Infinix Note 8 Review: A Good Budget Phone With A Substandard Display1 1
A few months ago, Infinix unveiled its successor to the Note 7, the Infinix Note 8. The affordable flagship aims to offer quality gaming with a giant 6.95-inch display while remaining in the budget price range.
With a large screen, a gaming-focused chipset, four AI cameras, a large battery and support for fast charging, the smartphone looks like a pretty good package on paper for $200. I tested the device to compare the Note 8's performance and value in real life.
This review will cover the global version of the phone. Let's dive in!
Features:
| to show | 6.95 inches, IPS LCD, 720 x 1640, 258 ppi, 20.5:9 |
|---|---|
| Weight | 200 years |
| CENTRAL PROCESSOR: | Mediatek Helio G80 |
| GPU: | G52 MP2 ARM Mount |
| CAMERA | 64MP wide + 2MP AI + 2MP macro + 2MP depth, front - 16MP + 2MP depth |
| video recording | 2K at 30fps |
| Dimensions: | 175.3x78.76x8.95 mm |
| RAM: | 6 GB |
| Storage | 128 GB expandable up to 2 TB |
| NFC: | no |
| ports | USB 2.0 Type C, 3.5mm Audio |
| Battery and charging | 5200mAh, 18W fast charging |
| item: | Plastic |
| color: | blue |
| Price: | 200 dollars |
Day one
design
The Infinix Note 8 has a plastic body with a nice angular design on the back and a holographic finish. Due to its design, the plastic material is not very visible and unless you touch it, you will think it has a metal back. It is available in three colors: brown, gray and blue. As you can see, I have the brown version. I really liked the clean lines and the play of different shades on the back. The box has a transparent silicone cover.
The phone's materials and textures hold up well, but the glossy back does pick up fingerprints and dust, which can be a problem for many. I found myself constantly cleaning the phone and eventually gave up and just put it in the silicone case.
The right side of the phone has a fingerprint sensor that doubles as the power button and volume rocker. On the left side of the device is the SIM card tray, which has enough space for two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time. This was an unexpected feature as most dual SIM phones don't allow you to use two SIM cards and a microSD card at the same time.
The Note 8 has two speakers, one at the top and one at the bottom. The bottom of the device also has a USB Type-C charging port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The front cameras support facial recognition, but it's very slow and doesn't work nine times out of ten. As a result, I turned it off after two days and was left with a super-sensitive fingerprint reader.
Since the phone is large, it can be a bit difficult to hold and use. At 200g, it's also quite heavy, but that's to be expected given the size of the device. Personally, I don't mind the weight that much, but it took me a while to get used to it.
to show
The Infinix flagship features a massive 6.95-inch IPS LCD display with a maximum brightness of 480 nits and a resolution of HD+ 720x1640 20.5:9 with a pixel density of 258 ppi. The display has a dual camera in the upper left corner. It has dual front cameras of 16MP and 2MP. This might bother some, but personally I don't mind cuts, so I was treated well.
To begin with, I am not very happy with the quality of the screen. I liked that it was very large and flat, but the quality was very poor. The brightness is very low even at maximum and the colors look a bit dull.
With the Note 8, it was clear that Infinix was trying to compensate for the poor quality of the IPS panel with its large size. But the main thing is always to prioritize quality over quantity. Overall, this phone doesn't even compare to the screen quality of my husband's IPS Mi Play 2018, and this budget phone was launched three years ago.
CAMERA
The Infinix Note 8 has an AI quad-camera setup on the back consisting of a 64MP 1/1.73" 0.8µm primary camera and 2MP macro, depth and AI sensors. As always, macro and 2MP depth are the main useless and unhelpful. they are usually included only so that the phone can offer quad cameras. There is also a quad core LED flash on the back. I contacted Infinix to get more details about the AI sensor but alas I did not receive an answer.
The rear cameras can record 2K video at 30 frames per second. There's also a nice little feature that lets you make short 15-second videos with preset effects and different speeds. There are many camera modes and photo features, as well as presets, a super night mode and beautification effects that can enlarge or reduce body parts.
There's a 16MP front-facing camera paired with a 2MP depth sensor so you can take portraits. It also has two pretty bright LED flashlights. In addition to the main camera functions, the front-facing camera also has an option called AR Shot, which automatically detects the face and applies augmented reality filters such as animals and Snapchat-like objects.
