Eyeing a market share of 6-8 per cent in the sub 10k segment which roughly accounts for 65 per cent of the smartphone market, Infinix has ramped its efforts in the Indian market considerably. The company recently launched its new Infinix S5 Pro smartphone which hopes to lure the audiences that are widely dispersed between the likes of companies like Redmi, Samsung and Realme.
So, can the new Infinix S5 justify its stance in the competitive sub 10K price bracket, or is a yet another smartphone in this category, well let’s find out.
Design and Display
Right off the back, the Infinix S5 looks similar to the ones we saw earlier. The glass body and glossy design looks good and feels adequately sturdy to look. The overall proportions are a bit bulky, but users will get used to it once they start using this phone for a while. The 6.53-inch FHD+ Full view display with an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 provides a great streaming experience for the cost. Viewing angles are decent and the colour accuracy is fair when viewed from a particular side. The only downside we thought came through the colour schemes offered by Infinix. The subdued Forest green and Violet might resonate with a certain group of people. All in all, the design and display are worth every penny you pay for this smartphone.Â
Processor
Running the show is an Helio P35 64-bit Octa-core processor clocked at 2.35GHz, coupled with 4GB DDR4 RAM and 64GB of storage. The smartphone runs on XOS 6.0 Dolphin build on top of Android 10 operating system. This setup performed well in our in-house testing which involved running a lot of social media and gaming apps.
There was no noticeable lag and the processor seemed to run all tasks with exceptional ease. Animations and transitions ran buttery smooth, despite several apps running perfectly in the background. The Infinix S5 Pro is no gaming smartphone when it comes to handling big titles, but given the cost, the smartphone ran casual games with steady FPS.
Speaking about the XOS 6.0 UI, it includes several handy features such as Social Turbo, Digital Wellbeing, Wi-Fi share, Smart Panel, Game Mode, Smart gestures, etc. These features add a good touch to the pale looking smartphone and make the smartphone even more useful. Security is taken care of by a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor beside the face unlock feature which is regarded to be more accurate and responsive than the previous smartphone. All the while, we noticed the fingerprint sensor to be more accurate and faster than using the traditional pattern unlock.
Camera
The most talked-about feature of the Infinix S5 Pro is the new 16MP AI Pop-Up selfie unit on the top. This mechanism is poised to be highly durable as it comes with features such as Drop Protection, Dust & Splash Protection that is tested to last over 150,000 lift cycles. The pictures taken from this sensor came out to be a lot brighter and lacked the crisp clarity we were hoping to get. Despite the novel bit of offering a pop-up selfie camera at such a low price point, the camera is nothing extraordinary.
Coming to the rear camera, the triple sensor setup of 49MP AI-assisted lens, 2MP depth lens and a dedicated low light lens along with a Dual LED flash is a rare built. This setup combined with features such as 4-in-1-pixel binning technology, AI Auto Scene Detection, HDR mode, Portrait night mode promised crystal clear photos. The pictures we clicked during our testing inadequate sunlight came out to be impressive with a lot of details and accurate colour reproduction overpowering the images. The photos were neither too bright or faded as we observed with the front-facing unit. The bokeh effect comes with great edge detection that amounts to beautiful photos for our Instagram account. As much as we liked the daylight images, we were quite dissatisfied with the night performance. The images under natural night light were overexposed and lacked the grainy ness we were hoping to acquire.
Battery
The battery is a solid 4000mAh unit coupled with AI Smart Power saving mode to provide over 15 days of standby time. Although this sounds impressive, this wasn’t true with our device as it lasted a little over 6 days when we simply left the device to drain off. Never the less the battery life is adequate as the smartphone lasted an entire day of heavy use which involved a lot of social media usage. Charging time is decent too, which 100 per cent coming up in under 2 hours due to lack of quick charge support.
Gizmo Verdict
The Infinix S5 Pro is a good smartphone that can sufficiently fulfil the needs of an average user any day. The smartphone provides features that are one or two classes higher than its competition. This makes the entire package an impressive bet against the Realme and Redmi Note smartphones. So if you are a person who values a great binge-watching experience and doesn’t shy away to wow the people around you, we highly recommend you that hard look at the new Infinix S5 Pro.
