Micromax Canvas Infinity: A winner only for its screen

The display-centric Micromax Canvas Infinity smartphone seems to be a winner for its screen, with an 18:9 aspect ratio and taller frame. It is the only device in the sub-Rs 10,000 price bracket to boast a screen-to-body ratio of 83 per cent, called the ‘Infinity Screen’.

While the Canvas Infinity screen is its key feature, is it worth the hype and a worthy challenger to other budget smartphones? Business Standard reviewed the device and here are the observations:

Screen

The Canvas Infinity sports a 5.77-inch HD screen, with an 18:9 aspect ratio. It reduces the top and bottom bezels to accommodate more screen estate, while the device looks smaller than 5.5-inch ones. The HD resolution of 1440 x 720 pixels, however, falls short and cases pixelation.

The screen renders good contrast and colours and the brightness level is satisfactory under direct sunlight. What ruins the experience is touch latency; the screen takes some time to recognise your touch. There is also a latency at the lock screen at the time of entering numeric password or dropping down the notification bar. 

Camera

The Canvas Infinity has a 13-megapixel rear camera with a 5-element lens that supports auto-scene detection and super pixel technology. The camera captures pictures with a satisfactory detail in daylight conditions. The focus is not properly calibrated and the loss is seen in the output, which shows signs of shakes and blurs even when captured after focusing on the object. The low-light shots require steady hands to take proper shots. Overall, the camera delivers sub-par performance in low light.

 

On the front, the smartphone sports a 16MP camera offering real-time bokeh effect, which blurs the background and sharpens the focus on the object. The feature works as intended but we preferred to use normal mode, which resulted in better picture quality. 

If not the camera performance, what we liked is the camera interface. The front camera features real-time image preview, which allows horizontal scrolling of previously clicked pictures without leaving the camera interface. That saves a lot of efforts to see if the photos clicked are good, bad or ugly.

Performance

The Micromax Canvas Infinity is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, coupled with 32 GB internal storage, expandable via microSD, and 3 GB RAM. It runs Android Nougat out of the box and the company has promises an Android ‘Oreo’ update for the device as soon as it is available from Google and chipset manufacturer.

The processor runs regular tasks without breaking any sweat. But an inefficient RAM management ruins the experience. There are visible lags and stutters here and there and the user experience is not very smooth.

Another feature that does not go well is the iOS-inspired theme that looks weak and is nowhere close in feel or operation to iOS. It would have been better to use stock Android.

Battery and other features

Under the removable back cover rests a 2,900 mAh battery, a dual SIM slot and a dedicated microSD slot. The battery lasts almost a day on normal usage. Watching videos over Wi-Fi or 4G networks and occasional internet browsing take a toll on battery and reduce the usage time to 8-9 hours.

Verdict

At Rs 9,999, the smartphone is the first to introduce an 18:9 ratio screen. But touch latency and pixelated screen resolution diminish the experience. Also, the camera performance, both rear and front, do not justify the megapixel moniker as photos and videos look upscaled. The operating system has its downsides and the RAM management is inefficient. Overall, the phone has more hype than substance.