In the last 12 months or so, the battle for the smartphones has shifted from the Rs 10,000-12,000 category to the Rs 15,000-18,000 segment. It's not to say that smartphone manufacturers have ditched the former category but are intensely focusing on the latter. It's a peculiar price point, in the sense, you can pack in a lot of attractive specs and yet offer them at a reasonable price point. Look at the brands clamouring for space in this price bracket: Motorola, Oppo, Honor - all vying for customers' attention with smartphones which can catch the fancy of most buyers. Infinix is now ready with its offering - Zero 5 - to take on the established names. It's a relatively new brand in the country and this is an important phone for it to make a dent in the smartphone space. At Rs 17,999, it has a tough fight on its hand. Does it have what it takes to win over the Indian consumer in a fiercely competitive price segment? We used the device for a few days and we attempt to answer the question in our review:
Design and display
The Infinix Zero 5 is a big phone which sports a metal unibody design and has chamfered edges around the frame. Available in three colour variants (Champagne Gold, Sandstone Black and Bordeaux Red), the Zero 5 can seem a bit intimidating at first but soon you get used to the size and frame. There's a USB Type-C port at the bottom along with speaker grille and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The power button, volume rockers and dual-SIM card slot find a pace on the right side. On the left, there is a slot for a microSD card (expandable up to 128GB). As we mentioned, this is a large device and weighs about 197 grams but is relatively easy to carry. It's not going to win any awards for its design but neither does it come a cropper when compared to other devices.
The dominant factor of the Zero 5 is the 5.98-inch full HD display which offers 1080x1920 resolution. The standout feature of the Zero 5 in our opinion is its display. You can actually watch a movie on Netflix on the device and you won't be disappointed. The colours are bright and vivid and the detailing is very good. At times, you might feel that the colours get oversaturated but that doesn't make too much of a difference in the viewing quality. Even though Delhi hasn't been experiencing bright sunlight at the moment, the Zero 5 held its own in outdoor conditions as well.
Performance and camera
On paper, the Mediatex processor does make you a bit skeptical as we were with the Zero 5 which is powered by a 2.6GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P25 MT6757 processor. However, the 6GB RAM that comes on board quite easily manages to kill that skepticism. There's 64GB of storage on offer out of which users get around 53GB. The 6GB RAM coupled with the processor handles all tasks with relative ease. Bigger - and better - the display, there's always the temptation of playing a lot of games. We did give into this temptation and played quite a few graphic intensive games and the Zero 5 managed to hold its own. Even browsing heavy websites was a lag and stutter free experience. A lot of the credit of the Zero 5's performance goes to the RAM on board. A slightly underpowered RAM and this review might have been very different.
Browsing multimedia content on the Zero 5 is relatively pleasant. It would've been much better if the speaker placement was not at the bottom. The sound does get muffled and perhaps smartphone manufacturers will take note of this and start placing speakers in a different spot.
The Zero 5 runs on the company's XOS 3.0 Hummingbird based on Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box. There's an app Freezer where you can remove apps without actually deleting them. The user interface is pretty straightforward and works quite well. There are in-house applications like XTreme (themes and wallpapers) and XHide (lets you hide apps and pictures). These apps aren't really useful and the device could've been better without them as you can't remove them. On our benchmark testing, the Zero 5 did quite well. On Geekbench, it got a score of 825 and 3936 on single and multicore respectively whereas on Antutu it recorded a score of 66750.
The Infinix Zero 5 has a powerful battery - 4350mAH - which is extremely impressive. The device easily lasts for a day on a single charge. You can throw all kinds of tasks at the Zero 5's battery and it will take it on strongly. There's also the XCharge which enables fast charging and it the device gets charged in just about two hours.
The Infinix Zero 5 packs in a dual rear camera set up (a 12MP wide angle sensor and a 13MP telephoto lens). The images clicked on the device are strictly satisfactory - detailing is a problem as is oversaturation. And this is in outdoor conditions. The bokeh shots again fall in the just about average category. There's an optical 2x zoom that many will find quite handy. The Pro mode of the Camera app clicks better images. In dimly-lit conditions, the smartphone clicks just about average photos.
There's a 16MP front camera which also includes the bokeh mode. The images looked overexposed (in the bokeh mode) and were plainly not impressive. The camera is a letdown on the Infinix Zero 5 and could be a critical factor why the smartphone might not appeal to a wide range of customers.
