We have a novelty – a new smartphone Infinix NOTE 11, it can be called a representative of the entry-level middle class. It has good looks, a large AMOLED screen, decent performance for its price, a capacious battery and nice things like NFC, stereo speakers and fast charging included.

You may not have heard of the manufacturer Infinix before, but the phone turned out to be worthy of attention. Let me tell you what he remembers.

Design and convenience

The smartphone has a plastic case, you can appreciate its modulations in the photos. In addition to such a white-silver version, there is also a neutral black and original green.

The coating is matte, it does not leave any traces or prints, scratches also did not appear. The assembly is dense, the device weighs relatively little for a gadget with a 6.7-inch screen – 184 grams.

The case turned out to be not slippery and comfortable, it is comfortable to hold it by the flat sides: there are no bends, no problems. A separate bonus is a complete plastic case to protect the case. It has a non-slip coating, the material is dense and looks more advantageous than the basic transparent silicone cases, which are often included in kits.

You can unlock your smartphone using the front camera or use a more reliable fingerprint scanner built into the power key. It is on the right side and is flush with the surface. Unlike it, the volume rocker protrudes above the case – it’s convenient, and you can’t confuse the buttons with all your desire.

Screen

The display is traditionally large – AMOLED has a diagonal of 6.7 inches. In the pros, a decent margin of brightness, rich colors and a moderate frame size. The cutout for the front camera is located in the center: it is no longer fashionable, but it does not affect the quality of the shooting at all.

By default, the picture is saturated and contrasting; you cannot select a different color profile. I would like to see the setting with other, calmer shades, but this is the will of the manufacturer.

But you can praise the device for supporting Always On mode: in standby mode on the lock screen, you can see the date and time, missed notifications. As the brightness level decreases, ripple becomes noticeable, eyes may get tired if you read or watch videos on a smartphone in a dark room.

Camera

To my joy, the smartphone has one sensible main camera of 50 megapixels and an additional 2-megapixel module for estimating the depth of the frame. It is rather original that there is no ultra-wide-angle module: often it is of no use at all, so I will not write it down as a disadvantage.

The maximum resolution mode is turned on manually – and I must say that there is no noticeable quality: you can safely use the basic 12.5 megapixel mode, which is enabled by default. In the camera settings, you can swap the icons that switch additional shooting modes: “Beauty”, “Portrait” and Super Night. Moreover, there are separately AR-mode, “Slow motion”, “Panorama”, Timelapse and “Profession” (apparently, this is a manual mode), but I did not understand how to activate them.

In my opinion, the camera is the most ordinary: it normally shoots during the day, and even a separate night mode does not save it at night. But it all depends on the situation, and when shooting bright lights on a snowy evening, you can get a nice shot:

Again, if you need high light sensitivity and detail, then you need to look at smartphones in a completely different price range. For example, portrait mode often “blurs” unnecessary details, and hair, ears and glasses regularly blend into the background. But this is not a flagship, so forgivable. But the fact that you can’t use both portrait mode and apply effects to embellish the face at the same time is strange.

The front camera of 16 megapixels in good light accurately reproduces colors and does not try to embellish the face too much – this is good. But when using the portrait option mode, the hair suffers and the hairstyle can be cut off. But the phone has a separate selfie flash, which can help out when shooting in the dark – this is extremely rare.

Filling

The interface impressed with smooth animation and quick response – when you use a smartphone and are not aware of its characteristics, you might think that the stuffing here is more powerful than indicated in the description. The smartphone has a MediaTek Helio G88 chipset, which is a relatively simple, but not very expensive solution for entry-level phones. The amount of RAM is 6 GB, built-in 128 GB – this is enough for comfortable use, and for toys with modest graphics settings.

The smartphone easily passed the throttling test: even after a series of stress benchmarks for two hours, the drop in performance was within reasonable limits. At the same time, there is no noticeable overheating – for a fairly simple device, this is great.

The smartphone received everything you need, including NFC and two separate trays for SIM-cards. Moreover, there is also a separate place for microSD – it is convenient when you do not have to sacrifice something. The connection quality is normal, from the pleasant moments I want to highlight the built-in voice recorder for recording conversations.

The stereo speakers sound fine, but when listening to music or watching videos, you will notice that the sound through the bottom holes is louder than through the top ones. The smartphone has a 3.5 mm port for connecting wired headphones, it is located at the bottom.

The smartphone runs on Android 11, on top of which is installed its own X OS shell. I liked her responsiveness and speed of work, everything is in order with that. Localization suffers in places, it catches your eye when you get acquainted with the phone settings. Also, part of the memory is occupied by pre-installed applications, some can be removed, but you cannot completely get rid of them.

Battery

In the kit we get a fast charge of 33 W, from which a 5000 mAh battery is charged from 0 to 100% in a little over an hour. In practice, we get a day of stable use of the device with 5.5-6 hours of active screen. Standard result for a smartphone with similar characteristics.

Price

At the time of release, Infinix NOTE 11 was sold for 16,990 rubles, this was at the end of December 2021. In January 2022, the price was slightly reduced – I saw a smartphone for 15,990 rubles.

Opinion

I think that when buying a phone, many people think: take something entry-level for 12,000 rubles or pay extra and use a device with more attractive features, increasing the budget by 5,000–7,000 rubles. This is where the choice begins between the basic models of famous brands or devices like the Infinix NOTE 11, where there are many functions and features at once, but there are also shortcomings.

Among the shortcomings, I would single out the not fully developed localization, the lack of ready-made screen color profiles and a package of non-removable pre-installed programs.

Otherwise, the smartphone looks like an adequate offer: a fast interface and decent performance, a normal camera, a juicy AMOLED screen, loud stereo speakers, NFC, fast charging included and a decent case. There’s even a separate microSD tray, and the plastic case doesn’t slip or scratch.

Specifications Infinix NOTE 11

• OS: Android 11, X OS;
• Display: 6.7″, Vivid AMOLED 1080 × 2400;
• Camera: main 50 MP (f / 1.6), depth 2 MP (f / 2.4), front 16 MP;
• Memory: 6/128 GB, microSD slot;
• Chipset: MediaTek Helio G88;
• Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11ac, 3.5 mm, USB Type-C, NFC, two SIM cards;
• Battery: 5000 mAh, fast charging 33 W;
• Dimensions: 164.4 × 76.7 × 7.9 mm;
• Weight: 184 g.