Infinix Zero 30 review

A 108MP main camera and an impressive selfie cam

Infinix seems to have taken a liking to 108MP cameras. It's the second phone in row to use it after the recent GT 10 Pro. Only the Zero 30 is also rocking a 13MP ultrawide camera. The third camera on the back of the phone is a 2MP depth sensor.

Another area where the Zero 30 improves on the GT 10 is the selfie setup, at least on paper. It has a 50MP selfie cam with PDAF, 4K@60fps video capture and a selfie LED flash.

The main camera is based on the Samsung ISOCELL s5khm6sx sensor. It is more commonly known as the ISOCELL HM6 - a 1/1.67" sensor with 0.64 µm pixels and Nonacell Bayer RGB pixel arrangement. The sensor sits behind an f/1.65 lens with OIS and PDAF.

The 13MP ultrawide camera uses a Samsung s5k3l6wide sensor. It has a 1/3" sensor size and 1.12 µm individual pixels. It has a fixed focus and can't be used for macro shots.

Finally, on the back, there is a GalaxyCore gc02m1 depth sensor (1/5" size and 1.75 µm individual pixels).

The selfie cam uses another Samsung sensor - s5kjn1, more commonly known as the ISOCELL JN1. It has a 1/2.76" size with 0.64 µm pixels. It sits behind an f/2.45 lens, crucially equipped with autofocus for extra sharp videos and photos. Speaking of videos, the selfie can capture them at up to 4K@60fps - great for vlogging. Plus, the selfie cam is also augmented with a powerful selfie LED flash.

Camera app

The default camera app is well-organized and has many options and additional features. A powerful AI scene detection system automatically switches adjusts image parameters 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.

There is 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.

Camera app and modes

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

The 108MP main camera on the Zero 30 bins pixels 9-to-1 by default and captures 12MP shots, which look great. There is a lot of detail, dynamic range is nicely wide, and colors are mostly true-to-life.

Infinix Zero 30: 12MP main camera samples

As far as some downsides go, very fine detail, like grass, isn't processed proficiently and is often lost. Also, there is noticeable noise in the frame. It's not a huge amount, and you have to pixel-peep to see it, but it is there. Overall, not a bad showing at all.

Before we move on, here's how the main camera on the Zero 30 stacks up against the competition in our extensive photo compare database.

Infinix Zero 30 5G against the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Photo compare tool

You can force the main camera to capture in 108MP resolution, but that would only give you larger files and poorer per-pixel detail. The total amount of captured detail is not increased in any way making the entire mode pointless.

Infinix Zero 30: 108MP main camera samples

The main camera does portrait shots pretty well. Subject separation is very proficient and the blur applied is very believable.

Infinix Zero 30: 12MP main camera samples

Infinix Zero 30: 12MP main camera portrait samples

Non-human subjects take a bit more fiddling but work well, too.

Infinix Zero 30: 12MP main camera portrait samples

While the Zero 30 lacks a dedicated telephoto camera, its main cam has more than enough resolution to do a usable digital zoom. There is a 3x zoom toggle in the camera UI, and it produces reasonably detailed and clean photos with good colors.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP main camera 3x zoom samples

There is plenty to like about the ultrawide camera on the Infinix Zero 30 as well. Detail levels are adequate and noise is pleasingly low. There is some softness around the corners, but that is to be expected on an ultrawide camera in this price segment.

Infinix Zero 30: 13MP ultrawide camera samples

Colors are reasonably well-matched to those on the main camera with perhaps a slightly more saturated look. Dynamic range is understandably a bit narrower than on the main cam, but not bad overall.

The selfie camera is one of the highlights of the Zero 30. By default, like the main cam, it uses pixel-binning and captures stills in a little over 12MP. These look great too with excellent detail is excellent, with a lot of fine bits like small hairs and even pores coming through. Skin tones look are well rendered as well.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP selfie camera samples

Like the main cam, you can force the selfie to capture in its full resolution - 50MP mode in this case. Once again these shots don't seem to offer any benefit in terms of detail so once again we'd suggest you steer away from these full-res modes.

Infinix Zero 30: 50MP selfie camera samples

Selfie portraits are fine overall with very good subject separation and well applied background blur.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP selfie camera portrait samples

Video quality

The Infinix Zero 30 can go all the way up to 4K@60fps on its main and selfie cameras, and the ultrawide can do 4K@30fps - something hard to find in these parts of the market. Plus, the camera app offers a plethora of real-time video effects like LUTs, frames and other effects, such as artificial rainfall. You can also apply a makeup filter on human subjects in real-time and artificial bokeh. Applying these effects does, however, cap the capture resolution to FullHD.

