The iQOO Neo 12 Costs More Than the OnePlus 15 Did at Launch - Memeburn

TL;DR

- Both phones run the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5; the iQOO Neo 12 reportedly leads AnTuTu by about 5%.

- The Neo 12 starts at $659 (CNY 4,399), $60 more than the OnePlus 15's CNY 3,999 launch price.

- iQOO packs 9,000mAh, 23% more than OnePlus's 7,300mAh, but OnePlus adds 120W wired and 50W wireless.

- The OnePlus 15 has three 50MP rear cameras, including 3.5x zoom; the Neo 12 has 50MP plus an 8MP ultrawide.

- The Neo 12 for long gaming sessions; the OnePlus 15 for photos, wireless charging and global buyers.

A year ago, CNY 3,999 bought you a full OnePlus flagship. On October 28, 2026, iQOO put the Neo 12 on sale in China at $659 (CNY 4,399), with the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip the OnePlus 15 launched with on October 27, 2025. That makes the iQOO Neo 12 vs OnePlus 15 comparison an unusual one: a newer, “cheaper” performance phone that now costs more than last year’s flagship did on day one.

If you don’t follow Chinese phones closely, here’s the context. iQOO is Vivo’s performance brand, and the Neo line is its gaming series, usually priced below its flagships. The OnePlus 15 was OnePlus’s top phone until the OnePlus 16 replaced it in October 2026. Memory chips have become much more expensive this year, so phone prices have climbed across the board, and that’s why a year-old flagship and a brand-new gaming phone now compete for the same money. Here’s where each phone pulls ahead, where they’re tied, and who should buy which.

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OnePlus 15

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OnePlus 13

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Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

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OnePlus 12

The Price Problem: This Year’s Gaming Phone Costs More

Start with the money, because it explains why this matchup exists at all. Here’s how the Neo 12’s launch prices compare with the OnePlus 15’s launch prices in China, tier by tier:

At the base tier, the Neo 12 costs 10% more than the OnePlus 15 did at launch. The gap widens as storage grows, which fits the story of this year: storage and memory chips are where costs rose fastest, as the global RAM shortage has pushed prices up for almost every brand. iQOO’s own Neo line shows the same jump, since the Neo 12 costs 63% more than the Neo 11 did at launch.

There’s a twist, though. You can’t buy a OnePlus 15 at its launch price anymore. OnePlus raised prices on all of its phones in China from March 16, 2026, and a JD.com listing in mid-October showed the 16GB and 1TB OnePlus 15 at CNY 6,499 before discounts, exactly the same list price as the top Neo 12. With a promotion, that listing dropped to about $876 (CNY 5,849).

So, in our view, the honest way to frame the price round is this: at launch, the OnePlus 15 was clearly cheaper; today, the two phones sit much closer, and discounts on the older phone decide who wins. If you’re shopping in China, compare the live price of the exact memory tier you want before reading anything else in this article.

Same Chip, Different Tuning: Performance and Cooling

Both phones use the same main processor, with two cores at 4.6GHz and six at 3.62GHz. The 3nm label describes how tiny the chip’s transistors are, and smaller usually means more speed with less heat. In apps, scrolling and everyday multitasking, we’d expect the two phones to feel the same.

AnTuTu, a popular benchmark that rolls processor, graphics, and memory into one score, reportedly puts the Neo 12 about 5% ahead. The reported gap comes mostly from memory, where the Neo 12 uses a faster LPDDR5X Ultra RAM. We’d treat that number carefully, though. Another listing for the OnePlus 15 shows 4,039,862, which would stretch the gap to about 8%, and scores shift with firmware and room temperature. Either way, you’re unlikely to notice 5% in daily use. The Neo 12’s early Geekbench listing also landed right where you’d expect for this chip.

The real difference is heat. Phone chips slow themselves down when they get hot, a process called thermal throttling. The OnePlus 15 relies on what OnePlus calls its Glacier Cooling System, a vapor chamber it says is 43% larger than before, plus an aerogel layer that keeps heat away from your hand. A vapor chamber is a thin, sealed plate of liquid that spreads heat across the phone. It helps, but it can only move heat around inside the body.

The Neo 12 adds a real spinning fan with 59 blades, two dust screens, and three speed modes, along with an upgraded vapor chamber that iQOO says works 15% better. A fan pushes hot air out of the phone, so frame rates should stay closer to their peak in long sessions. In China, iQOO also offers free fan cleaning at service centers up to 12 times a year, which answers the biggest worry about fan phones: dust.

iQOO’s Q3 helper chip is the other gaming extra. It handles upscaling (rendering a game at lower resolution and sharpening it), frame interpolation (inserting extra frames so motion looks smoother) and ray tracing (more realistic lighting), but only in a set list of supported titles. OnePlus has no equivalent on the OnePlus 15.

