Infinix Note 50 Pro 4G review

Design, build quality, handling

The Infinix Note 50 Pro 4G is a thoughtfully designed and crafted smartphone with both looks, grip and handling in mind. It has a flat glass front, a flat metal frame with subtle 2.5D finish, and a beautiful plastic back.

The Note 50 Pro is IP64-rated for complete dust and splash protection, up from IP53 on the previous Note 40 Pro model.

There is no official confirmation on the screen's glass maker, though some reports suggest it's Gorilla Glass by Corning. But Infinix has made a big deal out of the frame's alloy. See, it's called ArmorAlloy Metal, supposedly merging Damascus Steel and aerospace-grade aluminum. We are not really sure how steel and aluminum blend together, but hey, it sounds cool, doesn't it?

Anyway, the Note 50 Pro also has metal rings around the cameras and on the inside, for heat dissipation purposes.

The back is made of plastic, but if you want to spice it up, you can put on the matching bundled case with an eco-leather finish.

Both the back and the frame feature a sandblasted finish and purple color. You can also get the Note 50 Pro in gray, racing gray, or black.

The front is all screen, naturally. Here you can see the 6.78-inch AMOLED with evenly thin bezels and a small punch hole for the 32MP selfie camera. There is no LED flash for the selfie camera this year.

What's hidden to the naked eye is the optical fingerprint scanner under the screen, which works very well.

There is no hardware proximity sensor on the Note 50 Pro, the phone relies on a virtual one instead. It works rather well most of the time, but some wrong assumptions were made by it a couple of times, as usually happens with this sort of solution.

The back panel is clean and beautiful. It has an octagonal camera housing sticking out of the back. This rather large camera island contains the 50MP primary, the 8MP ultrawide and a flicker sensor, all surrounded with metal rings.

The fourth ring is where it gets a bit unusual - it houses a combo of a heart rate sensor and a ring notification light. You can measure your heart rate and SpO2 by putting your index finger there for a short while. At all other times, a colorful ring light will light up in this area to notify you of notifications, charging status, camera status, etc.

Finally, a dual-LED flash can also be seen around the cameras.

The metal frame is super nice to touch. It has two JBL-tuned speakers - one at the top and another one at the bottom. There are also two microphones, similarly placed.

There is an IR blaster at the top, a small feature appreciated by many.

Down at the bottom, the dual SIM tray does not support microSD cards, if you were wondering.

The Note 50 Pro measures 163.3 x 74.4 x 7.3 mm and weighs 198 grams, in line with most of the similarly sized smartphones nowadays.

The flat frame provides excellent grip, balancing the rather slippery back. And the entire sandblasted finish is fingerprint and smudge resistant, a cool thing to have on a smartphone.

We are left with positive impression from our time handling the Note 50 Pro. It's a well-built device, with clean looks, comes with beautiful color options and it offers a secure enough grip. The improved water and dust protection is much appreciated, too.