InFocus is an American company that proffers touchscreens, projectors, collaborative visualization and peripherals in the US market. The smartphone manufacturing unit of the brand is, however, a different initiative altogether.

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InFocus started providing smartphones in China, Taiwan, and other East Asian markets in 2013 along with tablets and LED televisions. It wasn't until July 2015 that the company had set foot in India. InFocus now offers a series of budget smartphones in India with some high-end specifications or at least this is what this brand claims.

The enterprise now offers eight smartphone options for consumers to choose from in the sub-continent with the latest addition of Turbo 5. The smartphones range from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 12,000 and all of them operate on 4G bandwidth except one which is also the least expensive InFocus smartphone in India.

InFocus Turbo 5 is priced at Rs. 6,999 and Rs. 7,999 for 2GB RAM/16 GB ROM combo and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM combo respectively.

The smartphone is available exclusively on Amazon.in.

Design- Curved glass edges try to steal the show

InFocus Turbo 5 has a 5.2-inch display. It comes in two unique colors which are Mocha Gold and Grey. It has volume rockers as well as lock/unlock toggle on the right side edge. Volume rockers have been placed above lock button which facilitates ease in operating the device and using the buttons whenever required.

Micro USB port rests at the bottom while 3.5 mm audio jack takes the top edge. The left edge of the smartphone sports the SIM tray.

The front panel has a 2.5 D glass covering which has been placed on the device with curved edges that increase its aesthetics.

The lower end bottom of the front panel has the same old three touch-enabled buttons. The top end of the smartphone has the front camera along with ambient light sensor and a microphone. A notification LED also acquires a position on the front panel. All the elements on the front panel have been placed efficiently serving their purpose well.

The rear panel has the primary camera at the top left corner with a LED flash right below it. Fingerprint sensor finds a spot at the center while the engraved InFocus logo right below it tries to impart some exquisite look to the device.

The smartphone weighs 163 grams and doesn't feel too heavy in hands. The anti-gloss finish of the unibody metallic design suits the smartphone quite well. The bezel on the smartphone does not seem to be a lot when one looks at it with the screen lights out. However, there is a considerate amount of bezel which is noticeable with screen lights turned on.

Overall the device looks pretty decent and has all tactile and physical buttons at optimum spots. The elongated design does make it hard to get a firm grip on the device while using it with one hand.

Display- Sharp and just enough bright

The 1280 x 720 pixels resolution and a pixel density of 282 ppi gives this smartphone a sharp display which several smartphones fail to offer in this price segment. However, the brightness of the display is not something you can very well rely upon when outdoors. It is perfect for indoor. Users do not have to overstrain their eyes while looking at the screen. Thus watching movies or lengthy videos from close proximity is not sight or health damaging to an extent.

On the other hand, the decreased brightness in outdoor conditions does create a fuss and one easily misses finer details. The device has an adaptive brightness toggle in the display settings which does help a fair bit but does not necessarily serves the purpose outdoors. The 2.5 D protective glass has an issue of bouncing off the ambient light which is also the root of the aforementioned problem in outdoor conditions.

I still feel that the display is a great one on Turbo 5 and watching videos is immensely pleasurable.

Battery backup- Charger out of your sight

The InFocus Turbo 5 has a 5,000 mAh battery which clearly means it has long-lasting battery juice and as is the case with other smartphones with a similar battery capacity, it is expected to last for at least 24 hours.

Before we talk about its battery backup let me give you an insight of Turbo 5's charging time. I would rather let you have a look at the following picture.

As you can see at 37% the battery demands 101 minutes to reach full capacity. You must have figured it by now, if you haven't, let me mention it clearly. It is SLOW! Takes more than three hours to fully charge. The smartphone does not get heated while it is acquiring its fill but the charger sure takes a beating and heats up insanely.

Getting back to battery backup, while testing the smartphone I gave a full charge to the smartphone to start with. I used the smartphone with location service turned on along with the mobile data at 4G bandwidth. The initial 25 percent of battery dissipated within a couple of hours and I was making up my mind for a non-supporting battery backup. Well, by the time the smartphone discharged completely it had survived 28 hours. In this time span, I had watched several videos on YouTube, used Google Maps a couple of times, played mediocre games whenever I found time to and clicked a fair amount of pictures.

