Sunday, January 24, 2021

Infinix Note 8 Review

Hong Kong-based brand, Infinix, is known for its mid-range smartphones with affordable prices, and recently they announced a new contender on this segment, the Infinix Note 8. It boasts a 5,200mAh battery, quad-rear cameras, and a huge display, decent specs and features, but with some compromises. Want to know more? Read our full thoughts about the Infinix Note 8 below!

Design and Construction

Compared to most smartphones in the market, the Infinix Note 8 has a relatively larger footprint measuring at 6.95-inches. Upfront is the large screen with a punch-hole for its dual-selfie cameras. Also found here is the call speaker, which also serves as one of the stereo speakers. The device is clad in polycarbonate material, which feels somewhat premium yet stylish because of its glossy back panel with a geometric pattern. We’re not a fan of glossy finishes due to their ability to attract fingerprints. Thankfully, this device comes with a free jelly case.

The unit we got is in the Deepsea Luster colorway, but it is also available in Silver Diamond and Iceland Fantasy.

The left side houses the volume buttons and the fingerprint scanner, which doubles as the sleep/wake button. The buttons are clicky, but we find the volume rockers a little bit high to reach.

The right side houses the triple card tray with slots for two nano-SIM cards and a microSD card.

We have the microphone for calls, a USB Type-C port, and a speaker grille at the bottom.

Display and Multimedia

The Infinix Note 8 sports a massive 6.95-inch HD+ IPS Infinity-O display with a resolution of 720 x 1640. For protection, the screen is mounted with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3. The 720p resolution might be a dealbreaker for most people, but it isn’t that bad for casual use — unless you are pixel peeping.

Even though the screen is only 720p, the images are sharp while the colors are accurate. Outdoor legibility can be an issue at times as the peak brightness is only at 480 nits.

The speakers are loud, and since it’s got stereo speakers with DTS sound support, it’s more immersive than your standard speakers. The sound can be a little bit muddy and tinny, and there’s no bass present, but it can quickly fill up the room at maximum volume. If you want a more immersive audio experience, we highly suggest using the headphones included in the box.

Camera

The Infinix Note 8 sports a total of six cameras. At the back, you have a quad camera setup consisting of a 64MP primary shooter, 2MP macro, 2MP depth, and 2MP AI camera. Upfront, we have a 16MP selfie camera coupled with a 2MP depth sensor.

The overall images taken on the Note 8 are decent but nothing spectacular. The colors are accurate and sharp. It does a decent job of preserving the details in normal photo mode, but using its 64MP sensor to its full potential didn’t give us a drastic improvement in the quality department. HDR is also present, but it can be better. Also, do take note that the AI feature is turned on by default, and there’s no way for us to turn it off unless switching to “Profession” mode to adjust your settings manually. Bokeh, on the other hand, is decent. It detects the subject’s edges slightly accurately thanks to its dedicated 2MP depth sensor, even on selfie mode.

For low light photos, the Night Mode on this device can surely brighten up the scene. However, it produces muddy images, and because it doesn’t have any form of stabilization, photos come out a little blurry. It’s also got a macro lens, but we didn’t use it much on our testing. We’ll still opt for a telephoto or an ultrawide angle lens instead of a macro lens.

Checking the front camera, it produces decent-quality images. Colors are also accurate with ample details, but we noticed that the skin-tone could be reddish at times.

For video, the Infinix Note 8 can shoot up to 2K at 30fps. At maximum resolution, videos come out sharp, and colors are vibrant and accurate. Unfortunately, there is no optical image stabilization or digital stabilization present, so we recommend either grab yourself a tripod or a mobile stabilizer if your hands are shaky.

Generally, the Infinix Note 8’s image quality is decent and is enough for social media uses.

OS, UI, and Apps

Running on the Infinix Note 8 is Infinix’s Android skin, XOS 7.1 based on Android 10. We find it clunky since there are multiple game ads across the system, although you can turn it off by going to your home screen settings – menu – other settings – turn off “Instant Apps.”

Some app icons will take some time to familiarize yourself. Overall the UI is pretty easy to navigate once you’re used to the OS. There are pre-installed apps that include Google suite and proprietary Infinix tools such as XNote, Palm Store, File Manager, and Phone Manager.

Out of the 128GB that the Note 8 comes with, there is 112GB of usable space. You can further expand it through a microSD card with up to 2TB.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Infinix Note 8 is a MediaTek Helio G80 chipset coupled with a Mali G52 GPU, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB storage.

For casual use, the Note 8’s performance is buttery smooth, but when handling graphics-intensive games, we experienced a few frame drops and occasional lags. The Helio G80 chipset might not be the fastest in the mid-range category, but it can handle light to moderate uses.

• AnTuTu v8 – 197,203
• Geekbench 5 – 356 (Single-core), 1,342 (Multi-core), 1,188 (RenderScript)
• PCMark – 7,077 (Work 2.0)
• 3DMark – 1,356 (OpenGL), 2,602 (Vulkan)
• AndroBench – 286.25 MB/s (Seq. Read), 152.79 MB/s (Seq. Write)

For biometric security, the Infinix Note 8 sports a fingerprint scanner and facial recognition.

Setting up both of these security features is pretty easy. The fingerprint scanner’s response is almost instantaneous. Facial recognition also works as intended, but we recommend using fingerprint as a form of authentication on any device.

Connectivity and Battery Life

The Infinix Note 8 packs the standard connectivity features, including Dual-SIM, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 5aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, and Bluetooth.

For battery, the Infinix Note 8 sports a 5,200mAh capacity with support for 18W fast charging, which can juice-up this device from 0 to 100 in just 1 hour and 40 minutes. This device can serve you for a full day, which includes gaming, browsing the web through cellular data, and recording 2K video. In our standard video loop test (1080p movie on loop, 50% brightness, 0% volume, airplane mode on), we got a total of 25 hours and 18 minutes of playback. In the PCMark Work 2.0 Battery Test, we yielded a score of 18 hours and 42 minutes. These results are pretty good.

Conclusion

The Infinix Note 8 is a solid device for people who do moderate tasks and casual gaming. You’ll get a great battery life, a decent set of cameras and performance, a super fast and secure fingerprint scanner, and a huge display. It might only have a 720p IPS panel, but it does have an immersive stereo speaker that can improve your multimedia experience.

With its asking price of PHP 8,490, this device is almost a steal. It might not have those flashy features that some of its competitors have, but the Infinix Note 8 checks all the boxes on what a decent mid-range smartphone should be.

Infinix Note 8 specs:
6.95-inch HD+ (720 x 1640) IPS Infinity-O LCD display
2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3
MediaTek Helio G80 octa-core CPU
ARM G52 MC2 GPU
6 GB RAM
128 GB storage
Expandable up to 2TB via microSD
Quad rear cameras:
• 64MP (main)
• AF portrait
• macro
• AI lens
Dual-front cameras (16MP + portrait lens)
Dual SIM (nano)
4G
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth
Dual speakers + DTS Audio Processing
GPS
USB Type-C
Side-mounted fingerprint scanner
Face unlock
3.5mm audio jack
XOS 7.1 (Android 10)
5200 mAh battery with 18W charging
175.3 x 78.76 x 8.95mm
Deepsea Luster, Silver Diamond, Iceland Fantasy