Infinix S5 review

Design

• The front has a trendy punch-hole camera design (for the first time in this price bracket), giving it an excellent 90.5% screen-to-body ratio
• The back of the device is made up of reflective polycarbonate, and it sports what the company calls ‘Crystal Feather’ pattern design - it looks striking and stylish - and has a rich hand-feel
• Reasonably light-weight
• Both the rear fingerprint sensor, and the face unlock, work well
• One-handed usage is not very easy - reaching the top edge of the display is quite hard

Display

• Large 6.6-inch, 20:9 aspect ratio, immersive display - ideally suited to watch videos
• The display quality is also quite decent for this price bracket - you get good brightness, good sunlight legibility, and vibrant colors
• Lacks an ambient light sensor - so you will need to adjust brightness manually

Software

• While Infinix's custom XOS UI is relatively easy to get around, it does pack a ton of bloatware - some of it can be uninstalled, but there's Palm Store and AHA Games, neither of which can be uninstalled - and they send spammy notifications, that can't be disabled

Performance

• Good performance with the MediaTek Helio P22 SoC under the hood (similar to Snapdragon 625) - day-to-day performance is smooth, and so is casual gaming - but heavier titles struggled to run at their ideal graphics settings

Camera

• Decent, versatile quad camera setup at the rear: 16-megapixel primary sensor, a 5-megapixel wide (and Super macro) lens, a depth sensor, and a low light sensor
• Primary camera clicks decent pictures in daylight conditions - it delivers almost natural-looking results and the HDR mode makes the shots even better
• The 32-megapixel selfie camera too takes fairly good selfies in good light conditions
• Macro mode and wide-angle shots offer interesting framing options, but the overall image quality is ordinary
• Low light performance is average
• Portraits shots aren't that great, subject detection and background blur could have been better (competing phones like the Redmi 8 are much better)
• Overall, while the 'quad camera' claim is catchy, but in terms of real-world performance the camera setup is only ok for the price bracket

Battery

• Good battery life with a 4000mAh battery - will give you about 1.5 days of usage on moderate use

Verdict

• Overall, the S5 continues Infinix's track record of good-specs-for-the-money launches, and is a decent option to consider if you are looking for a trendy hole-punch design - although as all-round good phones, the alternatives from Xiaomi and Realme are better options