Infinix Zero 2: A Solid Performer at Affordable Price [Review]

Infinix is the newest entrant in Pakistan’s smartphone market and their mantra seems to be delivering the most bang for buck. The same goes for its newest addition, the Infinix Zero 2, which was launched in the country just recently.

Infinix follows a ‘factory-to-consumer’ business model and by leveraging its partnership with Daraz.pk, it provides the consumers a reduced channel costs. Infinix Zero 2 comes with an attractive price tag of PKR 18,900 in Pakistan.

Right now, it can only be bought on Daraz.pk so you’ll have to order Infinix Zero 2 online. We have heard that they are in the process of making the device available at retail shops but expect the price tag to be higher there.

You can Order your Infinix Zero 2 from Daraz.PK by clicking this link.

What’s in the box?

Opening the box reveals Infinix Zero 2, a charger with two different plugs and a small green colored box that contains USB cable, headphones and readers manual.

 

Design

The Infinix Zero 2 is the successor to the Infinix zero and changes a lot. The phone now comes with a ‘kevlar back’ and ‘metal frame’ (that looks familiar to Galaxy S6, Xperia Z3’s metal frame) and makes it look premium and rugged at the same time.

The moment you hold the device in your hand you’ll notice that the Infinix Zero 2 is ridiculously light. The good thing is that it doesn’t feel cheap. Infinix Zero 2 is also pretty slim and measures at just 6.7mm thickness. The rounded off corners of the device make it comfortable to hold in the hand.

The Infinix Zero 2 has huge bezels and make the display seems smaller than it should be. However, it’s not uncomfortable to hold for an an average person.

The back side of the device is made with kevlar, the same synthetic fiber which is used in body armors, tires etc. The kevlar is said to be 5 times more stronger than steel and was first introduced in smartphones by Motorola with their Motorola RAZR series as their back covers. It not only looks cool but also gives a sturdiness and ruggedness to the device.

On top left side there’s a 13 MP camera with a LED flash residing just beneath the camera. It also is branded on the back with silver Infinix logo and gray Zero logo that kind of camouflages with the gray kevlar texture. At the front, you have a 5 MP camera.

The left side of the device has a SIM tray which sports dual sim cards and the right side has a micro SD card tray, power button and a volume rocker. On the top-left side it has USB port and on the top-right side there is 3.5mm headphone jack.

On the bottom, you’ll find two speaker grills but there’s only one speaker on the device which lies inside the right speaker grill. Now I can’t figure out why they designed two speaker grills when they were only going put a single speaker in it. The second speaker grill is not for mic either because mic has a dedicated small hole on front of the device, which lies in between glass and metal frame. Aesthetics, I guess?

Zero 2 is available in 3 different colors: champagne gold, red and black.

Display

The Infinix Zero 2 has a 5.0″ AMOLED HD display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. These days, such a display is on the lower side but at the same time it’s bright screen produces rich colors well and is able to display text and images quite decently. This is an area where there’s going to be a visible difference between Infinix Zero 2’s 720p display and a 1080p panel.

Brightness and viewing angles are particularly strong points of the device. During the test I kept the brightness to about 15 percent. Even tilting the device does not diminish the brightness or legibility too much either.

Zero 2 has another trick up its sleeves called ClearMotion. When enabled, it produces videos so fluid that it’d put a few flagships to shame. Watching videos is definitely a great experience on this phone.

The screen’s outdoor visibility was just like what you would expect from an LED panel. It was good but still had some bluish tint to it.

Performance

I think the performance is an area where the device really shines. Under the hood, Infinix zero 2 packs a MediaTek MT6592 octa core CPU clocked at 2.00 GHz, with a Mali-450 MP GPU and 2 gigs of RAM. Now some may say it isn’t Snapdragon 810 or it doesn’t have 3 or 4 gigs of RAM but that doesn’t matter until the device is delivering you some really good performance and our test showed that this thing literally flies.

This processing package is certainly impressive in the given price point of this device.

There were no lags in my testing except some sort of delay which happens after you jump out of an app to the home screen and plus when using screen-off gesture but both of them were negligible. Scrolling through remained pretty much smooth throughout all apps.

Games like Asphalt 7 and modern combat 5 have also been tested on Zero 2 and both of them ran buttery smooth with no lag at all. I was expecting the device would lag and would heat up from the back but it didn’t. It heated a little under a stress test but it was quite minimal.

We also ran some benchmark tests on this device and it didn’t score high enough even with an octa-core processor but remember benchmark tests don’t exactly tell you how powerful your device is and how would it perform as your daily driver.

Here are the benchmark test results:

Hardware

The Infinix Zero 2 comes with 32 GB of on-board storage (only 27 GB is usable) along with microSD card slot for expandable storage. There’s also a 16 GB model but you can’t buy it as there’s only 32 GB model available through Daraz.pk.

The device also features a standard suite of connectivity options, and the Wi-Fi and GPS signals are both pretty strong and stable. The things that are missing here are 4G and NFC. Some may neglect NFC but not having 4G can be a bit of problem, because a lot of people are now buying phones specifically for 4G usage on their handsets.

