Phone manufacturer Infinix Mobile launched the S series smartphones, the Infinix S5 and the Infinix S5 Lite, in Kenya in November this year.
The new smartphone is a successor to the Infinix S4, which was launched in Kenya in May 2019. What’s new with the Infinix S5 you may be asking? Well we got one for review and here are our thoughts on it.
Infinix S5 specifications
| Screen | 6.6-inch HD+(1600 x 720 pixels) Infinity-O |
| Rear Camera | Quad camera Setup 16MP 5MP 2MP 2MP |
| Selfie Camera | 32MP |
| Processor | MediaTek Helio P22 |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth, Wi-Fi |
| RAM | 4/6GB RAM |
| Internal storage | 64/128GB Storage Kenya (256GB via microSD card) |
| Operating System | Android 9 Pie |
| Battery | 4000mAh |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G |
Design
As with other Infinix smartphones, the S5 comes with a body that has an arc design. The screen covers the majority of the front side of the phone. The selfie camera fits snugly in the screen, on the left hand side. It fits so smoothly that sometimes you can forget that it is there.
Other design features include the dual SIM card port on the left side of the phone which also has the MicroSD port. The power button is on the right along with the volume buttons. A 3.5mm headphone jack is at the bottom of the phone (left) plus a charging port (middle), loudspeaker, and a mouthpiece. The fingerprint sensor is at the centre on the back of the phone with the rear cameras on the left plus the camera sensor.
As usual, for Infinix phones at least, the home button is in the middle of the phone with the rest of the controls are on the left and on the right.
Screen
The phone comes with a 6.6 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen. It has a resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels with a 20:9 ratio (~269 ppi density) The screen covers 81.9% of the front side of the phone.
The space where the selfie camera is a clever notch. However the placement is so clever that it doesn’t seem like a notch. If you however want to remove the notch effect, you can be able to turn it off in settings.
Other screen settings you can play with on the phone include the eye care feature that dulls the screen to reduce eye fatigue when using the phone. Others include read mode to help with reading on specific apps, and inadvertently mode that helps prevent accidental use of the phone when it’s in our pocket.
The screen is pretty bright and clear and it produces images and video in really bright colours. It works quite well in bright light such as when you are outside in the sun. It is best to turn on the adaptive brightness feature on the phone such that the light is adjusted automatically depending on the light conditions.
Connectivity
The phone is a Dual SIM and it also comes with dual 4G which means that both SIM cards are able to access 4G at the same time. You can also switch usage of data, voice or SMS between the different SIM cards quite fast. Data switching however takes a bit longer than the other.
I used the phone with both Safaricom and Telkom SIM cards. On data, I was able to get downloads of between 20-40 Mbps on Safaricom and uploads of 15-20Mbps. On Telkom, downloads were between 15-20Mbps and uploads of between 10-20Mbps.
The phone can also access 2G and 3G networks and it also has Bluetooth, Micro USB, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hot Spot and FM radio.
Software
The phone comes with Android 9.0 (Pie) that is coupled with XOS 5. The apps it comes with include the usual Google apps and also comes pre-installed with apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook. It also comes with Palmstore, an app store by Transsion Holdings, where you can install additional apps.
Performance
The phone with a Mediatek MT6762 Helio P22 chipset, Octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU and PowerVR GE8320 GPU. The phone also comes with 4GB RAM.
I generally had a fantastic time with performance on the Infinix S5. It worked really well even when multiple apps were open, even heavy apps such as Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat.
However, when playing heavy games you need to close some of the other apps to be able to have a good playing experience.
Camera
The phone comes with an amazing five cameras. At the back, it comes with a quad camera set-up that includes 16 Megapixels + 5 Megapixels + 2 Megapixels + 2 Megapixels cameras with LED flash, panorama, HDR. The selfie camera is 32 Megapixels.
The camera features include;
- AI CAM – This feature is able to automatically recognize various objects you are taking pictures of and then optimizes the light to fit it.
- Beauty mode – This feature is able to optimize the lighting when taking pictures of people. It is available on the front and rear cameras
- Other features include Bokeh Mode, AR Shot, and Panorama
Here are some of the pictures that I took with the phone.
Battery
The phone comes with a 4000mAh battery that lasts about 8 hours on heavy use. If you turn on battery saver, the phone can last for about 12 hours. However, on battery saver mode, certain features are turned off such as auto sync. This is a small price to pay especially if the phone is on really battery.
You can also turn on WhatsApp battery mode, which limits the use of data to just WhatsApp, Download and Music apps. This means that you can be able to conserve the battery at a higher rate and the phone will last for way longer without having to charge.
Storage
The phone comes with 64GB internal storage. I hope that Infinix makes this a standard for all their phones because with this storage space you don’t really need to get extra storage space.
However, if you do need extra storage space, you may be able to expand it through MicroSD on this phone to up-to 256GB.
Final thoughts
The Infinix S5, like its other Infinix sisters, delivers a good phone experience and at an affordable price. It makes for the perfect mid-level smartphone at a price that is quite friendly to your pocket.
The Infinix S5 is available for just Ksh. 16,499 on Xpark here ke.xpark.com/infinix-s5 or in retail outlets.