a successful debut on the Romanian market

We announced in April that the Chinese manufacturer Infinix officially entered the Romanian market. For about two weeks I have been testing the Infinix Note 40, a 1200 lei phone. Before I go into details about this phone I want to address a bit of the negativity surrounding this brand. I made a short 1-minute clip in which we presented this new brand of phones that entered Romania and published it on YouTube and TikTok, it became viral and together on the two platforms the clip recorded over 400,000 views.

Many appreciated the clip, but many also commented and most were negative: third-world phones, that it’s bad for him, Chinese, that they have bad processors and so on. Brothers, no one is forcing you to buy them and more options are always good for consumers.

What you get in the box

Infinix comes with an interesting approach, in my opinion, at least with this Note series and brings things you don’t see in this price range. For example, wireless charging and wireless charging via magnets, similar to what you see on the iPhone. Yes, what do I need wireless charging? You don’t need it, but it’s very convenient: don’t bother with wires, chargers, just put the phone in and it charges. It is very useful for the office, for the bedside table. The case with magnets is useful for wireless charging on the go. I have this magsafe battery from Anker that I charge my iPhone with when I travel, I just attach it and it charges and it also doubles as a phone stand. Now I can do that with this phone which is 4.8 times cheaper than a new iPhone 14 Pro.

Another thing I liked about Infinix is ​​that they go against the grain and offer everything in the box: wired charger, wireless charger, wired earphones, case. Everything you need is in the box. Pretty cool.

How powerful is the Infinix Note 40

But now let’s talk applied about the Infinix Note 40. I usually talk about the design first, but here I feel the need to start with the performance because many of you in the Infinix videos have pointed out that the Helio G99 Ultimate processor is not powerful enough. Yes, it doesn’t break in synthetic tests and it’s possible that in 1-2 years of use it won’t perform well enough, but now in the two weeks of use I can say that I was quite happy with how it moves, again , for a 1200 lei phone. In the synthetic tests, it achieved 375 points in 3DMark Wild Life Extreme, far from the flagship phones with over 4500 points. In Geekbench 6 I had 732 points on single core and 1975 in multicore, again far from the scores of top phones with almost 2000 points on single core and over 4500 in multicore.

In reality, in browsing, browsing and using the usual apps like messenger, camera, Netflix moves decently with slight stumbling every now and then. It’s not a bother, at least not for now, but it could be a problem in the future. But that’s the reality of cheap phones that aren’t designed to last more than two years.

I tested it in Brawl Stars, PUBG and Genshin Impact and it moves just fine. In Brawl Stars it is smooth, and in PUBG it has 30 FPS on high settings and 40 FPS on smooth settings. So it’s more than playable, so to speak. In Genshin Impact about the same situation with a fluctuation between 30 and 50 FPS depending on what is happening on the screen on the lowest graphics settings. One benefit is that it didn’t heat up at all after a 30 min PUBG match. So casual gaming at most on this smartphone. A cool thing here that I’ve usually seen on gaming phones is bypass charging and that means when you play games with the phone plugged in, it doesn’t charge to avoid overheating.

It runs Android 14 with XOS interface which is similar to Xiaomi’s in my opinion. It receives 2 years of system updates and 3 years of security, and the service is done in Romania. It has 8 GB of RAM that can be expanded up to 16 GB by reducing the storage space, which here is 256. It is dual SIM and does not support a microSD card.

How is Infinix’s XOS software

And because we were talking about software and I was curious to see if this manufacturer brings anything new in this department I will present you some interesting things that you can do on this smartphone.

Anti-theft features such as power-off verification that requires a pin code or fingerprint to turn off the phone. So when someone steals it from you, they can’t close it unless they know the code. Then you have Find My to find it

Unlock Capture helps you when someone wants to unlock your device. If he makes a mistake twice, the phone takes a picture. Theft alert can be useful when you charge your phone in a public place and if someone takes it off the charger to take it your phone starts to sound an alarm and vibrate to alert you that someone has taken your phone. It stops by logging in.

