Infinix S5 Lite First Impressions - Affordable Smartphone With Premium Looks

Premium Design With Glass Back Finish

Infinix has used a glass back finish with that provides a premium look to the device. However, the glass back is prone to fingerprint magnet, which might keep you busy in cleaning them all the time. The rear panel also sports a triple rear camera setup aligned on the top-left corner of the phone along with quad-LED flash. It also houses a fingerprint scanner and Infinix branding.

The company launched the smartphone in three color variant which includes Midnight Black, Quetzal Cyan and Violet. We received the Quetzal Cyan color unit for the review.

Design-wise the smartphone comes with clean round edges, and on the right, it sports a volume rockers along with a power button. The company has used its signature texture embedded power button to establish a difference between the power button and volume rockers. On the right, it has also the SIM card tray and at the bottom, it offers a micro USB port, speaker grille, and a 3.5mm audio output jack.

Coming to the front design, we must say that the company has achieved a premium front design with the integration of punch-hole front camera setup and placement of earpiece cleverly at the top edge of the phone. With the inclusion of the punch-hole camera is offering a premium design to the budget segment smartphone.

The overall design of the smartphone is attractive and the glass back gives it a premium look. The form factor of the phone will allow you to use the phone single-handedly. Irrespective of the screen size of the device, it provides a reliable grip.

Display Performance

The Infinix S5 Lite flaunts a big 6.6-inch punch hole Super Cinema HD+ display with a resolution of 720x1600 pixels. The screen carries an aspect ratio of 20:9 with 90.5% screen-to-body-ratio for edge-to-edge access of the display. It is also protected by a 2.5D curved glass. The punch-hole is situated on the top-left corner of the display which will not harm your viewing experience.

Moreover, the smartphone comes with minimal bezel along with a thin chin at the bottom. Yes, the S5 Lite does have a chin but it is slick enough to get ignored by users.

Besides, the company has also cared about the different brightness and contrast settings and modes for users which can be used accordingly. Infinix has included read and eye care mode to ensure minimum strain on the eyes. Eye care mode will reduce the blue color from the display and provide a warm effect which is suitable for low light usage.

To test the display quality of the phone, we did play some videos on streaming platforms like YouTube and Netflix and noticed a balanced color reproduction which felt satisfactory.

Hardware And Software Performance

As far as hardware is concerned, the Infinix S5 Lite is powered by an octa-core Helio P22 processor, clubbed with 4GB RAM + 64GB storage. You can also expand the storage up to 256GB via microSD card slot. With this RAM and storage specification, the smartphone is capable of handling multitasking and smartphone gaming as well.

We tested the phone by firing-up numbers of applications and we haven't noticed any lag during our use. We have tested the device for playing high-graphics games like PUBG Mobile and Fortnite and the gameplay was smooth. However, we do have witnessed a little amount of heat on the rear-panel during long hours of gameplay but at this price range, we can ignore that amount heating issue.

The Infinix S5 Lite packs Android 9.0 Pie on top of XOS Cheeta v5.5.2. The user interface of the units looks user-friendly and you can also customize it as per your requirement. On the home page, you also have a slider panel which will trigger when you swipe right to left. This panel will offer you tools like Translate, PHX Browser, Selfie Camera, Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Youtube and Screenshot as default and you can add more.

We have also tested the Face Unlock feature of the phone, and the response time was very impressive. The face unlocking feature was responding better than the fingerprint scanner and it has added good points to the overall experience. 

The overall experience of the phone in terms of software and hardware performance was impressive, we didn't faced any issues with the phone in terms of smoothness and user interface. We have tested the phone with high-graphics games but didn't notice any lag during the gameplay.

Camera Performance

The affordable smartphone arrives with a triple rear camera setup with the combination of 16MP AI sensor with 2MP depth and a dedicated low light sensor along with a quad-LED flash for low light photography. The camera app also comes embedded with a Google Lens to allow users to search what they see.

We tested the camera in both day-light and low-light situation and we can say that the images clicked from the smartphone are sharp and delivers an HDR effect to all the photos. The color production was balanced and the saturation levels are also impressive. It also comes with portrait mode which allows you to set background blur according to your requirement.

The portrait mode comes with an aperture scale which will allow you to choose the background blur according to your requirement. We tested this feature and the aperture scale was delivered a decent bokeh effect. However, we don't recommend you to use that every often because it needs a lot of stability and technicality to get the best shot.

Upfront, the Infinix S5 Lite offers a punch-hole selfie camera with 16MP camera sensor. It comes equipped with AI portrait, AI 3D face beauty and WideSelfie modes. We have tested the front camera performance and we noticed that the selfie camera performs well with balanced color production with sharp edges.

Battery Capacity And Performance

The Infinix S5 Lite comes equipped with a 4,000 mAh non-removable battery. The company claims that the phone is capable of delivering 18.82 hrs 4G talk-time, 32 hrs music playback, 14.7 hrs video playback, 13.4 hrs web surfing, 11 hrs gaming and 31 days standby time. However, during our usage, we noticed a battery life of only 6-7 hours a day while using the phone for all the aforementioned activities.

Thoughts About Infinix S5 Lite 

Overall, the Infinix S5 Lite delivers an impressive performance and checks almost all the boxes to make it an affordable yet premium looking smartphone. On the first go, we tried testing all the aspects of the smartphone and we must say that the device has not missed a single chance to impress us. 

At the asking price of Rs. 7,999, the company is offering a smartphone with a 6.6-inch display along with a punch-hole camera, 4GB RAM + 64GB storage, 4,000 mAh battery, and lot more.

However, this is the first impression of the Infinix S5 Lite and we don't want to jump to any conclusion so early. We will use the device for a while and get back to you with a comprehensive review of the smartphone soon.