Lets pop champagne!! Glass just made it to the affordable smartphone section, well, sort of. After all the teasers and leaks, Infinix’s all new Note 5 was finally unveiled at Hotel Triangle in Kampala. It boosts features that make it a worthy flagship contender of 2018. The Infinix Note 5 is way different from its siblings in the Note series. It comes with a brand new design which is a fusion of technology and art. Infinix is spot on with this one as the Note 5 looks gorgeous and beautiful. Scroll down for the detailed Infinix Note 5 review.
Pros
- Android One
- 6″ FHD+ Infinity display
- 16MP low light selfie
- 1.25um large pixel 12MP camera
- 3-day battery with Fast Charging
- Elegant Up-market design
- Dual 4G
Cons
- No eye-care mode
- No HDR on front camera
- Face Unlock is absent
- Audio jack at the bottom
Summary of the Infinix Note 5 Review
The Infinix Note 5 is an Android One device and comes with the purest form of Android. No other popular phone in Uganda comes with Android One. Hence, this makes the Note 5 the only option for a clean, uncluttered Android experience.
The Note 5’s specs also earn outstanding marks across the board, including its eye-popping vibrant display and a mostly-excellent 12MP camera with Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Dual 4G LTE data speeds and a robust Helio P23 processor join a host of other specs and features that easily make the glass back, Android One powered Infinix Note 5 easily equal to other top-rated handsets -and often better. The phone’s drawbacks, though present, are minor and few.
This year’s Infinix Note makes almost overhaul improvements over last year’s Note 4 and Note 4 Pro. It doesn’t come with the X Pen. So if the act of putting digital pen to your phones display is your thing, you will have to skip the Note 5. The Infinix Note 5 sells for UGX 769,000 at all Infinix branded shops countrywide. Its available in three color options of Berlin Grey, Ice Blue and Milan Black.
Cameras
The note 5’s 12MP rear camera takes some great photos. You probably won’t actively notice its best new feature, 1.25um large pixel. Instead, you’ll notice that the quality and detail of the photos is top notch. Colors can be a little over-saturated especially with HDR on, but the end result is a collection of images, especially taken outdoors, that I’d want to share and possibly print.
12MP large pixel camera
The Infinix Note 5 takes really beautiful photos with ample natural light. Like a lot of other phone cameras, the Note 5’s indoor and low light shots often processed with less detail. It’s not like night shots are bad, they are just not great. However, deploying the dual LED flashlight at the back brings some life into night photos.
The rear camera has 6 shooting modes, that is Normal, Beauty, Video, Professional, Panorama and Night modes. It also supports HDR mode and has 8 filters.
16MP low light selfie camera
The front-facing 16megapixel took nice selfies and portraits. However, beware of the automatic Beauty mode that artificially sheds years from your age. You can dial that up or down depending on your tastes.
The Note 5’s AI Beauty mode captures 255 facial points to deliver beautiful selfies of jaw dropping quality. The F/2.0 camera takes in more light and combines 4 in 1 big pixels for more details.
The selfie camera has AI Bokeh effects that are based on Infinix’s deep learning Algorithm. This enables beautiful AI portraits using the front camera. With AI incorporated into the cameras, image quality is infinitely better and scenes are much more natural.
Video capture is great, but not excellent on the Note 5. Videos capture in FHD 1920 x 1080 by default with a 16:9 aspect ratio. That’s the highest it can go since the device doesn’t support 4K video capture. However, it has other options like 720p.
FHD+ display
The Infinix Note 5 has a 6 inch FHD+ display which is larger than the 5.7″ display on last year’s model. The Note 5 has jumped in display resolution, from 1080 x 1920 pixels of the Note 4 up to 1080 x 2160 pixels.
The display is big, impressive, sharp and undoubtedly clear. I took a day job of scrutinizing the Note 5’s presentation of many HD videos, images and Web sites with brightness cranked to the max.
The Note 5 has the trendy edge-to-edge bezel-less display that Infinix likes to call an Infinity Display. The display is not as to edge as Oppo’s Find X but it is strikingly beautiful. The device sports a tall display with 18:9 aspect ratio and perfectly rounded corners for an elegant look.
