Infinix Zero 5G review

Camera

The Infinix Zero 5G has a pretty unconventional triple camera setup on the back. A dedicated 2x telephoto snapper is not a common sight on a budget device thesee days. Infinix has decided to go for it instead of an ultrawide, which is the far more popular choice.

Infinix does have an aptitude for camera experimentation, and the camera setup on the Zero 5G is pretty similar to that on the Infinix Note 11 Pro. Actually, the primary Quad Bayer camera appears to be downgraded, and the Zero 5G now uses a 48MP f/1.8 main camera. It is based on the Samsung ISOCELL Plus S5KGM1 sensor, commonly known as the GM1. It is a 1/2.0" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and PDAF.

The dedicated telephoto camera is a 13MP 50mm unit with PDAF. It uses a Samsung ISOCELL S5K3L6 sensor - 1/3.1" sensor size and 1.12µm individual pixels and F/2.5 lens, just like the Infinix Note 11 Pro.

The 2MP depth sensor is a GalaxyCore gc02m1b model. The selfie cam has a 16MP resolution and f/2.0 aperture. It uses a Hynix hi1631q sensor. No autofocus on it. This is basically identical to the selfie setup on the Note 11 Pro and Note 10 Pro.

Infinix didn't forget to include a selfie LED flash on the Zero 5G. It has sort of become a signature piece of kit for the company. The Zero 5G gets a simpler setup than the Zero X Pro with just one set of two LED lights on the right-hand side instead of two symmetrical units. Even so, a dedicated hardware selfie flash is still a rare sight in general. Vivo did, however, recently include even more advanced selfie flash hardware with color controls on the V23 and V23 Pro.

Camera app

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

Main camera UI, modes and settings

Our sole complaint about the AI is that we found no way of disabling it, short of switching to Pro mode. Since we are on the topic, you get exposure correction (-2 - +2), shutter speed (1/1500 - 30s), ISO (100 - 6400), white balance (2000 - 9000K), manual focus and three metering modes.

Pro photo mode and focus points

Speaking of focus and metering, the viewfinder includes squares to visualize focus points, which we find really convenient and is a surprisingly uncommon feature.

The video capture UI is pretty straightforward. Noteworthy features include beauty filters in video, as well as portrait video with a faux defocused background.

Video capture UI

And speaking of nifty added-value features, there is the Short video mode, which has beauty filters, as well as Snapchat-style live effects and overlays-neat little addition.

Short video filters and lenses

Infinix has spared no effort with its beauty mode when it comes to filters. You get a whole slew of individualized controls and sliders as well as many options to create and save custom filters and looks.

Beauty filters

Photo quality - daylight

Let's kick things off with the main 48MP camera. Since it is a Quad-Bayer camera, it captures 12MP stills by default. The Samsung GM1 is a fairly-popular sensor that has already proven its salt. We know it is capable of capturing solid shots if tuned correctly.

The 12MP full auto stills from the Infinix Zero 5G are decent but not impressive in any way. There is a good amount of detail in the shots, but some textures can still appear relatively soft. Also, fine patterns often have a moire effect. Dynamic range is also a bit limited, and colors can appear on the duller side.

Infinix Zero 5G: 12MP main camera samples

However, these are all relatively minor complaints compared to the one major bug our review unit experienced consistently - nearly half the shots captured with the main camera have a very obvious pink tint. It is probably a software processing bug since we noticed that the first half would have the defect out of say 10 shots of a given scene, while the rest were fine. Grabbing a spot exposure by tapping on the viewfinder also seems to usually fix the problem.

Infinix Zero 5G: 12MP main camera samples with color hue

Unfortunately, the issue persists when shooting in 48MP mode. Not that we would otherwise recommend using this mode, since it doesn't seem to retain any extra detail and only produces larger file sizes and poor per-pixel detail.

Infinix Zero 5G: 48MP main camera samples

Infinix Zero 5G: 48MP main camera samples with color hue

Luckily, whatever is causing the nasty bug doesn't seem to affect the 2x zoom telephoto camera. Its 13MP stills tend to have a lot more and better finer detail than the main camera. The shots generally look more natural and cleaner too. We also tend to like the telephoto's color rendition better.

Infinix Zero 5G: 13MP 2x telephoto camera samples

The telephoto tends to overexpose shots, which is only made worse by its somewhat limited dynamic range. Autofocus on the telephoto is also quite temperamental. It is slow, often misses the target entirely and is stubborn, making it hard to force a refocus. You can control its focus manually in Pro mode, which is excellent, but that just makes it evident that the camera has a very limited focus range, to begin with. This makes the telephoto pretty useless for close-up shots, which we did try in the absence of a dedicated macro camera. The autofocus can also get quite wobbly and "floaty" at times, particularly right after you switch over to the telephoto.

The Zero 5G can actually digitally zoom all the way up to 30x. This is all done digitally and results, as you can expect, are far from ideal.

Infinix Zero 5G 13MP telephoto: 5x • 10x • 5x • 10x • 5x • 10x • 5x • 10x

If its maker is to be believed, the Infinix Zero 5G should excel at portrait photography. Not only is there are dedicated 2MP depth camera on the back, but Infinix also refers to the 2x telephoto as a "portrait camera" in some of its marketing. Indeed, you can choose to use the telephoto via a rather confusing "50mm" toggle while in portrait mode.

To be honest, neither camera excels at capturing portraits. Subject detection and separation are pretty mediocre on both. The artificial bokeh looks decent, which is a plus. And if we had to choose, we would definitely go for the main camera, since it tends to at least get the subject in focus most of the time.

Infinix Zero 5G: 12MP main camera portrait samples

The telephoto camera just produces blurry portraits almost every time. If you try hard and capture a whole lot, you can still get the occasional usable still. But that's not really good enough in our book.

