Infinix Zero 30 5G review

Our Verdict

Infinix is clearly out to disrupt the market, with a budget device nipping at the heels of competitors with some pretty solid specs. That gorgeous and wide AMOLED screen makes games and video look great, and those huge cameras are really impressive in good light. The suite of video features and that snazzy 4K 60FPS front camera make this a great vlogging or travel companion, and admirable performance in gaming rounds out a device that is an impressive budget phone with a few annoying flaws.

A huge variety of jobs nowadays require a decent camera on the go. Whether you pop into conference meetings while traveling the world, you present a YouTube channel all about your favorite coffee, or perhaps you just like sending your pals nice holiday snaps, it’s helpful to have a device with a good camera on the front and back of the phone.

The Infinix Zero 30 5G is clearly aiming at the vlogging market, or perhaps the sort who holiday with a selfie stick in their onboard luggage, as this phone is brimming with some really impressive cameras on either end, and a pretty wide AMOLED screen ready to beam your smiling face back to you as you record. Of course, at a budget price range, can the Infinix Zero 30 5G also pull off some solid gaming, and does the Infinix OS live up to daily use? Let’s dive into things.

Pros:

• Fantastic camera at this price
• Large and bright curved display
• Impressive performance

Cons:

• No wireless charging
• Lots of useless apps
• Some OS issues

Price 

You can purchase the Infinix Zero 30 5G for around $339/£300, which undercuts so many competitors on the market. At this price range, the performance feels about right, if sometimes a little underwhelming, but those cameras are the main draw, and getting 4K 60FPS footage from both front and back cameras is a pretty fantastic proposition for around the $300 mark.

Specifications 

Features 

Infinix is trying to stand out in the mid-range phone field with a few key features While the Infinix Zero 30 5G uses a modified version of Android 13, it also boasts the Folax smart assistant, an AI app that uses the power of Chat GPT to respond to your commands, but with a little more personality than your normal cold robot. Meanwhile, while the Infinix Zero 30 5G doesn’t feature expandable storage, it does have a dual sim slot if you need to split your duties between business and pleasure.

The stars of the show are those big cameras, and the Infinix Zero 30 G boasts a 108MP rear camera with two additional cameras to better capture footage. The front camera is a 50 MP f2.5 wide lens capable of 4K 60 fps video, perfect for vlogging. In fact, The Infinix Zero 30 5G also comes with a sturdy selfie stick, clearly designed for professionals looking to take this device on holidays of when filming events and video footage.

Sadly there is no headphone jack, but the Infinix Zero 30 5G is capable of Bluetooth audio. It also has a fingerprint sensor underneath the screen, and an accelerometer and gyro controls to assist with gaming. To back all this up, the Infinix Zero 30 5G also features a hefty 5000 mAh battery, and 68W wired charging to get you from flat to flying in just under an hour.

Design 

The Infinix brand is all about smart devices on a budget, even if the Zero line is something of a more premium branch. I mention this because the Infinix Zero 30 5G feels like a budget device trying to pass itself off as something a tad more premium. I like the device’s huge and bright display, and the rounded edges give a nice curve to the edge of the screen that makes it comfortable to hold and adds a little extra to your viewing experience.

The back of the device is pretty dull, with just a simple little “zero” etched into the bottom, giving away what sort of phone this is. We have the fantasy purple model, and the back of the Infinix looks almost pearlescent, with swirling pinks and purples giving a nice touch to the curved glass back shell. There’s also a thin metal frame connecting the back and front of the device, which is pretty easy to miss.

The Infinix Zero 30 5G feels pretty big to hold in the hand but is surprisingly light despite the glass back. I do think the back cameras protrude quite a bit from the device though, and while you’re not going to hurt yourself on them, you’ll often find your fingers fumbling around those back cameras trying to find some purchase.

Display 

Now, this is one of the best aspects of this device. The Infinix Zero 30 5G boasts a whopping 6.68-inch AMOLED screen that curves around to the sides of the device and stretches right to the top and bottom as well. Every possible millimeter of the front of this device is a screen, and the selfie camera just takes up a small black circle right at the top, though it’s a little annoying having that consistently there when watching videos.

That AMOLED display presents colors nicely, with vivid color and deep black. Alongside the 144hz refresh rate and 900 nits brightness, at this price range the Infinix, is a fantastic way to play some mobile titles like Genshin Impact or Call of Duty: Mobile. Where some devices squash a bit of the UI, this is a wide screen that uses all available space with fantastic color and brightness to back it up. Sadly, even though videos look great, the speakers are a bit lackluster, and the Infinix Zero 30 5G also omits a headphone jack. Bluetooth earbuds it is.

This does make it a great pick for vlogging, however, which is clearly one of Infinix’s aims as the phone comes with a selfie stick in the box. When using the Infinix Zero 30 5G outdoors, that bright screen is great as a display, so you can check your footage and keep an eye on colors and white balance. It’s not professional by any means, but as a companion on holidays or just to help you capture footage on the go, this is a solid option at this price range.

Software 

Here’s one of the drawbacks of the Infinix Zero 30 5G, as this device uses a specific version of Android 13. It’s pretty identical to the regular Android 13, but when you swipe left, you don’t see the usual Google Discover page, but instead a few widgets with your most used apps, daily steps, screen usage, and beyond. You can twiddle with these widgets, thankfully, as for some reason, the stock OS likes to pop some motivational quotes at the top of this page. I’ve currently got “earn money with your mind, not your time,” and I’d like to explain to Infinix that it actually takes time to use my brain.

