Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro Confirmed to Launch as Rebranded Chinese Non-Pro Neo9

The iQOO Neo9 series was launched in China in December of last year. This new lineup consists of two phones, the standard and the Pro. The standard variant comes with the last-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, while the Pro variant launched with the latest Dimensity 9300. But things appear to be different for the upcoming Indian debut.

As confirmed by iQOO, the Chinese iQOO Neo9 will launch as a rebranded iQOO Neo9 Pro in India. In other words, the Indian Pro variant is actually the standard Chinese variant, which is a very odd move by the brand. Moreover, the iQOO hasn’t said anything about the launch of the standard Neo9 for the Indian market.

iQOO Confirms the Key Specs of Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro

On the official Indian Amazon promo page, iQOO has confirmed all the key specs of the Indian Neo9 Pro. As hinted earlier, it’s the same as the standard Neo9 that launched in China.

Under the hood, the Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro will pack the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 found inside the standard Chinese Neo9. It’s paired up with up to 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. To compare, the standard Neo9 in China comes with up to 1 TB of storage and 16 GB of RAM. So, iQOO isn’t even offering the top-end configuration of the smartphone in India.

But the good news is that the camera configuration remains the same. The Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro features a dual camera setup on the back, with the Sony IMX920 as the primary camera. This config makes the smartphone capable of capturing detail-rich images.

As for the battery, it’s the same 5160 mAh cell found in the Chinese iQOO Neo9 variant. It can charge at 120 watts, allowing you to get the phone from 0 to 100% extremely fast.

Another thing that’s different for the Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro as opposed to the Chinese Neo9 is the available color options. The Indian market has only two colors: Black and Red. To compare, the Chinese market got the same phone in Red, Black, and Blue.

Non-Pro Variant May Not Release in India

As I’ve expressed in the beginning, I find it weird that iQOO is launching the Chinese standard version of the phone as Neo9 Pro in India. This rebrand can mean that there won’t be a non-Pro variant for the Indian market.

Of course, you can say that iQOO may launch the Chinese iQOO Neo9 Pro as the standard Neo9 in India. But that wouldn’t make any sense because the Chinese Pro variant has Dimensity 9300. It’s a flagship chip from MediaTek and can offer much better performance than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

On that note, it’s not like that Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset isn’t a good performer. Even though it’s a last-gen chipset, it still offers flagship-grade performance. So, if you’re planning to get the Indian iQOO Neo9 Pro, you can expect to get smooth performance across the board.

As for the price, the Chinese iQOO Neo9 debuted with a starting price tag of CNY2299, which is around $321. The brand hasn’t shared any details on the Indian rebranded version yet. But if it’s under the $400 mark, the rebranded Indian Pro variant will be a great phone to purchase. Pre-orders start from 8 February, and we can expect to learn more about the pricing soon.