I was, in no way, generous to Turbo 5's battery while I was using or rather abusing it. I can confidently bet on it to last 36 hours with normal usage. It can easily pull you throughout the day without stress. It is yet another factor of Turbo 5 that won over my confidence.

I have had the chance to use Lenovo P2 which also had almost similar battery capacity. P2 is an excellent Android smartphone in the 15k segment with very few shortcomings. Its battery backup is close to 48 hours.

Turbo 5 is the second smartphone after P2 which impressed me when it comes to battery.

Hardware and performance- Fails the claim

InFocus Turbo 5 has a Mediatek MT6737 Soc, which seems to be the favorite system on chip of manufacturers in the sub 10k price segment. It is paired with 2 and 3GB RAM for its two variants. I got my hands on the 2GB RAM variant and the processing was not very impressive. The smartphone gets noticeably slow when several heavy apps are running in the background and takes a few seconds to recover. The device also fails to provide an impressive graphics rendering while you immerse in gaming. I played Subway Surfer on the smartphone, a pretty mediocre and outdated game. Yet there were several glitches while gaming.

Given the fact I was testing a 2GB RAM variant it can be expected that the 3GB variant would function a bit smoother but I would still not bet on it to easily pull out through demanding games.

The fingerprint sensor on this smartphone is pretty quick and accurate. It has been placed thoughtfully on the rear panel and fingers can easily find their way to it.

Dual SIM or Memory Expansion- Sacrifice is yours

InFocus Turbo 5 has a dual SIM support. It can house a nano-sized and a micro-sized SIM. Now the smartphone also supports memory expansion via micro SD card support but with a slight hardware conflict.

The nano-sized SIM fits right where the micro SD card is housed. So you can either choose to use two SIM cards or expand the memory. So, in a way, this device does not support memory expansion for dual SIM users and has no room for a second SIM if a user has pushed in a micro SD card.

Camera- Takes decent indoor pictures

Turbo 5 has a 13MP primary camera and a 5MP secondary camera. The selfie snapper has an aperture value of f/2.2 which is just enough to take indoor pictures. The rear camera performs well indoor and outdoor in favoring conditions and delivers well saturated and natural pictures. The image quality is fairly better than that offered by the hoard of Chinese smartphones in the range. The rear and the front cameras have pretty wide angle lenses as the pictures suggest.

There is, however, a serious issue with the rear camera. It loses focus very easily if you get fairly close to the object and a user wouldn't even know the problem until the image is processed. The camera also takes its time in finding focus.

The camera app was also slow and there are not a lot of add-ons in the app.
The camera is clearly not meant for enthusiasts.

Flash on the rear camera is only good enough to capture images in dark conditions. It adds no aesthetic or softness to images. Turbo 5 could have done better with its camera. There is a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the camera of the smartphone.

Speakers- Clear acoustics but a dim volume level

The speakers on the smartphone are placed on the rear panel and are pretty small if the grill size is any indication. Turbo 5 very well illustrates the disadvantage of installing a dim speaker towards the rear of the smartphone.

The sound which is already not too loud gets subdued even further due to the speaker's position. Although the sound they produce is quite clear and crisp Turbo 5 does not have the best speakers but the one it offers has a decent quality.

Operating system and UI- Nougat with several utilities

InFocus Turbo 5 features Android Nougat 7.0 with several pre-installed apps such as Saavan, Dailyhunt, Go2Pay and Amazon Shopping. Users cannot uninstall these apps from the smartphone if they do not require it and hence there is already a fair amount of memory acquisition before the smartphone even lands in your hands.

Safebox utility allows users to password protect the content of the smartphone along with apps. The UI is not too complex and only a few changes have been brought about to the stock.

Conclusion

This smartphone is meant for users who need a lasting battery backup along with some sharp video entertainment. Turbo 5 gives up on certain elements in order to provide to users what it is actually good at.

For a price tag of Rs. 6,999 you get an average performing device with a usable camera and a mighty battery. It also has one hell of a display which movie buffs will most certainly fall in love with.

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