Infinix recently released two new phones — The Infinix Note 4 (which we reviewed here) and The Infinix Note 4 Pro which distinctly differs from its sibling with support for what Infinix calls the X-Pen. Is it worth the extra price tag? Here’s our full review.
Design and Construction
The Infinix Note 4 Pro is pretty much identical to the Note 4 on the front. It has the same 5.7-inch screen with Full HD resolution. Above it, is the receiver, 8MP front camera, and sensor.
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Down below is the physical home button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner. Located on its left and right sides are capacitive keys for navigation. These buttons are unlit, with no visible indication to identify which one is the Recent Apps (Left) and Back (Right), which can confuse first-time users.
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At the left side is a Dual SIM card tray and pogo pins for the Smart Cover, while the volume rockers, power button, and microSD card tray are placed on the right side. It’s good to know that users still have a dedicated slot for a microSD card.
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You’ll find the 3.5mm headphone jack up top, and down below the microphone, mono speaker, and microUSB port.
On its back is the 13MP main shooter accompanied by an LED flash and the Infinix logo below it. Antenna bands are prominent with a different hue than its golden backplate which reminds us of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
Unlike its sibling, the Note 4 Pro has an all-metal body design making it look and feel premium. Users might feel some strain during prolonged one–hand use as the device is quite heavy It’s solid, cool to the touch, and easy to grip thanks to its curved sides.
Display and Multimedia
The device has a 5.7-inch Full HD IPS display which has good viewing angles, color reproduction, and color accuracy. It’s also bright enough to be operated to some degree, under direct sunlight. As for protection, it doesn’t have Gorilla Glass but Infinix claims that the phone’s screen is still scratch resistant.
Its speakers can get pretty loud and has minimal distortion at max volume. The mids and highs sound great but lows, on the other hand, are almost non-existent and the clarity of sounds leave something to be desired. This also translates to the provided earphones, it produces great mids and highs but lows are still lacking. Thankfully, the earphones are comfortable to the ears and causes no irritation on prolonged use.
Camera
The Infinix Note 4 Pro has a 13-megapixel autofocus rear camera with dual-LED flash while the front sports an eight-megapixel shooter. It offers a variety of camera modes for its users such as Professional, HDR, Beauty, Night, Panorama, PIP (Picture in Picture) and Wide Selfie modes, as well as its own set of filters.
The notable camera features are PIP which lets you use both the rear and front cam simultaneously, with the front cam having some frame options, sadly there is no option to have no frame. Wide Selfie is notable as well for being essentially a Panorama shot for the front cam. You can toggle the settings of both the rear and front cam to have grid lines, a leveling guide, touch to capture, smile capture, and delay capture. While a unique option for the front camera is gesture control where the camera takes the shot when it detects a specific gesture.
With all these features in tow, the phone’s wide-angle cameras take decent to good daylight photos and tend to be warm in color. Night shots, however, are not that great and noise on the pictures are evident. Low-light shots are decent provided that the scene still has some lighting. Selfies on the Note 4 Pro are great but tends to have high contrast and slightly overblown highlights. See Sample shots below:
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As for video recording, it can record 1080p clips at 30fps in MP4 format. The video quality is good with wide-dynamic range, although its autofocus has a hard time locking on subjects as it keeps of refocusing. Colors, however, are a bit washed out and audio recorded in video lacks clarity. Watch sample video below:
OS, UI, and Apps
The phone runs on Infinix’ own XOS Chameleon V2.3 on top of Android 7.0. Although Infinix included little bloatware that can be uninstalled, the phone still as quite a few homebrew apps, which leaves the user 23.65GB of the 32GB. It has microSD support should you wish to expand your storage.
As for features, the Note 4 Pro has split screen functionality, infinite scroll, one-handed mode, freezer, gesture controls, and wave to unlock. The highlight of the phone is its stylus dubbed the X-pen which you can use to take notes and memos, write on your screen, or smart select areas. The phone also has an app called the Xnote where you can draw and write with the Xpen. We did, however, experience a few crashes with the Xnote app while we were drawing or scribbling. Nevertheless, it’s a neat feature to have, not to mention Infinix included it for free along with a smart cover.
Performance and Benchmarks
The Note 4 Pro, like its sibling, is powered by the aging MediaTek MT6753 clocked at 1.5GHz paired with 3GB of RAM and the Mali-T720 MP3 GPU. The phone performs well as apps install relatively quick and there is no noticeable lag during home screen navigation. You’ll feel no hiccups in performing mundane tasks like browsing the web, navigating through the phone or texting. Multi-tasking isn’t a problem either, due to the phone’s 3GB RAM.
Light games like Candy Crush or Clash of Clans runs without a hitch on the device but moderate to heavier games like Mobile Legends, Vain Glory, and Asphalt 8 proves to be a challenge as you’ll feel frame drops from time to time. You’ll also notice a bit of heating around the upper parts of the phone during prolonged use. You won’t feel the heat, however, if you have the smart cover attached. Here are some benchmarks:
- AnTuTu – 38,540
- GeekBench – 612 (Single-Core), 2,453 (Multi-Core)
- PCMark – 4,173 (Work 1.0)
- Vellamo – 1,646 (Multicore), 979 (Metal), 2,252 (Chrome)
- AndroBench – 247.74 MB/s (Read), 71.58 MB/s (Write)
Connectivity, Call Quality and Battery Life
Call quality and signal reception on the smartphone is good. Basic connectivity is also present as it has LTE, WiFi, and Bluetooth. GPS is quite accurate and would not be a problem in the long run. Users also have the advantage of having a Dual SIM setup without sacrificing a slot for a microSD, not to mention it has USB OTG support for added storage.
The Note 4 Pro has a whopping 4,500mAh battery, and it will comfortably last you a day or more on a single charge on light to moderate usage. You’ll also have no problem charging the device as it has fast charge support in the form of Infinix’ Xcharge feature. It only took a little over an hour to charge the phone from 0%-100%. That’s a good feat, considering the device has a large capacity battery. PC Mark Battery test ranked the phone at 11 Hours and 44 Minutes. In our standard Video Loop test the phone lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes.
Conclusion
The Infinix Note 4 Pro is a promising device it has good performance, great battery life, and a slew of features that are productive for the user. It’s also a cheaper alternative to Samsung’s Note Series for people looking to experience a stylus-ready device.
At a price of Php 11,999 though, it sits dangerously close to a price range where competitors offer better and more updated devices. Still, if you’re looking for a budget phablet The Infinix Note 4 Pro is a catch for its price, even more so, because Infinix provided a whole package of freebies — a screen protector, a set of earphones and a smart cover.
Infinix Note 4 Pro specs:
5.7-inch Full HD IPS display
1.3GHz octa-core CPU
Mali-T720 MP3 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB ROM
Up to 128GB via microSD (dedicated slot)
8MP front camera
13MP rear camera
Dual-SIM (Micro)
4G/3G/2G
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Hotspot
Bluetooth 4.2
A-GPS
Fingerprint recognition
USB-OTG
Android 7.0 Nougat
X-Pen stylus
4,500mAh battery w/ Quick Charge
159.6 x 78.8 x 8.3 mm
200 g
Champagne Gold, Sandstone Black, Prussian Blue, Lilac Gray
You can order the Infinix Note 4 Pro online at Lazada here
.
What we liked about it:
- Abundant features
- Stellar battery life
- Free Smart Cover and X-Pen Stylus
- A good alternative to “Note” devices
What we didn’t like about it:
- Dated Internals
- Expensive for its specs
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