Admittedly speaking in today’s market, not everyone needed a high end or some mid tier smartphone, and I am talking about taking in all in towards the basic needs of a smartphone functionality in it’s core.
Infinix has a model for it and they send in for us to experience it, the Infinix Smart 8 Pro, a smartphone that has all the essentials, but still have all of the coverage needed of being proper, functional, and reliable too.
Design
As a budget smartphone, the Infinix Smart 8 Pro materials were mostly made of hard polycarbonate plastic from the back and the frame of the phone, making it less likely to get any serious damages if dropped too hard, and besides that, taking in the looks of a classic style slate that is still common till this day, with no frills to it. Despite that the phone is only weighted at 189 grams which is pretty standard but the balance is there in terms of ease of my hands and thumb reaching to the screen and I am able to navigate it just nicely without issues there. The camera bump area is quite subtle and nice looking and there is a case included too, to protect your phone from stratches or smudges. There is also a small while LED located at the top right of the display for charging and notifications.
Display & Audio
The Infinix Smart 8 Pro still packs in a decent, slightly above some of the phones with the similar price range, I mean you still get a 90Hz fast refresh rate display, which is only common on phones spec higher than the Smart 8 Pro, so that is a plus point, although resolution is lower, but that is pretty much expected in order to keep everything the price low, and the overall display still looks crisp when scrolling and handling all your day to day tasks. By the way it’s a 6.6 inch IPS level LCD display that can bright up to 500 nits, this means it is good for day and night viewing but just a slight wash out if looking it from the side angle far abit, but no one really does that.
Getting on to the audio, on the positive side, the phone does it has to deliver sound and music pretty loud, audible, with the lack of somewhat, both bass and treble, however with the inclusion of the 3.5mm audio jack, you can just use that should you need your own audio preferences, or even TWS will do to enhance your experience. That being said, it does have volume boost up to 200% and DTS support for sound customization for the loudspeakers and headphones.
Camera
OK, here comes the camera capability, over to the rear camera, it has a 50 megapixel camera as a main wide angle lens with AF while another one is an auxiliary lens. It may not sound great but overall, during testing, day time photo can be looking great as long it’s a day time or bright places, while in darker environments or night time, so long there is some light sources, it can take pictures that can be uploaded to social media, however dont expect overly vibrant pictures or extra punchy visuals. While then, the Infinix Smart 8 Pro only allows you to take video up to 1080P at 30FPS, which is sufficient for small video uploads or shorts to your social media platform.
Performance & Software
Admittedly speaking, the Infinix Smart 8 Pro is not meant to be a powerhouse, but still, it is equipped with the Octa Core Mediatek Helio G35 SOC that delivers good power efficiency while running multiple applications as smooth as it can with it’s 4GB of physical RAM, another 4GB of virtual RAM and 128GB of internal storage that is also still expandable up to 1TB of MicroSD card externally.
The phone does have a 5000MAh capacity battery that should last you over a day easily even playing a few games, but it should be noted that the phone can only take up easier titles like Mobile Legends or COD Mobile in a lower graphical settings, so set your expectation right, and it can still be a pretty fun phone.
I will skip the benchmark for this phone since some of the benchmark app may not be compatible but in terms of the software, it is driven by Infinix’s XOS 13 with Android 13, along with the latest security patches from Google and Infinix. The UI that Infinix implement in is a light weighted UI that is close enough to AOSP style with some of the Infinix customization like Magic Ring which is similar to iOS Dynamic Island along with Theme customisation and Android 13 standard fixes and features along with enhancements. This is a good effort in keeping the interface and speed as light as it can to prevent any potential quick bottlenecking towards the phone.
Verdict & Conclusion
The Infinix Smart 8 Pro takes on the challenge of being a blend and mix of probably one of the affordable smartphone out there with the emphasis of paying what you should and getting slightly more, particularly a phone that just works, yet efficient on what it do, serviceable camera, clear voice and communications and data usage is the outmost important to the mass public, and RM399 is all you need to pay for to get one.
For more information on the Infinix Smart 8 Pro, click here to find out