The display doesn’t crash the holy grail 90% screen to body ratio set by the Vivo Nex and Oppo Find X. However, Infinix managed to trim of most of the bezels that were reminiscent of previous Note devices. Consequently, more screen occupies the space which the physical button occupied.
The display has good readability in the bright sunlight than the Infinix S3, Hot 6 and Hot 6 Pro. However, the Note 5 doesn’t have Eye-Care mode which is vital in filtering out blue light. Hence, reading from the screen for long especially in dark environments is a little uncomfortable for the eyes.
I will say though, that infinix Note 5 display is gorgeous but not close enough top tier flagships to warrant a rowdy debate. However at such a low price, it’s one of the best displays you can get.
Design and build: Glass and Glass
Infinix has for long achieved the Apex of premium designs with its smartphones. Its poly-carbonate handsets are usually attractive if not drool-worthy. With the Infinix Note 5, Infinix has broken the all-plastic mold we saw on the Infinix S3 and the Hot 6 double. The Note 5 has a glass back and a poly carbonate rim.
So how does it all look? Very good, and a lot better than pretty much every other Infinix phone you can buy.. The back is mirror like and super elegant in all color options –but we love the Ice Blue more. The glass back curves to the edges making the straight sides comfortable to grasp and easy to hold onto.
Despite the improvements from the Note 4, the Note 5 still falls short of premium high end smartphones like the iPhone X and Samsung Galaxy S9. However, the Note 5 costs a quarter the price of the Samsung and Apple flagships.
Size and portability
The Infinix Note series is a phablet line of devices. Phablets are known to be larger in size compared to other smartphones, but that gab is getting closed fast. The Infinix Note 5’s exact dimensions are 158*75*8.4 but what I think you really want to know is what it’s like to hold and carry around, especially compared to other supersize phones.
Even with an enormous 6″ display, the Note 5 doesn’t feel awkward to hold and fits well in most pockets. The glass back adds a little heft the the device and you can really feel its weight in the pocket. However, the added weight makes for a sturdy premium feel in the hands.
Other external features
The Infinix Note 5 ditches the physical home button that was introduced to the Note series with the Infinix Note 4 and Note 4 Pro. However, we are totally cool with that, well, every manufacturer has been ditching physical buttons anyways.
The capacitive soft keys were scrapped off and pushed onto the screen. This means that the Note 5 has a smaller chin than any previous Infinix Note.
The SIM card tray, power button and volume rocker decorate the right spine, with nothing on the left. A rapid-charging port at the bottom edge balances out the loud speaker on its left and a 3.5 millimeter headset jack and microphone on its right. The top part is as clean as a whistle.
At the top of the display, there is no notch —thankfully. The fore head houses the 16MP selfie camera, LED flashlight, ear piece, and light and proximity sensors.
The back of the phone inhabits a 12MP back camera and it’s dual LED flash in a horizontal formation and a fingerprint scanner. Also, there are Infinix, Note and Android One branding printed on the back to supplement the elegant look.
Performance: Internet and Processor
Performance is nothing short of impressive when using the Infinix Note 5 in the real-world. The Note 5 supports dual 4G LTE and this means that you don’t have to switch SIM cards to choose which one should have 4G connectivity. Down-link and Up-link speeds were fast and consistent while using both Airtel and MTN (we didn’t get to test Africell).
Infinix Note 5 is powered by an Octa-core MediaTek Helio P23. Each of the 8 ARM Cortex-A53 has a clock speed of 2.0GHz. MediaTek 6763 in the Note 5 brings supreme camera quality, better multimedia and class leading power efficiency.
The Infinix Note 5 has 3GB of RAM which make overall performance snappy and lag free. Opening apps and navigating around the phone menus is a joy. Multitasking is a joy on the large display and the 3GB of RAM make sure everything is executed nicely.
Software and Android One
Android 8.1 is practically a given on this phone, in it’s purest form. If anything, Infinix seems to have revised it’s flaws in it first Android One device, the Hot 2 rather than piling more on top like it usually does.
What you get is a clean, smart, secure and simply amazing Android experience. There is no bloatware, no skins, no annoying additions. Just pure Android at our service.
