INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS REVIEW: BEST PHONE IN INDIA?

Infinix has been in India for a couple of years and has released some really exciting and value-for-money phones, right from the Note 4 to the Note 5 Stylus. But today, Infinix wants to make the entry-level smartphone market more exciting with its all-new Infinix Smart 3 Plus. The Smart 3 Plus is the first phone in this price range to offer a 6.2-inch waterdrop display and a triple-camera setup.

But do these additions improve the budget smartphone experience? How does the phone stack up for day-to-day use? Well, let’s find out in our review of the Infinix Smart 3 Plus.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS DESIGN REVIEW

The Infinix Smart 3 is by far the most good-looking phone in this segment. For the price, you get plastic unibody with glass-finish at the back. The glass-finish definitely adds a flair to the phone but unfortunately is also a fingerprint magnet. The back of the phone also houses a fingerprint scanner and a triple-camera setup.

The front of the phone sports the waterdrop display notch, the selfie camera and the earpiece. Coming from more expensive phones, the bezels seem really visible, but are still great for a phone that costs this much.

The phone gets a volume rocker and a textured power button on the right side of the phone while the triple card slot, which can house two microSIM cards and a microSD card can be found on the right side of the phone. The edges of the phone are rounded and help get a much better grip of the phone.

The bottom panel is where you’ll find the microUSB port, the 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone.

All in all, the phone is pretty good-looking and easy to hold. Fans of bright and eye-catching colours can go with the blue colour variant of the phone while others can choose to go with the classy black colour variant that we had for review.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS DISPLAY REVIEW

The phone becomes the first one to get a 6.2-inch waterdrop notch display in this price segment. The display has an HD+ resolution with a 2.5D glass for a premium look. But the 720p resolution and the large display doesn’t make the display seem as sharp it is on other phones with a similar display but smaller size. I only wish that the display would be crisper.

Nonetheless, the brightness and the saturation of the panel kind of compensated the overall display experience. The phone is bright enough to be legible under the Indian sun and colours display decent saturation too.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS CALL & SOUND QUALITY REVIEW

The phone has a tiny slit in the waterdrop notch for the earpiesce. Sound quality over calls was just fine and even the receiver on the other end could hear me well. In my time with the phone, I didn’t face any dropped calls and network reception was alright.

The Smart 3 Plus has a downward firing mono speaker. The speaker doesn’t get too loud and you’ll be better off listening to content via earphones or Bluetooth speakers. The phone also features a 3.5mm headphone jack that you can use for wired earphones (there’s none in the box though).

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS PERFORMANCE REVIEW

The Infinix is powered by the quad-core MediaTek Helio A22 which is comparable to the Snapdragon 450 in terms of performance. The phone is pretty good at doing day-to-day tasks of sending mails, checking social media and even watching content. But it’s best not to expect the phone to multi-task due to its limited 2GB of RAM.

For a phone of this price, you really can’t expect it to perform well at heavy tasks like gaming. But just to stress out the phone, I tried playing PUBG on it. Surprisingly, the experience wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. With graphics at the lowest settings and using XOS’s Game Boost feature, the game was playable albeit with frame drops and lag. But expect games like Subway Surfer to play decently.

The camera is one aspect where the phone seemed to get a bit fried. There is a slight shutter lag and checking out the last clicked picture also seems to take a couple of seconds. But apart from this, the phone worked just fine and shouldn’t really concern you.

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INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS BATTERY REVIEW

The Infinix Smart 3 Plus has a 3,500mAh battery that is capable of lasting an entire day for most users. Given the processing power, I didn’t find myself gaming on the phone as much. My usage involved social media, streaming music and clicking pictures. For my kind of usage, the phone will easily last for a day with about 15-20% charge left to be carried over the next day.

Infinix also claims that the phone’s AI Smart Power Saving feature learns how you use the phone over time to make the battery last even longer. I can’t vouch for this feature as I really haven’t used the phone for a long period to actually note any improvements.

The phone comes with a standard 5V-1.2A charger that takes about 1 hour and 50 minutes to charge the 3,500mAh battery from 5 to 100%.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS SOFTWARE REVIEW

The phone runs on Infinix’s XOS Cheetah which is based on Android P. Like most user interface from the land of China, the software offers a lot of customization. But unlike most other Chinese OEMs, Infinix offers an app drawer with XOS.

