in all light conditions. The colours appear natural for human faces. With colourful flowers, the colours are a bit vibrant, very eye pleasing.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

Though it doesn't support an ultra-wide camera sensor, the main camera does a fine job of capturing the wide area of the landscape.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

I am particularly impressed with night mode photos, a level above most of the rival brands with dual cameras under Rs 25,000.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

Even the portrait mode does a pretty neat job of getting the sharp focus on the subject and artfully blurs the background to deliver a bokeh effect.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

At close range, too, the device manages to take nice photos with good details of the subject.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

It supports lossless 2X zoom. It does well, but beyond that, the noise begins to creep in. It supports up to 10Z digital zoom.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample with 1x.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample with 2x zoom.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample with 10x zoom.

It also supports 4K video recording at 30 frames per second. The video quality is stable and decent.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

It also boasts of gen AI photography filters, AI Erase, AI UHD, and Ultra HD Document, alongside Live Photo, Underwater Photography, and Smart Editing tools, making it easy to capture, edit, and share high-quality photos and videos in less time.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

It comes with a 32MP (f/2.45) selfie camera. It takes pretty nice selfies in natural sunlight conditions. Even the front camera can record 4K videos.

iQOO Z11x's camera sample.

Final thoughts

The iQOO Z11x series is a very good value-for-money budget phone. It delivers well on smooth performance and long battery life. The camera is also decent, on par with most of the rival brands in its class.

If you are looking for a cost-effective budget phone, particularly for multimedia consumption and playing games, this iQOO phone is a good option.

iQOO Z11x.

It comes in three variants-- 6GB RAM + 128GB storage, 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage-- for Rs 18,999, Rs 20,999 and Rs 22,999, respectively.

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