Android One delivers a simple and streamlined experience on the quality hardware on the Note 5. It also improves battery life by prioritizing background apps with the most important apps, solves storage stress and brings the latest innovations.
The Note 5 will be among the first devices in the entire world to upgrade to Google’s upcoming Android P. This is because it gets security and software updates straight from Google.
Google Assistant and Google Lens are incorporated into the Android system of the Infinix Note 5. You can literally search for anything around you with the Note 5’s visual smarts using Google Lens. To use Google Lens, you simply have to take a pic of your surrounding and then selecting the Google lens camera icon.
There is also a news-feed that lives to the let of your home screen, which is powered by Google. The news-feed keeps you updated about the most relevant stuff you interact with on the web. Google Search’s always-listening ear is on by default, but you can turn it off in the app’s settings menu under “Voice.”
One-Handed use on the Infinix Note 5
Large phones like this one often come with settings to turn on one-handed operations. Like on the Infinix S3 and Hot 6 devices, there is a One-hand toggle for theoretically better one-handed use. You can access the setting by pulling down the quick settings menu. You can then push the display to the left or right for. Using One-hand relief gave me relief as I held a cup of tea in the other hand. However, though it’s meant to be temporary, shrinking the app window defeats the purpose of having such a large display in the first place.
Battery life
Big non-removable batteries have rapid become another Infinix hallmark. The note 5 comes with a 4,500mAh battery that provides 3 days on average usage. The battery was built with 3A Fast Charge that boosts it from 0 to full capacity in less than 2 hours.
The Note 5 battery really held up during our tests and Infinix gets a thumbs up on this. We recorded an average of 12 hours on extreme usage of the device. That is, watching HD videos, using social media apps, playing music and games, browsing using 4G intensively. Its one of the best batteries in a phone this elegant.
You can get a full day of battery with just 30 minutes of charging thanks to 3A Fast Charge technology. The Note 5 charges up so fast if you use the Fast Charger that comes with it in the box. It only take 1hr 40 minutes to charge from 0 to 100 percent.
Security and Storage
The Infinix Note 5 doesn’t come with Face Unlock. We hinted on this when the device’s specs leaked. No Android One device currently supports the feature, maybe it wasn’t up to Infinix. However, the included fingerprint sensor is one one the fastest in mid-range devices.
As a security measure, the bio-metrically-minded can set up the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner lies in the comfort of the index finger to make unlocking the device simple and fast. While we miss the fast Face Unlock technology, we are glad a more secure and now faster fingerprint sensor is present. However, its time-saving property is dubious. Anyways, you can add up to five fingerprints. In addition to unlocking your phone, you can use added fingerprints to authorize purchases and app access.
The Infinix Note 5 comes with 32GB of storage. This is enough space for all your apps and multimedia. However, you can further expand it via a dedicated microSD card.
The Note 5 can also be partitioned into User accounts with separate working space for each user. Each user can install their own apps and tweak system settings unique to their user account —like Windows users. Each user can also set up to five fingerprints which are unique to their user account. To add a new user account, go to Settings > Users & accounts > Add account. To switch between accounts, simply head to Settings > Users & accounts > Users and select the user you want.
Other features
Music plays nice and loud out of the speakers, though its certainly passable audio quality is a little tinny and thin, not quite the rich, rounded audio of the Hot 6.
The Infinix Note 5 is not water proof. This isn’t a deal-breaker by any means, though some folks find that “waterproof” phones are a little more convenient. But unless you are living a hydrophilic, am not sure you would ditch the affordable Infinix Note 5 because it’s not waterproof.
Verdict
The Infinix Note 5 is an amazing device sporting the latest design and software. The device is just a few steps from from ranking with major flagship devices. Maybe it even gets a lead for supporting Android One. Who knows? The sheer elegance of the Note 5 gives it a firm stand on the-best-of-2018 podium. The glass material alone is a deal seller, but the trendy Infinity Display, Android One, low light selfie camera and AI packed main snapper are what make it great. With a low price tag of UGX 769,000, you can ignore the absence of Face Unlock since the fingerprint sensor provides more security anyways.