Functions that help you, but you also have to put a more complex code or a model that is harder to replicate. By the way, secure keyboard makes the numbers change so that it is harder for a thief to detect what you pressed when you typed the code.

Peak proof is a strange feature and with the help of which you can only show part of the screen. It could be useful in live interactions when you want to show someone just a certain piece of information.

Also in the privacy area there are some interesting things like blank data which should protect you from dubious applications that try to collect data like contacts and so on.

Repair Mode is useful for when the phone needs to be repaired and you don’t want the people at the store to have access to your photos or documents. I’ve seen the Vault feature in others and it’s a secure folder where you can add pictures, documents and so on.

Low Battery SOS helps you when you’re lost on the mountain and your phone’s battery is dead. Before the phone turns off, it sends the last location to a contact of your choice.

In the area of ​​productivity and usability we have the option of floating widows and you can use two at the same time on top of a third application. I don’t know how much you would use this, but it works well.

Smart Panel is not new and you activate it by swiping here. What I like is that extra features appear depending on the context: if you’re watching a movie, if you’re playing a game and things like screenshot, DND and so on appear.

Smart Hub is cool because you can copy several things, be it texts or images and you can keep them in a corner and then from there you can drag them into a document, for example, and it helps you compose something faster.

The last thing I want to mention is that it also has the ability to connect wirelessly to your PC. After installing the software on your PC, you can transfer files wirelessly, mirror your phone screen to your monitor. Works on Wi-Fi or cable. In theory, in practice it didn’t work, at least not on my desktop PC.

Let’s talk now about design, screen and autonomy, then about cameras and draw a conclusion.

Design and screen

The screen is 6.78 inches FHD and with a variable refresh rate that goes from 60 to 120 Hz depending on the content. It’s bright for indoor use and may be ok in strong sun, but I haven’t had days with such conditions to test it. You can adjust the colors and make them quite strong. It’s decent for browsing, gaming, TikTok or YouTube. It also has always on display for those who want it. It has two speakers and the sound is tuned by JBL, but don’t get your hopes up too high, it’s decent, functional at maximum volume, but at least it has some volume.

As a design it is… functional. It’s not going to win any awards, and I don’t particularly like it, but it’s thin at 7.8mm and light at 190 grams. The back is matte and leaves no fingerprints, and the camera module is large and wide. I would have liked a more discreet one, especially since two of the three cameras are useless. On the back we have a main sensor of 108 with F/1.7 and next to it there are two other sensors of 2 MP that do not know what they are doing. The front camera is 32 MP f/2.2.

The black edges of the screen are quite small and the corners of the phone are rounded, so it does not disturb in the hand. What I don’t like about this phone are the buttons: they feel cheap, like they’re hard to press and don’t stick out too much from the case.

The battery is large 5000 mAh which can be fast charged by wire at 45 watts and reaches 50% in about 27 minutes, but it can also be charged wirelessly, as I said, at 20 watts. It also supports reverse charging of other phones or accessories. Battery life is good with a day of trouble-free operation, and in the PCMark test we saw 12 hours of continuous operation at 50% brightness.

Photo cameras

As I mentioned, it has a 108 MP rear camera that takes decent pictures with good details, good brightness and for a casual user who wants to take pictures for social media or memories I think it is suitable. In low light it doesn’t do as well and still misses frames, but I didn’t have too many expectations either. On video it is ok, but it only records at 2K resolution. Again, it doesn’t seem like a tragedy here either. The selfie camera is also ok and I saw decent pictures in lower light situations as well.

In the end I will tell you that it is good that we have competition in the local market and Infinix seems to come with a good offer. But it will be difficult to convince customers because it is a new brand and needs a settling-in period. In this price range, there is a big fight with well-known models such as Samsung A35, Xiaomi Note 13 Pro or Moto Edge 40.

The Infinix Note 40 has some cool software features, lots of accessories and wireless charging, but I would have liked a better processor for longevity, an ultrawide camera for diversity.