Infinix Zero 5G: 13MP telephoto camera portrait samples

As a bit of a consolation, at least portrait mode works just as well with non-human subjects. You still have to battle all of the aforementioned issues, tough.

Infinix Zero 5G: portrait samples of non-human subjects

Here is how the Infinix Zero 5G stacks up against other devices in our extensive photo comparison database. For the sake of thoroughness, we include shots from the main camera in both 12MP and 48MP modes, as well as 13MP stills from the 2x telephoto.

Infinix Zero 5G against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 and the Samsung Galaxy A32 5G in our Photo compare tool

48MP: Infinix Zero 5G against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 and the Samsung Galaxy A32 5G in our Photo compare tool

Photo quality - selfies

16MP selfies from the Zero 5G look solid overall. Details are on point and so are colors. The dynamic range isn't all that bad either.

Infinix Zero 5G: 16MP selfie camera samples

The selfie lacks autofocus, and its focal plane is not particularly wide, so you do have to be careful about that. Thankfully, the focus point indicators show up for the selfie camera as well, making it less of a guessing game. We don't know why more manufacturers don't include this feature.

Selfie portraits are rather underwhelming, but not terrible. In fact, subject detection and separation arguably work a bit better on selfies than the main and telephoto cameras. We did notice that portrait selfies tend to be rather overexposed compared to their regular counterparts, but that's not a major issue.

Infinix Zero 5G: 16MP selfie camera portrait samples

Photo quality- low-light

Regular low-light 12MP shots from the main camera look surprisingly decent. Detail is well retained and there's not too much extra noise.

Even the dynamic range is fine. The Zero 5G has auto night mode, which kicks in consistently and appears to be doing some HDR stacking, restoring shadows a bit and containing light sources.

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

Best of all, the annoying color hue issue we experienced on the main cam in daylight seems to be all but absent at night.

48MP low-light shots have a bit less sharpening applied to them and do look slightly more natural. We wouldn't say you get more detail with them, though, so the bigger file size is likely not worth it.

Infinix Zero 5G: 48MP main camera low-light samples

The Zero 5G has a dedicated Super Night mode as well. It improves shots from the main camera quite a bit, recovering both shadows and highlights much better than the default AI mode. Other than that, detail remains about the same, which was already good, to begin with, so we can't complain.

Infinix Zero 5G: 12MP main camera Super Night mode samples

The Zero 5G and its Dimensity 900 5G chipset also manage to process night mode shots decently quickly. It usually takes four seconds or so, which is quite reasonable.

The 13MP telephoto camera struggles quite a bit more in low-light. Shots come out looking quite soft and often even blurry since the inconsistent autofocus has an even harder time at night.

Infinix Zero 5G: 13MP 2x telephoto low-light samples

If you plan to use the telephoto at night, you have to stick to Super Night mode, which thankfully is available for it as well. While these shots look aggressively sharpened and processed, they are at least usable.

Infinix Zero 5G: 13MP 2x telephoto Super Night mode samples

The 16MP selfie camera holds up well in low-light. Full auto mode is decent enough, but you do get other options as well-notably, the selfie dual-LED flash. While you can control its light intensity a bit by sliding up and down on the camera viewfinder, we found its light to be a bit harsh with a tendency to wash our and destroy skin features. Super Night mode selfies look a lot better, in our opinion. However, those are only viable if there is at least some ambient light around you. If there is not enough of that or you want to capture selfies in complete darkness, then selfie LEDs are definitely your best bet.

Infinix Zero 5G low-light selfies: Auto • selfie LEDs • Night mode

Video capture quality

The Infinix Zero 5G can capture video at up to 4K on its main camera. You don't get the option for HEVC encoding, just h.264, but even so, the files you get have a solid 50 Mbps AVC video stream at a mostly stable 30 fps and a stereo 48 kHz AAC audio stream inside an MP4 container. Pretty standard stuff.

4K videos from the main camera are solid, especially in terms of detail and dynamic range. There is not much noise either. Colors, however, are notably off. Looking at the clips, at first, we thought that the strange color hue or tint might be back, but the snow does appear to be pretty close to white, so that's probably not the case. The rest of the colors look quite "reddish" and too warm, though. In particular, oranges, reds and yellows are way too prominent, while blues look subdued.

The 2x telephoto camera caps out at 1080p video capture, with an equally solid 20 Mbps AVC steam and stereo 48 kHz AAC audio inside an MP4 container. Its color rendition is notably different and much better than the main camera. Dynamic range is also good. One of the few unfortunate bits is the lower 1080p resolution, which leaves a lot of detail to be desired. There seems to be aggressive sharpening applied to the frame, which we don't personally hate it, but it's also not a substitute for actual resolution. The only other gripe we have with telephoto videos is the wobbly autofocus, particularly prone to shakes and rattles.

The 16MP selfie camera captures some impressive 4K videos. There have the same general characteristics (50 Mbps AVC @~30fps + 48 kHz stereo AAC AMP4) as the main camera and look incredibly clean and sharp. Detail is stellar and dynamic range is solid. Colors are a bit oversaturated for our taste, but that's hardly a major complaint.

You can get stabilization across all of these cameras. You are limited to 1080p, though. It works decently well across the board. You can see the results for yourself in the following playlist.

The main camera does quite well in low-light. Videos look sharp. There is little noise, and light sources are well contained. Please excuse the shaky footage. It was cold outside. The 2x telephoto holds up well in low-light, too, though it struggles with light sources quite a bit more and is generally softer.

Last but not least, here is how the Infinix Zero 5G stacks up against other devices in our video compare database. We again include screengrabs from both the main and the telephoto cameras. Pixel-peep away.

Infinix Zero 5G against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 and the Samsung Galaxy A32 5G in our Video compare tool