Gallery: Infinix Note 8 specs
As you can see in the examples above, the image quality is not very stable. Even in daylight, many images were quite grainy, even with the 64MP camera. Colors look bright, but not as saturated and detailed as we would like. One area where the phone really suffered was night mode. Low-light photos are incredibly dull, blurry, and lacking in detail.
Given the phone's difficulties in low light, I can understand why Infinix included such powerful flashlights on the back and front. Although I have to say the selfie camera is great and doesn't need much help. However, the four LEDs on the back and dual LEDs on the front really help the cause.
Overall, I'd say that for a $200 smartphone, the Infinix Note 8 performs well. Selfie cameras are great and main cameras are good, they just need good lighting to get good results.
Performance and battery life
Inside the Inifinix Note 8 is a 12nm Mediatek Helio G80 processor paired with an ARM Mali G52 MP2 GPU. It has 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and runs Android 10 with XOS 7.1 on top. XOS is Infinix's skin of Android, an almost exact copy of MIUI. From the design to the options and their placement, almost everything looks like a Xiaomi cover.
XOS has many useful features, such as an extreme power saving mode, an app drawer, a split screen mode, and a customizable mini menu that opens when you swipe up on the sides of the screen. There are also useful translation apps, live transcription, and apps you can try without downloading, called instant apps.
During my trial period of about a month, I never once experienced any slowdowns or crashes. I was also able to run two apps in split-screen mode for long periods of time with no performance issues. The pre-installed software was a problem, but I was able to remove or disable most of them, except for the ads at the top of the app drawer.
The games were another aspect that I really enjoyed. A large screen, powerful two speakers and a large battery with a capacity of 5200 mAh combined with the gaming-oriented Helio G80 gave satisfactory results. I played Asphalt 9 , PUBG Mobile and other games for hours with no lag or lag in performance.
Moving on to benchmarks, I ran Geekbench 5, AnTuTu and GFXBench. Let's start with Geekbench 5, which tests the processor.
According to Unite4Buy, compared to the Poco M2, which also has a Helio G80 and costs almost the same as the Note 8, the Infinix device received a lower score of 378 compared to the M2's 389. However, it scored 1,362 in multi-core mode, narrowly beating the Poco M2's 1,355. Then we have AnTuTu which monitors everything.
Again, in the AnTuTu Poco M2 tests provided by Unite4Buy, the Inifinix Note 8 wins with a total score of 197,297 compared to the M2, which scored 150,188. Finally, GFXBench tests the GPU.
As for the battery, the Note 8 has an amazing 5200 mAh battery. I managed to use this budget device for two full days of heavy use without the battery draining. After this first round of crash testing, I continued with daily long-term testing and got even better results. I continued to use the phone for three full days and then sometimes and often forgot when I last charged the device.
The phone also has an extreme power saving mode that disables almost all features except those necessary to extend battery life. With 5% left, I turned this feature on and got 16 hours of use in this power saving mode.
As for charging time, it took me exactly 1 hour 44 minutes to go from zero to full charge using the included 18W fast charger. It's not shocking, but it's certainly not bad.
conclusion
In conclusion, the Infinix Note 8 has a lot of good points and also a lot of bad points. A very important element of any modern smart device with a display is undoubtedly the quality of the display. Why not? This is what you see when you use the device.
So I think the fact that the Inifinix Note 8 has such a disappointing display cannot be ignored. I like the giant screen size, it makes reading or viewing content more interesting. But it also shows that the quality of the display is quite low.
Added to this is the fact that many people today don't like phones that are too big to hold. Screen expressions are also a concern for many people. If you are a very demanding person when it comes to smartphone screens, then the Infinix Note 8 is definitely not the right choice.
Another negative factor is the configuration of the main camera. Sure, the AI-powered 64-megapixel quad camera looks great on paper, but it has to work in real life. I don't think the cameras are terrible, the front cameras are really great. But the main cameras require work and do not take pictures constantly. The night mode is also terrible.
However, if you're on a budget and still want a decent upgrade, regardless of screen quality or average cameras, I recommend it. The performance of the phone is commendable, as is the battery life.
The Note 8 can easily run high-performance apps and games without stuttering. At the same time, it stays active for days, saving you the hassle of charging your phone every night or carrying around a bulky charger.
The operating system is also very smooth, even if it looks like a rough copy of MIUI. It has many useful features like app drawer, notes, screen recording, mini menu that appears when you swipe both sides of the screen, split screen mode and more.
For $200, the Infinix Note holds up pretty well as a budget phone. But as a flagship device, the display is disappointing to say the least.
ADVANTAGES
- Battery - Performance - Price
concern
- Screen - Unstable camera