Infinix recently launched the Infinix Zero 8 to the Kenyan market. It launched yesterday and we’ve been using the phone for a while now and here’s our first look review.
The Infinix Zero 8 is the company’s flagship device that comes after they launched a couple of budget smartphones in Kenya including the Infinix Note 7 and the Infinix Hot 9 series early this year.
Infinix really brought the big guns with the Zero 8 after missing out with the Zero 7.
Inside the box, we get the phone itself, type-c charging cable, 33W power brick, premium looking earphones, stickers, screen protector, silicone cover, sim ejector tool, user guides and warranty.
The Infinix Zero 8 comes in various colours including Diamond Silver and Diamond Black
You get dual selfies cameras at the front that interrupt the display.
The top bezel has the earpiece grill which also functions as a stereo speaker. On the right side is the power button which also has the fingerprint scanner next to the volume buttons.
On the left side, is the sim card slot. It’s worth noting that the Infinix Zero 8 supports VoLTE for both Safaricom and Faiba4G.
At the bottom, is the speaker grill, USB port, microphone and headphone jack.
The phone is quite a hefty but the curved back makes it easier to use. However, its huge size makes it difficult for one-handed operations.
It’s a plastic back but the colour gradient design gives it that premium look.
You can use the case provided to avoid the fingerprint smudges.
At the front is a 6.85″ LCD display with full 1080p resolution(1080 by 2460 pixels). As we’ve seen with recent mid-range smartphone launched in the country such as the realme 6 and the TECNO Camon 16 Premier, the Infinix Zero 8 has a 90Hz refresh rate screen which is a welcome feature in this smartphone market.
That 90hz refresh rate is pretty smooth not only when gaming high refresh rate games but also when scrolling social media or browsing the web.
Animations are much smoother either when playing games or switching between apps.
It’s a good thing that 90Hz is coming to the Zero series and will hopefully trickle to other Infinix smartphones. This screen and the stereo speakers which are impressively loud and full offer a seamless multimedia experience.
No Gimmicks here
The brains running the show is a Helio G90T processor and Mali-G76 MC4 GPU. You also get an upgraded 8GB of RAM and 128GB of onboard storage.
The Infinx Zero 8 handles whatever task you throw at it. Be it heavy multitasking or simply using the phone to call, text or answer the email.
Android 10 and XOS Dolphin v7.0 which is has been revamped and is much leaner.
The adware ruins all this.
You install an app, an ad will pop up as a notification – it is so annoying
Open up Twitter, an ad.
You actually have to put a third-party launcher like Microsoft or Nova just to keep everything check.
You also have to go deep in the bloatware apps and disable the notifications otherwise ads will pop up everywhere..literally everywhere.
You get nice-to-have features such as Game-mode and Social Turbo which has some features such as recording WhatsApp audio calls, video beauty mode that smoothens the skin and brightens it in video chat, WhatsApp stickers and Peek mode that lets you save the messages you missed.
In the camera department, the Infinix Zero 8 comes with six cameras – four at the back and two at the front.
You get a 64MP main camera, 8MP ultrawide, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensor.
There’s a 48MP main and 8MP ultra-wide for group selfies at the punch-hole cutout at the top left.
There are twelve modes to play around which includes Google Lens.
Modes range from AI cam(default), 64MP mode, Beauty, Bokeh, SuperNight, Video, Slow Motion, Pro, Panorama, Documents.
All the cameras are pretty good and I couldn’t stop taking shots with the phone.
The cameras were so good so I saved a separate review for that – it will be coming out later this week.
Battery life is also excellent.
Infinix Zero 8 comes with 4500mAh battery and Infiix finally not only included Type-C charging port but also 33W fast charging. Both ends of the charging cable have orange accents. I can’t wait to see if Infinix includes this fast charging and type-c port gets featured in Infinix’s later smartphones.
I was getting over 11 hours on light use and 8 hours on heavy usage. And when I needed to recharge it, an hour was good enough to go from empty to full.
For those who want to quickly juice up, it takes 24 minutes to charge form 0 to 54%, and to 91% in 48 minutes. That’s pretty fast and I loved it.
Infinix Zero 8 has me impressed so far. It packs quite the 2020 features we’ve been calling out the smartphone to include in its flagship and they did. 90Hz refresh rate, 64MP quad-camera setup, 48MP dual punch-hole selfie cameras, heavy-performance chips all under a nicely designed chassis and as people say, you love to see it.
One thing that drags all the progress Infinix is making with the competitive Kenyan smartphone market it’s currently in is the bloatware – this will be the phone’s Achilles heel.
All in all, I like where Infinix is going especially with the Zero series and with the Zero 8, it’s a step in the right direction.