Considering the target segment is students, youngsters and young professionals who can’t afford expensive phones, the 4G omission kind of makes sense.

As far as the speakers go, we have already discussed the strangeness that is the single speaker with dual speaker grills. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard fare. The loudness and sound quality it produces is just about average.

You can even hot-swap sim cards, meaning that you’ll be able to swap sim cards without turning your device off which is a nifty feature and is definitely worth mentioning.

Software

The software is a skinned version of stock android with custom app icons and there isn’t much tweaking with the overall look of the launcher. The simple launcher might bore you but it keeps thing simple and sweet.

Infinix Zero 2 comes with Android version 4.4.2 KitKat, but expect an OTA Lollipop update on Zero 2 just like the Infinix Hot Note.

While Infinix kept the skin pretty simple, there are few features that have been included in Zero 2. Features like screen off gestures, ClearMotion (video fluidity enhancer), power saving mode and super power saving mode are there.

I found that the screen off gestures were not that reliable as sometimes they don’t work or you have to be really careful while swiping off-screen gesture to get the results, while other features like ClearMotion really amazed me.

Power saving modes have also really saved battery in my testing with a significant increase in the stand-by time.

There is a lot of bloatware as well on Zero 2, but the cool part is that SwiftKey and WPS Office are pre-installed on the device.

Camera

The Infinix Zero 2 has a 13 MP rear camera with an f/2.0 aperture, Samsung S5K3M2 CMOS sensor and a single LED flash. That captures some decent looking shots and produces accurate colors. The noise level is very low and even in low light conditions it handled noise really well.

The images usually come out bright and sharp, Even the macro shots are really top notch. Camera focuses really fast and creates some amazing bokeh effects in the background.

Picture taken in low-light conditions along with LED flash tend to get over-exposed and were not focused properly. Other than that pictures taken without flash did a good job.

Up front the Infinix Zero 2 is packing a 5 megapixel selfie camera. The pictures taken with it are sharp but a little under-exposed. So when you’re taking a selfie in low light conditions you would end up with darker images. Plus the selfie camera has 85 degree wide angle lens which takes wider pictures, so you could fit in few more of your buddies in the selfie.

The camera app itself is pretty simple and near to stock with few camera modes and effects. Focusing is really smooth and there is even an option where you can toggle zero shutter delay. In settings you can toggle HDR, smile shot etc.

There is a small button besides the shutter button which has few effects including normal, face beauty, panorama, multi-angle, live photo and motion track mode.

Back Camera Sample

Below are few un-touched samples from Infinix Zero 2 back camera. You an click on images to view full sizes.

Click on images to view full sizes

Front Camera Samples

Below are few un-touched samples from Infinix Zero 2 front camera. You an click on images to view full sizes.

Click on images to view full sizes

Battery

Nowadays most of the manufacturers are sacrificing battery life of their devices in order to make the device slimmer, lighter and the Infinix Zero 2 seems to be walking the same path. The Zero 2 comes with 2300 mAh battery that is non-removable. With an octa-core processor, in my opinion, the device should have at least 2800 to 3000 mAh battery.

By now you would be thinking the battery life on this device suffers, well it isn’t the case here. After testing the device for few days the battery life proved to be pretty nice. It isn’t the best battery life out there but in my testing the device with moderate usage and Wi-Fi turned on all the time was able to run for 1.5 day easily.

Plus if you want to extend battery life a bit more you can use the power saving mode or the super power saving mode. The 2300 mAh battery which is non-removable can be a problem for some, as they won’t be able to swap another battery.

Specifications:

• Processor: Octa core 2.0GHz (Media Tech MTK 6592)
• Graphics Processor: Mali 450-MP4
• OS: Android 4.4 (KitKat)
• Network
  • 2G: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
  • 3G: 900/2100 MHz
• Dimensions: 145*71.5*6.5 mm
• Weight: 118g
• Design: Highly resistant KEVLAR back cover
• SIMs: Dual SIM – Dual Micro-SIM
• Display: 5.0-inch, HD AMOLED Display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, 720 x 1280 pixels (294ppi)
• Camera
  • 13 MP Rear-facing Camera, AF
  • 5 MP Front-facing Camera (85 degrees Wide Angle)
• Memory
  • 32 GB ROM
  • 2 GB RAM
• Connectivity: WiFi, WiFi Hotspot,USB, Bluetooth TM 4.0
• Sensor: G-sensor, Light sensor, Proximity Sensor, Hall sensor
• Battery: 2,300 mAh
• Price: Rs. 18,900

Conclusion:

The Infinix Zero 2 is without a doubt a really nice smartphone. This thing is not only fast but also looks premium and rugged at the same time. The only cons we found were that the screen and battery, that are not the best ones out there but considering its price the Infinix Zero 2 can be termed as a solid performer at a nice price range.

The company still has to catch up a lot in terms of popularity in Pakistani market, and while they are making good devices with affordable prices, what they really need to focus now is to work on the brand positioning; maybe through a lot of marketing.

The company also needs to open customer service centers across the country since customers will have a tough time finding a cover and screen protector from local mobile stores.

So here it is folks, the full review of Infinix Zero 2. Let me know what do you think about this device in the comments section down below.