For short gaming sessions, the two phones are even. For an hour or more of a demanding game, the Neo 12’s fan is the strongest single reason to pick it.

Screens: Sharper and Faster vs Smarter

The Neo 12’s screen wins most spec lines. By our math, its 2K panel has about 31% more pixels than the OnePlus 15’s 1.5K panel, which helps text look a little crisper if you hold the phone close. It also tops out at 185Hz, about 12% higher than OnePlus’s 165Hz. Refresh rate is how many times per second the screen redraws, so higher numbers make scrolling and fast games look smoother.

That 185Hz figure needs context, though. Very few Android games can run that fast, and our look at how many games actually reach 185Hz found little evidence of a big native catalog. In practice, the gap between 165Hz and 185Hz is hard to see.

The OnePlus 15 answers with LTPO, a screen technology that drops the refresh rate when nothing on the screen is moving, down to 1Hz, which saves battery. iQOO doesn’t list LTPO for the Neo 12. OnePlus also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+, two video formats that streaming apps use for brighter highlights and richer color, so it’s the better screen for Netflix-style viewing.

Brightness is where the reported figures favor iQOO. High-brightness mode (HBM) is the boost a phone uses in direct sunlight, and the Neo 12 is listed at 2,200 nits, against about 1,800 nits for the OnePlus 15. Outdoors, that should give iQOO a small edge. For eyes that are sensitive to flicker, the Neo 12’s DC dimming, which lowers brightness by cutting power rather than flickering the screen, is also a useful extra.

On paper, the Neo 12 has the better display for gaming and reading, while the OnePlus 15 is the better screen for video and battery efficiency. We’d call it a narrow win for iQOO.

Cameras: The Biggest Gap in This Comparison

This is where a year-old flagship shows why it was a flagship. The Neo 12’s full spec sheet lists just two rear cameras, against three on the OnePlus. Both main cameras use a 1/1.56-inch sensor, so daylight photos from the main lens should look broadly similar. The sensor’s physical size matters more than its megapixel count, because a bigger sensor gathers more light in dim rooms.

After that, the OnePlus 15 pulls ahead on every lens. Its 3.5x periscope telephoto is the biggest difference. A periscope lens folds light sideways through a prism, so a long zoom fits inside a thin phone. That means sharper portraits, concert shots and street details without cropping. The Neo 12 has no zoom camera at all, so anything beyond 2x is a digital crop that loses detail quickly.

The ultrawide gap is just as large. OnePlus uses a 50MP ultrawide, while iQOO uses an 8MP one. An ultrawide fits more into the frame, which helps with group shots, tall buildings and tight rooms, and with only 8MP, iQOO’s version will look soft when you zoom into those photos.

Selfies and video also favor OnePlus. Its 32MP front camera has more resolution than iQOO’s 16MP, and iQOO’s selfie video stops at 1080p. On the back, OnePlus records 4K at 120 frames per second with Dolby Vision, which is useful for smooth slow-motion clips.

The OnePlus 15 wins this round clearly. If your phone is also your main camera, this round alone may decide the comparison for you.

Battery and Charging: Capacity vs Flexibility

mAh (milliamp-hours) measures how much charge a battery holds. The Neo 12 holds 1,700mAh more, or about 23% extra. Both phones use silicon-carbon cells, which mix silicon into the battery to store more energy in the same space. That’s why iQOO can fit 9,000mAh into a phone that’s still only 8.5mm thick.

With the same chip in both phones, that extra capacity should translate fairly directly into longer screen time, especially in games, where the Neo 12’s fan also keeps the chip efficient. If you’re out all day without a charger, the Neo 12 is the safer bet. For context, here’s how both phones compare with the best phones for battery life this year.

Charging flips the picture. The OnePlus 15 charges at 120W over a cable, and by our math it delivers about 48% more charging power per mAh than the Neo 12’s 100W setup. In practice, that should mean shorter top-ups on the OnePlus 15, although real charging times depend on temperature and how the phone slows down near full.

The OnePlus 15 also supports 50W wireless charging, which the Neo 12 doesn’t offer at all. If you charge on a pad at your desk, in the car or by the bed, that’s a daily convenience you’d give up with the iQOO.

We give this round to the Neo 12, because battery capacity is the advantage you feel every day. Still, if wireless charging matters to you, treat this round as a draw.

Size, Weight and Toughness

The OnePlus 15 is 2mm shorter, about 0.3mm thinner and 10g to 18g lighter, depending on the colors you compare. The Neo 12 is slightly narrower, by about 0.8mm. In the hand, we’d expect the OnePlus to feel more compact, and the Neo 12 to feel like the gaming phone it is.

Both phones are well sealed. An IP rating is a score for dust and water protection. IP68 means a phone survives being underwater for a while, while IP69 covers hot, high-pressure water jets. OnePlus adds IP66 and IP69K, an even tougher jet test. Impressively, iQOO kept IP68 and IP69 despite the vents its fan needs.

