India’s premium mid-range smartphone segment has seen a recent surge in launches. Infinix, a company famous for its low-end smartphones in India, has released its first premium smartphone in Korea. Based on the specifications of the device, the Zero 5G is definitely worth a closer look. Could this wreak havoc on the competitive affordable smartphone segment?
The Infinix brand, owned by Transsion Holdings, is steadily gaining momentum by launching smartphones with a range of features that are more than affordable. The company’s latest development is called the Infinix Zero Ultra 5G, and it’s an odd naming choice for a phone, but on the other hand, the brand hasn’t followed common naming standards before. Key specifications of the phone include 180W fast charging support, a 200MP main camera, and an AMOLED display with curved edges. The phone uses SoC MediaTek Density 920. Find out if this is a good buy in our review.
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About The Phone: Infinix Zero Ultra 5G
The Infinix Zero Ultra 5G is the company’s most premium phone in India. The phone packs top-notch hardware into a tall body. The standout features of Infinix Zero Ultra 5G are the camera, fast charging, and display. The phone features a 6.8-inch Full HD+ curved AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The back panel is made of glass and leatherette, and the frame is made of plastic. It has a MediaTek Dimensity 920 SoC paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
The phone also packs a 4,500mAh battery with support for 180W fast charging. The company claims the phone fully charges in 12 minutes.
On the back, there is a 200-megapixel main camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel portrait sensor. The phone, Infinix Zero Ultra 5G, also has a 32-megapixel front camera. The price of the Infinix Zero Ultra 5G smartphone is 401.28 United States dollars.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Performance
Infinix has equipped its latest entry-level phone with the MediaTek Dimensity 900 System on a Chip (SoC). This is the same budget processor used in the Nord CE 2 which retails for £299 in the UK. Of course, the Infinix Zero 5G beats its weight in terms of sheer performance, especially with 8GB of RAM on board. Like many 2022 phones, there’s an additional 5GB of “extended RAM” that can be used by repurposing the phone’s UFS 3.1 internal storage.
The average Geekbench 5 multi-core score of 2133 is similar to the Poco X4 Pro 5G, meets the CE 2 (as expected), and beats the Redmi Note 11 and Poco M4 Pro 5G. The performance of the Infinix Zero 5G GPU is also strong, with benchmark scores beating the Helio G96, Dimensity 810 and Snapdragon 695 5G. From a practical standpoint, you can expect a game like Genshin Impact to run at a playable average level, albeit not with very smooth results.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Software
Perhaps the Infinix Zero 5G’s biggest weakness is its software. It runs on Android 11, but the XOS 10 UI is really annoying. From the absurdly large app folder taking up four times as much space as the individual app icons to the frankly awful notification menu with a bizarre vertical brightness slider, it’s not exactly a pleasure to use. You can customize your home screen with a pre-loaded theme store and tons of UI tweaks, but this isn’t uncommon at all at the end of the market.
However, this isn’t completely unique in the Android space, as Xiaomi’s MIUI does something similar but on a larger scale. Adds a lot of pre-installed third-party apps (Boomplay, a free music app, is one of the more egregious examples). An ugly widget and news screen on the left side of the main screen instead of a Google feed; There’s explicit feature recognition, like the aforementioned lack of alternate display modes, and one of fewer Android UI indicators.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Design
The Infinix Zero 5G does not feel like a particularly top-rate phone, no matter having a reasonably big 168. seventy-three x 76. fifty-three x 8.77mm frame with a not-inconsiderable weight of 199g. It`s predominantly made of brilliant plastic, which admittedly proves pretty robust, however, additionally seems to be a magnet for oily fingerprints. There is, at least, a grippy case blanketed in-field that could assist with this.
The layout doesn’t observe the sample set with the aid of using the Infinix Zero X Pro earlier than it. With its curved blister of a digital digicam module (which Infinix calls a “Uni-Curve Design”), it was given ways extra in a not-unusual place with the OnePlus Nord CE 2, which in flip borrowed its appearances from the Oppo Find X3 Pro. You get only an unmarried speaker on the lowest of the phone, which isn’t great, even at this give up of the market. The Poco M4 Pro and the Redmi Note eleven each provide you with complete stereo sound for comparable money. At least there’s a 3.5mm headphone jack at the equal edge.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Display
Infinix Zero 5G features a large, sharp and smooth 6.78-inch Full HD+ display @ 120Hz. However, this is just an IPS LCD panel and not the full AMOLED offering of the Zero X Pro. This means it lacks the bright colors of its older brother, let alone its contemporaries like the Poco M4 Pro. It appears to be part of a compromise for 5G at this end of the market. For around £200 you can get either a next-gen network connection or an OLED display, but not both.
Color gamut coverage is solid, if not impressive, at 96.7% sRGB, 70.9% Adobe RGB, and 82% DCI P3. Interestingly, unlike most Android phone competitors, there are no alternate display color modes. As a result, you get stuck with default suggestions. This gives a sub-optimal average delta E of 3 and basically means that the color reproduction is not very accurate.
Infinix specifies a maximum brightness of 500 nits, and we were able to hit a maximum of 517 units with auto-brightness off. This is great for indoor conditions but may not work outdoors when the days start to get sunnier.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Battery Life & charging
Infinix Zero 5G is equipped with a large 5,000mAh battery. Both are quite large but more typical for these types of large-budget phones. This is enough for all-day use and can last up to 2 days in light conditions. However, it is not well tolerated, especially with more intensive use.
To put that into context, the OnePlus’ Nord CE 2, which features the same processor and much smaller 4500mAh battery, clocked in at 13 hours and 28 minutes. As you can see from the comparison chart, it doesn’t hold up particularly well to its more direct competitors either.
This appears to be a feature of the Infinix phone, as the Infinix Zero X Pro fared much worse in this test. On the plus side, the Infinix comes with a 33W wired charger that can charge from 0 to 54% in 30 minutes. Again, this is something you’ll find on many budget competitors from Poco, Realme, and Redmi, but it still looks good.
Infinix Zero Ultra 5G Review: Camera
The Infinix Zero 5G features a triple camera on the back, including a 48MP f/1.8 main sensor, a 13MP f/2.5 telephoto lens, and a 2MP depth sensor for accurate portraits. On the front is a 16-megapixel sensor with an aperture of f/2.0. The device doesn’t have an ultra-wide sensor, which is much more practical than a depth sensor. However, the camera app is the same as before and still calls the normal photo mode as an AI Cam instead of displaying it as a picture.
There is a pro mode that allows you to immerse yourself in the picture and set the characteristics of the picture yourself. The document, slow motion, and panorama modes are also available if needed. Speaking of the camera, the main sensor takes decent sunlight photos with good detail and sharpness. Colors are natural but may appear washed out depending on the scene. The 2x zoom doesn’t affect detail, which is a good sign, and photos look as good as they look on the main sensor.
Wrapping It Up
Infinix was one of the brands struggling to establish itself among Indian consumers. Realme, Oppo, Vivo, and Samsung appear to be the biggest competitors in the segment where Infinix usually launches smartphones. The brand seems to be stepping up its game with the latest Infinix Zero 5G launch.
Here’s our review of the brand’s latest mid-range offering, the Infinix Zero 5G, which comes with a Dimensity 900 SoC. The Infinix Zero 5G is a decent device for the price, offering LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. Also, the device has a unique design in its segment and while the software has been improved a lot, there is still room for further improvement.