One of the other flagship features here from Infinix is the Folax AI assistant. Imagine a sassy Siriiri with a little more intelligence, and you have the idea. This feature uses ChatGPT, so when you ask it questions or demand tasks, the responses feel weirdly friendly and always add a little splash of personality that is genuinely a little uncanny. Of course, this is AI, so it’s also weirdly robotic. Still, the Folax assistant can easily connect to Google apps, allowing you to easily search YouTube or Google from a simple question. It can’t quite open Netflix or remember your favorite podcast, but it’s a neat feature.

Like many other Google devices, there’s a plethora of different ways to customize your home screen, including lots of widgets and folders. You can also quickly swipe between all your folders whenever you open one, which is pretty nifty, honestly. However, Infinix is notorious for only offering around 24 months of software support on devices, sometimes rendering them a bit useless.

Cameras 

One look at the cameras shows that they’re the focus of this device, as that’s where Infinix spent the money. Those three chunky cameras on the back of the Infinix Zero 30 5G offer bright and smooth footage up to 4K 60FPS, though the image stabilizing isn’t the best, so maybe don’t take it on a rollercoaster. Pictures are also impressive, with a wide color range and HDR 10 support on the screen, so you can really pick apart the different tones.

That front camera is a blight on the otherwise unblemished front screen, but it does once again offer 4K 60FPS support for selfies. Alongside the aforementioned selfie stick that comes in the box, this makes the Infinix Zero 30 5G a great device for vlogging, holiday snaps, or just the odd celebrity selfie if you happen to bump into Keither Sutherland or Jack Black.

Software options also give you the choice of bokeh in your photos, and you can use AI-assisted brightening to bring some of your darker photos up to speed. You probably want to do this as well, because the Infinix Zero 30 5G struggles in low light, losing detail and adding a crunchy distortion to the darker parts of your pics. Overall, though, both front and back cameras hold up quite well in good light, and the video features and software are nice additions that anyone who films often will appreciate.

Performance 

Photos are all well and good, but we love a bit of gaming here at Pocket Tactics. That Octa-core combination of eight chips gives the Infinix Zero 30 5G a fairly impressive bit of power, meaning you can run a lot of mid-range levels at high-performance settings and make use of that whopping 144hz refresh rate. Higher-end titles like Genshin Impact hover around the 30-40 fps mark at high graphics, but you can fiddle to get your preferred results.

The Infinix Zero 30 5G does have a sizable bit of RAM, with a choice of 8GB or 12GB to help you zoom between tasks. We have the 12GB option, and as such, the Infinix Zero 30 5G tends to move quickly between apps and games, perform admirably when put under stress, and has very few issues in regards to screen freezing or apps malfunctioning.

When you sink a few hours into games, you may notice the Infinix Zero 30 5G getting a bit hot despite the liquid cooling system. It’s not a wild amount of heat, but I occasionally get a bit concerned about whether the device is actually going to make it, though there are no hiccups in my experience, no matter the heat. Once again, at this price range everything is quite impressive, but if you’re after elite performance, you have to move up in price pretty dramatically.

Battery 

With that 5000 mAh battery the Infinix Zero 30 5G pretty comfortably makes it through the day, though we get around four-to-five hours of solid gaming time before we have to plug it in. There’s no wireless charging, which is standard at this price range, but it’s still a bit annoying, and it gets tougher to forgive each year. I’m very used to using wireless charging options throughout my day at this point.

But when you do need to charge the Infinix Zero 30 5G, there is 68W fast wired charging, which absolutely boots that electricity into the phone, managing to get you from sub-10% to full battery in just under an hour, if not quicker.

Should you buy the Infinix Zero 30 5G? 

Considering you can bag the Infinix Zero 30 5G at just around the $300 mark, this is a competitive device that holds up to scrutiny. Yes, Infinix is cutting some corners, and it doesn’t yet look or quite feel like the premium device it’s so desperately trying to be, but at this price range, the specs and cameras are pretty impressive. If you love shooting selfie videos or vlogging, the Infinix Zero 30 5G could be the perfect travel companion, it also runs games at high refresh rates with some lovely visuals to back it up. As long as you don’t push it too far.

Alternatives 

If you’re not sold on the Infinix Zero 30 5G, here are some other options.

Poco X5 Pro 5G

Sitting at around the same price range if not a little cheaper (around $299.99), the Poco X5 Pro 5G features a similar bright and beautiful AMOLED display with a 120 hz refresh rate perfect for gaming. It also has a beefy Snapdragon 778G processor which is towards the more powerful end of the budget range, and the cameras can capture 4K video footage thanks to the 108 MP camera. The Poco X5 Pro 5G is a similar device with a more discreet design and a greater focus on gaming capabilities.

Red Magic 8S Pro

If you’re happy to spend a bit more money, you can pick up a phone that features top-range processing power to send your gaming sessions to the moon and back. The Red Magic 8S Pro definitely doesn’t have quite the selfie camera of the Infinix, but the back cameras hold up well in daylight.

However, the Red Magic 8S Pro is an absolutely fantastic gaming phone thanks to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It’s also capable of a whopping 512 GB of storage and 16GB of RAM to get games like Genshin Impact running at high framerates on the upper end of graphics settings. Read our Red Magic 8S Pro review for more.