Infinix Zero 40 5G hands-on review

Design

The Zero 40 5G has a sleek, attractive design. The back has an interesting two-tone finish that is incidentally the same color. However, due to the way the surface is textured, they look different as they each refract light in different directions.

Near the top is the large camera cluster placed inside a centrally located circular design. The camera island has a fluted rim like on some mechanical watches and feels good to the touch. You may have noticed that there are two flashes here, one inside the camera cluster and one on the outside. They each have a different purpose, but more on that later.

The front of the phone has a curved display with the edges gently flowing into the sides. The combination of the curved glass and back gives the phone a very slim side profile that feels great in hand. The side buttons are also placed conveniently and offer good tactile response.

The overall look and feel of the Zero 40 is very premium, despite not being a flagship device. Sure, the side frame is made out of plastic but you don't really notice it because of how slim it is overall. The light yet dense feel also adds to the premium feel in hand. The device has an IP54 rating, so it is reasonably well protected against dust and water splashes.

Display

The Zero 40 5G has a 6.78-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz. As mentioned before, Infinix is using a curved panel and it is covered by Corning's Gorilla Glass 5.

The display has impressive image quality overall. Colors are a tiny bit oversaturated than reference but they still look quite good. The white balance is also a bit on the cooler side but that can easily be adjusted through the display settings to close to standard D65 levels.

The display has ample brightness for viewing content indoors and during the night. Outdoors, it can get a bit washed out under the midday sun. However, there is a high brightness mode that can boost brightness further when it detects the device is under strong lighting, and this helps mitigate the default brightness limitations.

The 144Hz refresh rate is a nice little bonus over the out of the box 120Hz setting. Not everyone will notice the difference but for those who can, it helps bring that little bit of additional fluidity and clarity to moving images.

The only issue with the display was with the way it handled HDR. While the phone can play HDR content in apps like YouTube, it never actually switches to HDR mode. As such, HDR videos just look like brighter SDR videos without the improved contrast and dynamic range you get with a native HDR image. It's not clear if this was intentional or just clumsily implemented.

Battery and Charging

The Zero 40 5G has a 5000mAh battery. The phone supports up to 45W fast charging through its proprietary standard and a compatible charger is provided in the box.

In our charging tests, the Zero 40 5G fared well, with impressive 15-minute and 30-minute results. The full charge took just under 50 minutes, which is also quite respectable.

The thing with fast charging on Zero 40 5G is that it doesn't charge at the fastest speed by default. Instead, you need to select an option on the lockscreen that only appears when you plug in the fast charger. This lets you move to the fastest charging mode or you can also choose to charge even slower. This needs to be done every time you plug in the charger as there is no permanent setting for it.

The Zero 40 5G also includes wireless charging with reverse wireless charging. The phone supports Infinix' MagSafe like accessories, which includes the MagPad charging puck and MagPower power bank. The phone also uses the company's bypass charging feature, which can be enabled while gaming so as to power the phone directly while bypassing the battery to reduce the heat generated.

Speakers

The Zero 40 5G has a set of stereo speakers that are tuned by JBL. Aside from that, the device also features built-in DTS audio processing, which offers a range of spatial sound and EQ options for speakers and headphones.

Despite all the brand collaborations, the speakers on the Zero 40 5G are okay at best, with a reedy, mostly mid-forward sound that is great for vocal content but not much else. The speakers don't get super loud but they also don't distort and the sound doesn't change a lot at higher volumes.

However, the speakers are clearly not balanced, with the bottom speaker being noticeably louder than the earpiece speaker. You need to cup both sides of the phone for them to sound somewhat balanced.