Infinix Smart 6 HD review: affordable and dependable

Infinix Smart 6 HD is the company’s most affordable smartphone in India yet. The handset costs well under Rs 7,000 in the country and the device doesn’t compromise on the essentials, including the screen and battery. To wit, the device features a 6.6-inch HD+ screen with 500 nits brightness, a 5,000mAh battery, AI camera, dual-band Wi-Fi support, Android 11 (Go edition), and more. So, should you buy the phone? Well, read on, to find out.

Verdict

The Infinix Smart 6 HD will be a good buy for anyone looking for an entry-level device with excellent battery life, decent cameras, and a large screen.

The lowdown

• The Infinix Smart 6 HD looks the part of a run-of-the-mill Android. To wit, the device features a plastic frame and offers a subtle texture on the back. That’s not all, as the company has jazzed up the design by introducing a dampened, non-texturised strip which runs from the camera module, all the way to the bottom of the device too. Overall, the design looks satisfactory and feels quite solid for the price range. The phone does not produce any creaking sound when pressure is applied. The back of the phone does not attract fingerprints or smudges either and as such, should keep your OCD at bay too.
• Moving to the buttons and ports, the Infinix Smart 6 HD sports a micro USB charging port along with a speaker grille and 3.5mm headphone jack at the bottom edge, while the plastic keys for volume and power buttons are on the right spine. The keys sit tightly in their frames and are easy to distinguish. The handset packs a single rear-facing camera which is housed inside a squarish module that doesn’t protrude from the surface much. Consequently, the device doesn’t wobble while lying flat on a surface, which is great.

• The Infinix Smart 6 HD comes equipped with a 6.6-inch, HD+, IPS display with a waterdrop notch. The display offers punchy colours with decent viewing angles. While it has a standard 60Hz refresh rate, the panel supports 500 nits of peak brightness, making it legible even under direct sunlight. That said, even though the Infinix Smart 6 HD has a 20.5:9 aspect ratio, the screen is bordered by relatively chunky bezels that impact the overall viewing experience.
• Under the hood, the Infinix Smart 6 HD rocks Unisoc’s entry-level SC9863A SoC. I found the chipset good enough for carrying out basic tasks such as running Phone, Messages, and Camera apps. However, the device did not always run smoothly and took a fair amount of time to load various apps. Unsurprisingly, I won’t recommend playing the games on this device due to its low RAM and storage. However, it is worth mentioning that the handset can run graphically-demanding games like Free Fire Max. 

• The Infinix Smart 6 HD is equipped with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of user-expandable storage (up to 512GB) with a dedicated microSD card slot. Additionally, the handset supports AppSqueezz, which is expected to compress the volume of the existing files to free up to 15 percent of storage to download 99 more WhatsApps, 600 more HiFi music or up to 900 HD photos than before.

• For photography, the Smart 6 HD sports an 8MP AI camera at the back, which works alongside a 5MP front-facing snapper. The cameras offer okayish results when the sun is out. The images I shot offered respectable details, while the skin tone and colours looked mostly accurate. The cameras have HDR mode, but it does little to adjust the dynamic range and even overexposes the subjects in the frame at times. In low/ artificial lights, the camera performance went for a toss. The sensors were slow to capture images, which often looked hazy, lacked sharpness, and offered inaccurate colours. The front and back cameras both offer portrait mode, which only works best in daylight. That said, the edge detection leaves something to be desired and I wish there was an option to adjust the bokeh intensity in the portrait images.

• Software-wise, the Infinix Smart 6 HD runs XOS v7.6 atop Android 11 (Go edition) out of the box. The latter is a trimmed-down version of Android 11, with its suite of apps, which aren’t as resource-hungry as their actual versions. While it is rated to work best with entry-level smartphones, that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Infinix smartphone. This could be due to the company’s custom Android skin XOS, which takes time to get used to and comes with a bunch of bloatware that you can’t uninstall. Additionally, the handset serves way too many ads and app recommendations, which is quite frustrating. Be that as it may, the phone has a built-in call recorder, hidden app feature, and an array of customisation options.

• The Infinix smartphone comes with an impressive battery life that will surely last you for days. The handset is driven by a 5,000mAh battery, which netted a stellar score of 20 hours and 48 minutes in the PC Mark test. Considering the phone is only used for basic stuff and some navigation, the handset should last at least a day and then some on a single charge. As impressive as it may sound, you should know that the Infinix Smart 6 HD comes with a 10W charger, which takes around 2.5 hours for a full charge.
• The phone’s bottom-firing mono speaker is average at best, even with DTS Audio processing, while the 4G LTE works just fine. Apart from this, the handset supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands.

Final verdict

With everything said and done, you have to consider that the Infinix Smart 6 HD is priced in India at just Rs 6,799. Some similarly priced phones include Samsung Galaxy A03 Core, Redmi 9A Sport, and Infinix Smart 6. The new Infinix smartphone may not be as capable, in terms of performance, as its counterpart, but where the Smart 6 HD excels is in the battery department. In addition to that, the phone also comes with a respectable screen and cameras. The latter will hold good at least in daylight. So, if you are looking for a basic phone or a secondary device to your primary driver, the Infinix Smart 6 HD can be a good option to consider.

Expert’s rating: 3 / 5

Pros

• Good screen
• Excellent battery life
• Decent cameras

Cons

• UI could have been better
• Bloatware
• Performance needs improvement

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