Verdict
There's no doubt that Infinix Zero 5 is a smartphone that will ruffle a few feathers as it has quite a few things going for it. The big vibrant display, the long-lasting battery life and reliable performance make it a worthy competitor in a tough price category. However, the downside is the average camera performance and some people might be put off by the sheer size of it. Competition is brutal and comes in form of Oppo F5, Honor 9i and Motorola - devices which already have a presence. At Rs 17,999, customers have come to expect a smartphone that holds its own in every aspect. The Infinix Zero 5 can prove to be a good alternative but awareness about the brand is still limited. If it overcomes that, then we might see a new challenger rise in the smartphone market.
Design and display
The Infinix Zero 5 is a big phone which sports a metal unibody design and has chamfered edges around the frame. Available in three colour variants (Champagne Gold, Sandstone Black and Bordeaux Red), the Zero 5 can seem a bit intimidating at first but soon you get used to the size and frame. There's a USB Type-C port at the bottom along with speaker grille and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The power button, volume rockers and dual-SIM card slot find a pace on the right side. On the left, there is a slot for a microSD card (expandable up to 128GB). As we mentioned, this is a large device and weighs about 197 grams but is relatively easy to carry. It's not going to win any awards for its design but neither does it come a cropper when compared to other devices.
The dominant factor of the Zero 5 is the 5.98-inch full HD display which offers 1080x1920 resolution. The standout feature of the Zero 5 in our opinion is its display. You can actually watch a movie on Netflix on the device and you won't be disappointed. The colours are bright and vivid and the detailing is very good. At times, you might feel that the colours get oversaturated but that doesn't make too much of a difference in the viewing quality. Even though Delhi hasn't been experiencing bright sunlight at the moment, the Zero 5 held its own in outdoor conditions as well.
Performance and camera
On paper, the Mediatex processor does make you a bit skeptical as we were with the Zero 5 which is powered by a 2.6GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio P25 MT6757 processor. However, the 6GB RAM that comes on board quite easily manages to kill that skepticism. There's 64GB of storage on offer out of which users get around 53GB. The 6GB RAM coupled with the processor handles all tasks with relative ease. Bigger - and better - the display, there's always the temptation of playing a lot of games. We did give into this temptation and played quite a few graphic intensive games and the Zero 5 managed to hold its own. Even browsing heavy websites was a lag and stutter free experience. A lot of the credit of the Zero 5's performance goes to the RAM on board. A slightly underpowered RAM and this review might have been very different.
Browsing multimedia content on the Zero 5 is relatively pleasant. It would've been much better if the speaker placement was not at the bottom. The sound does get muffled and perhaps smartphone manufacturers will take note of this and start placing speakers in a different spot.
The Zero 5 runs on the company's XOS 3.0 Hummingbird based on Android 7.0 Nougat out-of-the-box. There's an app Freezer where you can remove apps without actually deleting them. The user interface is pretty straightforward and works quite well. There are in-house applications like XTreme (themes and wallpapers) and XHide (lets you hide apps and pictures). These apps aren't really useful and the device could've been better without them as you can't remove them. On our benchmark testing, the Zero 5 did quite well. On Geekbench, it got a score of 825 and 3936 on single and multicore respectively whereas on Antutu it recorded a score of 66750.
The Infinix Zero 5 has a powerful battery - 4350mAH - which is extremely impressive. The device easily lasts for a day on a single charge. You can throw all kinds of tasks at the Zero 5's battery and it will take it on strongly. There's also the XCharge which enables fast charging and it the device gets charged in just about two hours.
The Infinix Zero 5 packs in a dual rear camera set up (a 12MP wide angle sensor and a 13MP telephoto lens). The images clicked on the device are strictly satisfactory - detailing is a problem as is oversaturation. And this is in outdoor conditions. The bokeh shots again fall in the just about average category. There's an optical 2x zoom that many will find quite handy. The Pro mode of the Camera app clicks better images. In dimly-lit conditions, the smartphone clicks just about average photos.
There's a 16MP front camera which also includes the bokeh mode. The images looked overexposed (in the bokeh mode) and were plainly not impressive. The camera is a letdown on the Infinix Zero 5 and could be a critical factor why the smartphone might not appeal to a wide range of customers.
Verdict
There's no doubt that Infinix Zero 5 is a smartphone that will ruffle a few feathers as it has quite a few things going for it. The big vibrant display, the long-lasting battery life and reliable performance make it a worthy competitor in a tough price category. However, the downside is the average camera performance and some people might be put off by the sheer size of it. Competition is brutal and comes in form of Oppo F5, Honor 9i and Motorola - devices which already have a presence. At Rs 17,999, customers have come to expect a smartphone that holds its own in every aspect. The Infinix Zero 5 can prove to be a good alternative but awareness about the brand is still limited. If it overcomes that, then we might see a new challenger rise in the smartphone market.
0 comments:
Post a Comment