Both phones also use an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, which uses sound waves instead of light and works better with wet fingers.

OnePlus wins this round narrowly, mostly on weight.

Software and Availability: The Tiebreaker Most Comparisons Skip

Here’s the part that matters most if you don’t live in China.

The OnePlus 15 launched on Android 16 and is now getting ColorOS 17, based on Android 17. OnePlus started that rollout on October 23, ahead of its planned date. More importantly, the OnePlus 15 is sold officially outside China, including in India. International versions also reportedly add eSIM support next to two physical SIM slots, which helps with travel. However, OnePlus is leaving the North American and European markets, so buyers there would rely on importers.

The iQOO Neo 12 launched with OriginOS 7 on Android 17, so it starts one year fresher. That’s a small advantage for long-term updates, because it should stay supported for longer, but neither brand has published an update promise for these China models that we could verify. The bigger problem is availability. The Neo 12 is China-only for now. iQOO often sells Neo phones in India under new names, and a certification points to an upcoming iQOO 16R, but it’s still unclear which China phone that will be.

China versions of both phones are built around Chinese apps and services. If you import either one, check whether the seller installs Google’s apps and whether the phone supports your carrier’s bands.

For most readers outside China, this round goes to the OnePlus 15, simply because you can buy it locally with a warranty.

iQOO Neo 12 vs OnePlus 15: Who Should Buy Which

That’s four rounds to the OnePlus 15 and three to the iQOO Neo 12, but the rounds don’t weigh the same for everyone.

Get the iQOO Neo 12 if you play demanding games for long sessions and want a phone that stays cool and runs for a day and a half. It’s also the better pick if you care more about a sharp, bright screen than about zoom photos, and if you can buy it in China at its official price.

Nothing Phone (4a) Pro

Overview

- 6.83-inch 144Hz AMOLED display delivers an exceptionally smooth viewing experience.

- Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 powers demanding apps and gaming with strong thermal efficiency.

- Glyph Matrix, 5,080mAh battery, and 50W fast charging add distinctive everyday features.

Get the OnePlus 15 if your phone is your main camera, you charge wirelessly, or you live outside China and want local support. It’s also the smarter buy if you find it discounted below the Neo 12, because you’d be getting a more complete phone for less money.

OnePlus 15

Overview

- 6.78 inches, LTPO AMOLED, 1B colors,1272 x 2772 pixels

- 512GB Storage, 16GB RAM

- Android 16, OxygenOS 16, Qualcomm SM8850-AC Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (3 nm)

Look at something newer if you want the best of both. The OnePlus 16 now has a 2nm chip, a 200MP camera and a 9,000mAh battery, and the iQOO 16 vs OnePlus 16 matchup shows what the next tier up costs.

Our verdict: the iQOO Neo 12 is the better gaming phone, and the OnePlus 15 is the better phone overall. A year after launch, OnePlus’s camera kit and wireless charging still matter more to most people than an extra 1,700mAh and a fan, as long as the price is right.

FAQs

Is last year’s flagship a better buy than a new mid-range phone?

Often, yes, if the price is close. A year-old flagship usually keeps advantages that don’t age, like a zoom camera, wireless charging and a premium build, and it has already had its early bugs fixed. The trade-off is software time: it’s one year closer to the end of its updates. Check how many years of Android and security updates it has left before you buy.

Is 100W or 120W fast charging bad for battery health?

Not by itself. Heat is what wears batteries down, so phones with very fast charging split the battery into two cells, slow down as they near full and let you limit charging overnight. To protect your battery, avoid charging while gaming in a hot room, and turn on the phone’s optimized or smart charging setting if you mostly charge overnight.

Do silicon-carbon batteries last as long as normal lithium-ion batteries?

It’s too early to know for sure. Silicon-carbon cells add silicon to the battery’s anode, which stores more energy in the same space. Silicon swells as it charges, so makers mix it with carbon to keep it stable. These batteries only became common in phones in the past few years, so long-term wear data is still limited. Brands quote cycle ratings, but independent testing is thin.

Does a 2K phone screen use more battery than a 1.5K screen?

Usually a little more, because the phone has to drive more pixels and do more graphics work. The difference is small compared with brightness and refresh rate, which affect battery life far more. Many phones with 2K panels let you switch to a lower resolution in the display settings, which is a simple way to stretch battery life without losing much sharpness.

What should I check before importing a China-only phone?

Check four things. First, warranty: most brands only honor repairs in the country of sale. Second, network support: confirm your carrier’s 4G and 5G bands and calling over 4G (VoLTE). Third, payments: Google Wallet and NFC tap-to-pay may not work. Finally, ask whether the seller changed the software, because modified firmware can block official updates.