You also get a smart drawer to the left of the home screen from which apps and shortcuts can be accessed. You can book a cab or pay money without having to go the respective apps. There’s also a Smart Panel feature that gives you access to 9 of your favourite apps and 3 shortcuts with just a single swipe from the edge of the screen.

With the phone running on Android Pie, you also get the ability to use gestures instead of on-screen notifications. But actions would follow only a couple of seconds after I did the swipes. Hence, I switched back to on-screen buttons pretty soon.

There’s support for off-screen gestures to control music and launch applications. As far as gestures go, there’s a lot to explore and customize on the phone. For example, you can also swipe three fingers down to take a screenshot.

The biggest annoyance of the entire software experience had to be the ‘AIBox’. The ‘AIBox’ is an app that can help you block annoying notifications like ads. But what’s ironical is that this service has a permanent notification in the notification bar that you just can’t disable! Even if you do turn this feature off, the notification will still remain and tell you what it can do if you switch it back on.

Apart from a few promoted apps and services here and there, the software is pretty decent. It offers plenty of options to customize the phone and an app drawer right out of the box.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS FINGERPRINT SCANNER & FACE UNLOCK REVIEW

The Smart 3 Plus is one of the few brands that offer a fingerprint scanner in this price segment. The fingerprint scanner is pretty easy to set up and can store up to 5 fingerprints. But as you’d expect, the fingerprint scanner is not as fast as it is on phones that cost more than Rs 10,000. The phone takes about a whole second to recognize the fingerprint and unlock the phone. Although it gets slightly annoying at times, I’m not complaining.

The fingerprint unlock on the Smart 3 Plus has another very interesting feature that I haven’t seen on any other phone yet. The phone lets you dedicate an application to a particular fingerprint, say your left index finger. Now the next time you unlock the phone with your left index finger, the phone will directly unlock and jump into the dedicated app selected by you. A very thoughtful addition by the XOS team in my opinion!

Face Unlock on the phone is software based and is worse than most implementations out there. The phone took at least 2 seconds to recognize my face, even in great lighting conditions. In low light conditions, the failure rate highly increased and made me turn it off altogether. If you’re planning to get the Smart 3 Plus, you’d be better off by not using Face Unlock.

Both Face Unlock and the fingerprint scanner can be used to lock and access applications.

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INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS CAMERA REVIEW

The cameras of the Infinix Smart 3 Plus make the phone stand out in this price segment. The rear of the phone houses a triple-camera setup, that Infinix claims, makes the phone more versatile, even in low-light situations. The primary sensor is a 13-megapixel camera with a 2-megapixel depth sensor and a tertiary light sensor.

When you look at the results of what this camera clicks, you’ll realise, it’s still a pretty average camera. When you’re clicking images with it, make sure there’s tons of light around. Because in low-light situations, the pictures are over-sharpened and have a lot of noise. Fortunately, the phone’s HDR capabilities give the phone a better dynamic range than most phones in this range.

Portrait shots are a hit or miss, both from the front and the rear camera. In my usage so far, I’ve barely managed to get shots with good edge detection. The phone creates a very superficial looking blur around the object/person making shots like just fine rather than anything else.

There is no dedicated night mode in the camera application to take better pictures in low-light. In fact, there is no auto mode as well. The default camera mode is the ‘AI Camera’ that detects the scene and automatically applies the required settings. Night shots are portrayed by a small moon icon on the camera viewfinder.

Even the selfie camera produces average pictures. For selfies, you have the option of AR stickers and AI Beauty mode (like seen on phones like Vivo & Samsung). Even when not using beauty mode, the regular selfies produce washed skin tones and don’t have a lot of detail. Portrait detection, as mentioned above, is decent at best.

INFINIX SMART 3 PLUS REVIEW FINAL THOUGHTS

The Infinix Smar 3 Plus aims to offer a good camera and media consumption at a price of less than Rs 8,000. While the display is on the good side, the triple-camera setup still leaves a lot to be desired. But for the price, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something better. For people looking for an entry-level phone for general usage, the Smart 3 Plus can be a wonderful choice. Its great design, good display, better-than-average cameras, strong battery life and triple card support make it a good budget all-rounder.