Infinix Hot 40 Pro review

108MP camera setup

The Infinix Hot 40 Pro surprises with a fairly potent 108MP, 0.64µm main sensor paired with f/1.8 aperture, which is more than you could ask for in this price bracket. This is a fairly capable shooter, but unfortunately, it's paired with two other not-very-useful cameras.

One of the auxiliary cameras is a 2MP f/2.4 used for macro photography and a 0.08MP one for depth sensing, although Infinix doesn't explicitly say the phone uses it for depth information.

And as for the front, it's equipped with a 32MP f/2.2 selfie camera.

Camera menus

The default camera app is well-organized and has many options and additional features. A powerful AI scene detection system automatically switches between modes and sometimes suggests switching camera modes outright, like directing you to the Super Night mode when there is not enough light. There is a mode carousel on the bottom, a slide-out menu, and plenty of settings to fiddle with.

Camera modes

There is now a clear and easy toggle for disabling the AI, which was not the case with the previous installments of the Infinix camera app and is an appreciated addition.

If you want more control over the camera, the included Pro mode gives you exposure compensation (-2 - +2), shutter speed (1/1500 - 30s), ISO (100 - 6400), white balance (2000 - 9000K), manual focus and three metering modes.

Camera settings

There is also the Short video mode, which has beauty filters and Snapchat-style live effects and overlays - those might be useful for social media posts.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The main 108MP sensor produces pretty decent photos with sufficient sharpness and a respectable amount of detail for the most part. Dynamic range isn't the best we've seen, and the HDR algorithm can sometimes leave crushed shadows behind as well as clipped highlights. The color temperature tends to be a bit warmer than it should be, but color reproduction is mostly accurate or a bit punchy at times.

Daylight main camera samples

Noise is hard to spot when shooting outside on a bright sunny day, and it's well-controlled indoors for a phone of this caliber.

Daylight main camera samples

You can also shoot in the maximum 108MP resolution but you don't really get any benefits from using this mode. Pictures are muddy with tons of noise.

Daylight 108MP camera samples

2x zoom

We are a bit disappointed by the 2x zoom photos as they are too soft and noisy, even in perfect lighting conditions. We've definitely seen better 2x zoom shots, even from handsets in the same price bracket.

Daylight 2x zoom samples

Low-light photos

The low-light samples we took look pretty solid, considering the price point of the handset. Sure, some highlights are clipped, but the shadows reveal plenty of detail, the sharpness is somewhat decent, and the noise is minimal. There are even some hints of fine detail without even resorting to the dedicated Night mode. Contrast is good and colors are life-like.

Low-light main camera samples

Switching to the dedicated Night mode produces clearer images with more balanced highlights and shadows. There's some additional sharpening going on, which makes some areas of the image like they are digitally rendered. This results in noticeable fine detail, but without much improvement in sharpness. Still, we like the end result and we are even mildly impressed by the stills, again considering the price bracket of the Hot 40 Pro.

Night mode main camera samples

Here's how the primary camera on the Infinix Hot 40 Pro stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Infinix Hot 40 Pro against the Galaxy A24 4G and the Redmi Note 12 5G in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

Overall, portraits look nice with sufficient sharpness, accurate color reproduction, natural skin tone, impressive edge detection and wide dynamic range. However, we found that shooting in the standard Photo mode produces sharper images with more detail. Perhaps the additional processing of the faux bokeh makes overall quality drop.

Portraits: Portrait mode • Normal

Selfies

The selfies are impressively sharp and detailed, but colors are slightly muted and dynamic range is somewhat narrow in certain lighting conditions or if strong sunlight is coming from behind the subject.

Selfies

Video recording

In contrast to most competitors, the Infinix Hot 40 Pro can record videos in 1440p resolution instead of capping at 1080p. There's also EIS available in the highest possible resolution, but the frame rate is always 30 fps. You get a 2x zoom toggle as well.

Starting with the main 1440p footage, we see rather a bleak image with clipped highlights and 1080p-like sharpness. We expected a crispier video at 1440p resolution.

Surprisingly, the 2x zoom video looks quite similar, except for the softer rendition, which is quite understandable. Still, it's not as bad as we initially anticipated, so you may be able to capture some decent videos at 2x zoom.

You can also take a look at our Video compare tool to see how Infinix Hot 40 Pro stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

Infinix Hot 40 Pro against the Galaxy A24 4G and the Redmi Note 12 5G in our Video compare tool