Infinix Smart 8 HD Review: Looks Appealing But Does It Go Beyond Looks?

Infinix set the right tone for some of its launches in 2023, including the Zero 30 5G and the GT 10 Pro. Those were value-for-money offerings and received appreciation from us for their build and performance. However, can Infinix repeat the same mantra for its latest budget offering, the Smart 8 HD. We’ll find that out in our review of the Infinix Smart 8 HD.

Design & Display

Infinix Smart 8 HD gets a design that isn’t unique but looks impressive. The phone is made of plastic all around, but thanks to the attention they gave to finishing, the handset doesn’t feel cheap even though it is in terms of price, at just Rs 6,299. The green version we got for review is a total eye-grabber. It can show you hints of gold depending on the light on the panel. The light also reveals a square outlining around the camera island, which looks appealing again.

The fingerprint-integrated power button and the volume rocker are on the right, where the former works very well in terms of unlocking with accuracy and speed. There’s a 3.5mm Headphone jack at the bottom, which is rare to find these days. A USB-C port and a speaker accompany it. This speaker is average at best, both in terms of loudness and the audio quality also.

The display panel is a 6.6-inch IPS LCD with an HD+ Resolution of 1612 x 720 pixels and a 90Hz refresh rate. There is a punch hole at the top for the front camera. The screen offers 500 nits of peak brightness. It produces decent colours with decent viewing angles. However, I feel the panel lacks brightness the most as I had a lot of difficulty reading outside in direct sunlight.

Software & Performance

The Infinix Smart 8 HD is powered by a Unisoc T606 chip paired with 3GB RAM and 64GB storage. It runs on Android 13-based XOS 13. Now, the handset isn’t designed to execute heavy tasks, and that’s evident. However, daily tasks, including scrolling Instagram or browsing through the web, also showed stutters. Further, RAM management wasn’t the best either, as it often had to load most apps again after I closed them. Virtual RAM didn’t seem to help much in my case.

What I do appreciate, though, is the feature set. It gets the Magic Ring, a cloned Dynamic Island feature from Apple. It works fine and shows you the status of system parameters such as battery percentage, a call duration timer, unlock animations and more.

Aside from that, the handset is packed with other features as well, such as AI smart charge, navigation gestures, various themes via a dedicated store, and more. As for connectivity performance, which includes Bluetooth, 4G LTE, and Wi-Fi, it remained optimum.

Battery Backup

The Infinix Smart 8 HD packs a 5000mAh battery with standard 10W charging. I feel Infinix could have provided up to 18W fast charging, but considering the price, I can accept what has been given. Battery backup seems to be one of the impressive aspects of the handset, as it can easily last you a day or more with moderate usage.

During my review of the Infinix Smart 8 HD, screen-on time with normal day-to-day tasks such as streaming, scrolling social media, and more went above 5 hours with around a day’s worth of use. However, charging speeds are a pain, as charging the handset can take close to 2.5 hours from 0 to 100 percent.

Cameras

The Smart 8 HD gets a 13-megapixel primary camera sensor and an AI lens at the back. There is also an LED flash module next to the sensors. The handset has an 8-megapixel f/2.0 front camera sensor, which also has a small flashlight next to it.

The handset shoots decent photos outdoors in terms of colours but lacks detailing in whichever lighting condition you click the photos in. When clicked outdoors, the photos are very soft and give you that oil-painting effect. Further, the camera also fails to handle exposure properly.

When shooting under darker shadows, such as low lighting or night, the camera further struggles to keep up, and that shows in the photo, thanks to a lot of noise and lack of sharpness. The situation is similar when shooting photos indoors under artificial lighting.

As for selfies, the skin tones are mostly way off than what you see in real life. Again, the lack of sharpness and details is also evident in these photos.