iQoo 9T is India's most affordable Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 smartphone

iQoo 9T in Alpha colour variant
(Image credit: Future / Sachin George)

iQoo 9T will be the first smartphone in the country to feature the latest Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset. The company has set a benchmark on pricing for other devices that are expected to be launched in the future. The iQoo 9T is priced at Rs 49,999 for the base variant and will go on sale from today.

iQoo has been teasing this phone for some time now, and we already knew that it is the same phone launched in China as iQoo 10 last week. And it will be the first phone to go on sale in India.

iQoo 9T: Pricing and availability 

The iQoo 9T  is available in two colour options - Alpha and Legend. The former is just a matte black body while the latter features the signature BMW Motorsport triple-stripe vinyl. It will go on sale on the company's website at 12:30 PM today.

ICICI Bank cardholders can avail of an instant discount of Rs. 4,000 thus bringing down the price of the base variant to Rs 45,999. When purchasing the smartphone through the iQoo online store, the company is providing its Gamepad for free until August 10.

The smartphone will also go on sale on Amazon on August 4 at 12 noon. Along with the discount offered for ICICI Bank cardholders, customers can also avail of an additional exchange discount of up to Rs 7,000 for any iQoo smartphone. However, other smartphone owners can still get up to a Rs 5,000 discount. 

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iQoo 9T pricing
VariantPrice
8/128GBRs. 49,999
12/256GBRs. 54,999

iQoo 9T: Specifications and key features 

iQoo 9T comes with a design on the back that splits the back of the phone into two. The upper half comes with a glossy back (almost a mirror) and the lower half comes with a matte finish.

On the front, there is a 6.7-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a refresh rate of 120Hz. It's a Samsung E5 panel, which means it is one of the most advanced AMOLEDs out there. 

The phone is powered by Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC, Snapdragon's latest and greatest flagship chipset. It makes the iQoo 9T one of the most powerful smartphones in India currently. And this phone will be the first phone to go on sale with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC. The Asus ROG Phone 6 was announced earlier this month, but it is yet to go on sale in India.

Coming to the cameras, the phone comes with a 50MP primary camera, which is a 50MP Samsung ISOCELL GN5 sensor. And it comes with OIS support. Coming to secondary cameras, there is a 13MP ultra-wide camera and a 12MP macro camera.

The phone comes with a dedicated image processing chipset, the V1+ chipset that assists in real-time extreme night vision and gaming (frame interpolation).

iQoo 9T is backed up by a 4,700mAh battery and supports 120W fast charging.

Most affordable Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 in India

The main attraction of the phone isn't the 50MP GN5 sensor or the 120W fast charging, it is the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset that the phone packs. It is the latest flagship chipset from Snapdragon, and it comes with some improvements over Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. 

Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 gets a higher clock like any other Plus variant of a Snapdragon SoC. That's not the only highlight here. Snapdragon has switched the fabricator from Samsung Foundry to TSMC, and this has made a big difference with the chipset. It appears that the heating and throttling of the older chipset have been solved with this new iteration.

To know more about the device, wait for the Techradar review!

Abhijith S
Tech Journalist

Abhijith specialises in phones, computing and everything Tech at Techradar. He is based out of Kerala. He has been writing about Tech since 2013, on his own blog. He also used to host a YouTube channel about phones. 

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