Regardless of which camera you use, 4K video gets saved in an AVC (H.264) video stream of around 50Mbps, plus a stereo AAC audio stream inside a standard MP4 container. There is no option for HEVC (H.265) recording.

The main camera captures pleasing 4K video. Detail is plentiful, and colors are well rendered. There is no visible noise in the frame and generally there's little to complain beyond a slightly limited dynamic range.

Here is how the Infinix Zero 30 stacks up against competitors in our extensive video compare database.

Infinix Zero 30 5G against the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Video compare tool

The 3x zoom videos from the main camera are much less impressive. These look less detailed, the digital zooming taking its toll. There is some fringing around smaller moving objects like leaves. The footage is still usable, but not great, despite still technically being 4K.

4K video from the ultrawide camera looks equally great, smaller sensor considered. The colors are a bit more vibrant than on the main camera, but still look great. Probably most impressively, however, there is almost no noticeable noise in the frame. No shimmering or anything of the sort.

Marketing for the Infinix Zero 30 revolves heavily around its selfie camera. And indeed, it packs quite the video capture punch as well. Not only does the selfie have PDAF, but it can also capture 4K clips at 60fps.

There's great detail and nice punchy colors. Skin texture comes out looking great, too, as long as you have the right lighting conditions. Otherwise, it can be slightly soft. As such the Zero 30 can make a good vlogging device.

We did notice a bug where there is some skin smoothing automatically applied to the footage at 30fps, but not at 60fps and with no option to disable it either. Hopefully Infinix will take care of this and provide a toggle.

The Zero 30 has EIS available across all its cameras (except the depth sensor, obviously). It crops away quite a bit of the frame and frankly does a sub-optimal job.

On the main cam, enabling EIS leads to quite a bit of focus hunting, and there are still plenty of shakes and bumps left behind. Same for the selfie.

Low-light camera quality

The main camera on the Zero 30 does quite well in low-light conditions. Detail is good and colors are lively. Dynamic range is surprisingly good too with plenty of detail in darker areas and surprisingly well-contained light sources.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP main camera low-light samples

There is a little bit of noise and some loss of fine detail, but nothing too dramatic.

The Zero 30 obviously applies some form of night mode processing automatically, but beyond that there is a dedicated night mode available across all cameras. On the main cam it brightens up shots noticeably and results in even better contained light sources.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP main camera night mode samples

Even so, we aren't sure we would outright recommend using nigh mode since it also applies a very liberal amount of sharpening across the frame, resulting in a harsher and overprocessed look.

The 3x zoom photos from the main cam have very similar quality characteristics to the main cam, but they obviously have far lower detail levels, which also makes noise more prominent.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP main camera 3x zoom low-light samples

Enabling night mode for zoom photos results in brighter shots with better light sources once again. However, oversharpening continues to be an issue.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP main camera 3x zoom night mode samples

The ultrawide camera captures surprisingly good low-light photos, the auto night mode clearly working its magic to preserve most of the detail and retain the colorfulness of the scene. You do, however get a haze of sorts on top of most surfaces.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 13MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

The latter gets cleaned up pretty well by enabling the dedicated night mode. You get less noise overall and more detail in both shadows and highlights. Light sources are contained much better. There is still an uncomfortable level of sharpening applied, but even so we would say that night mode is worth it on the ultrawide.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 13MP ultrawide camera night mode samples

The selfie camera does alright in low-light conditions, without being overly impressive. We like the color rendition, particularly skin tones. Detail could be a bit better, though, and the camera has a bit of trouble focusing properly in low light.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP selfie camera low-light samples

You can noticeably improve the selfie quality in the dark by enabling night mode. It produces much sharper and more detailed shots, not to mention brighter ones.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP selfie camera night mode samples

Enter the dedicated selfie LED flash on the Infinix Zero 30. Enabling it helps the selfie camera to both focus better and resolve more detail. Depending on the shot you are trying to capture the LED might be the way to go for low-light selfies.

Infinix Zero 30 5G: 12MP selfie camera with LED flash low-light samples

Low-light 4K video from the main camera looks alright. There is plenty of detail and nice color. Light sources are handled quite well and there is very little noise.

At 3x zoom videos are comparable, just a bit softer and slightly noisier.

The ultrawide camera struggles a bit more in low-light conditions. It captures underexposed noisy video. Light sources are often blown out too.

Finally, we just had to try the selfie camera at night. It does surprisingly well with the help of its LED light. We wouldn't exactly call the results amazing, there is still plenty of noise in the frame, but detail is great and so are colors. That's a lot more than can be said for most selfies in these kids of lighting conditions.