Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: hard to beat at its price point

After a little over a week of throwing everything at it, I sat down to write this Infinix Zero 4 Plus review and found myself looking for one bad thing to say about this big phone. Did I eventually find one? You will have to read to the end to find out. But the Zero 4 Plus will hold a pivotal point in history. It is Infinix’s first premium flagship, and we were interested in finding out how well it pulls it off. Come with me.

If you have not seen them already, you should have a look at some informative articles we already have published on the Infinix Zero 4 Plus:

• Infinix Zero 4 Plus Specifications & Price
• 12 hours with the Infinix Zero 4 Plus

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Quick Pros And Cons

Before we dive into the review proper, starting with the major pros and cons of this device.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Hardware/Design

The black unit of the Zero 4 Plus is eye candy. It has design lines that remind me of the beautiful UMi Plus. The screen has the same 2.5D curved glass and smoothness too. The aluminium body is well crafted and feels good in the hands. It is a solid smartphone in the hand. It is big, though, and if you are clumsy with large phones, you will be uncomfortable with the Zero 4 Plus.

At the back of the Zero 4 Plus is a 21 megapixel camera with laser autofocus and dual LED flash. On the left-hand side is the eject-able dual-SIM compartment. One of the slots can also take a microSD card. On the right side, we have the volume rockers and the power/lock button.

The Zero 4 Plus has two loudspeaker grills that sit astride the regular USB port at the bottom edge, while the 3.5 mm audio jack port sits at the top.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Software

The Infinix Zero 4 Plus runs a customized version of Android 6 Marshmallow called XOS Chameleon. XOS is what Infinix named their custom user interface. It is light and breezy and includes all sorts of nifty tools. Some include the ability to block numbers for calls and SMS. The drop-down menu also gives the user direct access to several useful features, including toggling ultra power mode, high performance mode, do not disturb, screen recording, cast and scrollshot, among others.

I like XOS Chameleon. The big question is whether Infinix will provide an update to push Android 7 Nougat to the Zero 4 Plus. This is a flagship smartphone, after all.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Network, Telephony

Telephony on the Infinix Zero 4 Plus is of very good quality. Callers at the other end also notice the superb quality too.

The Infinix Zero 4 Plus works with 4G LTE networks from Glo, MTN, Etisalat, Smile, Ntel, Swift and Spectranet. It is one of the exclusive smartphones that provides that level of 4G compatibility.

True to form, XOS tweaks means that the user can easily peg network mode to 4G only. As such, the phone will cycle through 2G, 3G and 4G as network conditions dictate. There are also 3G only and 2G only modes.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Display and Multimedia

The Zero 4 Plus has a 5.98-inch 2.5D curved display. Can we just call this a 6-inch display? Typing out 5.98 every time is a pain. Thanks. As far as I can tell, this is the very first time too that Infinix has Gorilla Glass on any of their smartphones. And it makes a difference in the feel of the glass when you touch it. Good one.

One niggle of the display is the lack of automatic brightness adjustment. You have to manually set a brightness level and manually adjust it whenever you need more or less brightness.

The quality of audio from the loudspeaker betrays the dual speaker grills at the bottom end of the phone. This is no stereo speaker. Audio is good and loud. Just not mind-blowing. However, plugging in the included headset provides you with very good music experience.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Photography

The Infinix Zero 4 Plus has a 21 megapixel rear camera with laser auto-focus and dual LED flash. On the front, it has a 13 megapixel snapper for selfies. We put them to the test.

Below are some sample photographs that we took with the Zero 4 Plus cameras:

For comparison purpose, here is a shoot-out between the main cameras of the Zero 4 Plus and the Lumia 950:

The picture at the top is from the Zero 4 Plus. Note how the Lumia 950 does a better job at lighting both the object and the environment. Still, the Zero 4 Plus camera does a good job with its dual LED flash.

In poor lighting, the main camera tends to take a brief while to focus. I expected the laser auto-focus to produce faster focus times. The 20.7 megapixel camera takes good photographs but it isn’t up among the greatest et. The selfie camera has a proper flash (not soft flash), which is quite good.

Among devices in its class, though, the two cameras of the Infinix Zero 4 Plus are among the best we have seen around here. Taking photos gets more fun and convenient with the use of the Fingerprint scanner. This makes up for the lack of a hardware shutter button. Cool stuff.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Multitasking/Performance

Multitasking on the Zero 4 Plus is a smooth experience. It should be. Any smartphone with 4 GB RAM and a 2.1 GHz Helio X20 processor shouldn’t be groaning when switching between tasks or handling heavy tasks.

In the benchmark tests we ran, the Zero 4 Plus came up with an AnTuTu score of 84,799. That is a very good result. You can see the rest of our benchmark test results HERE.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Battery life

With a 4,000 mAh battery, the Zero 4 Plus has impressive battery life. All through the review period, I left the charger at home and used the phone all day – sometimes till 10 pm – without running out of power. Note that I had an active 4G connection on most of the time. This is a charge-up-and-forget-about-power phone. And with fast charge built in, battery performance and charging are strong points of this beautiful device.

Infinix Zero 4 Plus Review: Final Words

After two weeks of using the Infinix Zero 4 Plus on a daily basis, my verdict is that it is a solid flagship that is hard to beat at its price point. Infinix’s first premium flagship is a big winner and highly recommended by us at Mobility Arena. There is no word yet from Infinix about a software upgrade to put Android 7 Nougat on it. We can only hope.

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Author: Mister Mobility

Master storyteller and founder of Mobility Nigeria, Mister Mobility, has used and reviewed hundreds of mobile phones since 2001.