Infocus is one of the late entrant in Indian Smartphone Market. Infocus M2 was the first smartphone from them for budget conscious consumers. Today we will be reviewing the Infocus flagship smartphone i.e Infocus M812. It was launched a month back and sales for the same started just last week at Snapdeal.
We have used Infocus M812 as our primary smartphone for almost a week along with a second SIM with 3G/4G data on. This review is based on that experience. Also, our review unit came without the retail box or any accessory, so we can’t comment about them in this review.
Technical Specs:
- Display : 5.5-inch Full HD with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3
- CPU: 2.5 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974AC) processor
- RAM : 3 GB
- Storage : 16 GB internal, Support for expandable memory via microSD
- OS : Android 5.0 (Lollipop) with Inlife UI
- Camera : 13 MP rear camera with true tone LED Flash and 8 MP front-facing camera, 88-degree wide-angle lens
- Dimensions – 157.6x 77.1 x 7.38 mm,
- Wight: 120 grams
- Connectivity : 4G LTE / 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, USB OTG
- Battery : 2900 mAh (non-removable)
Picture Gallery
Design, Hardware and Build Quality
In terms of design and build quality, it gives look and feel of a premium smartphone with a uni-body aluminium sturdy build. Some of my colleagues did get confused whether I am using the Apple iPhone 6 and you can guess that it looks quite similar to that. You can not open the back cover or access the battery. The back portion comes with the 13 MP camera on the top and a 4G logo at the bottom. The power button and the Volume rocker buttons (2 buttons for up and down) are placed at the left hand side of the smartphone. Usually, we would have preferred them on the other side.
The right side of the smartphone comes with the two SIM slots out of which one can be used as SD card slot. I often wonder how much space is saved or how this small compromise results in better design, because if you want to use the smartphone with Dual SIM and a SD card at the same time then you are out of luck. Also, only one of the SIM slots (SIM 1) supports 4G and it needs a micro SIM card for that, where as the other slot only supports 2G (can also be used for SD card) but it wants a nano SIM card for that slot. This is weird design as any Indian consumer having a 2G SIM card will have a Micro SIM card where as a 4G SIM in India will be a nano SIM. But the smartphone design here is just opposite.
The device may feel sleek or slim but a bit heavy. Also, it may slip out of your hands sometime as the metallic build and the finish at the back doesn’t really help much to hold it. A bit of texture finish could have helped though for sure.
The speakers are at the bottom side along with the micro USB port and the 3.5 mm audio jack is at the top.
The InFocus M812 sports a 5.5-inch Full HD display with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protection and is powered by quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor with 3 GB of RAM. In terms of storage, it comes with 16 GB of internal memory along with micro SD card support. It supports 4G LTE, FM Radio and USB OTG. It comes with sensors such as proximity sensor, accelerometer, compass, magnetic sensor and gyroscope.
The display appeared crisp and clear with good Color reproduction in normal lighting conditions and even in sunlight with auto brightness enabled. The viewing angles on the display was good and we didn’t face any issues in viewing the display under normal usage.
Performance, Gaming and Benchmarks
As the device is powered by Snapdragon 801 SOC with 3 GB of RAM, we didn’t expect any hiccups with the gaming. We played some graphics intensive games such as Asphalt 8 continuously for 15-30 minutes. The game played perfectly without any frame drops or lags. The graphics and color reproduction during the game play was great. We also checked out if the device heats up or not during prolonged game play. We did find a temperature increase of about 3-4 degree Celsius after playing Asphalt 8 for about 15 minutes. But it was not noticeable unless you are measuring it up with a infra-red thermometer just like we did. Normal consumers won’t feel the heat as it’s quite comfortable holding the device even after playing the graphics intensive games for 15-20 minutes.
The performance of phone during the normal usage is good and we didn’t face any problems while using it even with a bit of multitasking. It performed well without any lag issues. The call quality and network reception including that of 4G was good.
Coming to benchmarks, we had a weird experience which we never faced before with any other smartphone. The Infocus M812 kept shutting down or getting unresponsive with screen off when the Antutu Benchmark tests reached 27% every time. Hence we are unable to tell you the Antutu score of the device. We even tried factory reset and yet the same issue came back. First we thought that it is due to the faulty review unit, but some other reviewers too have faced the same problem it seems. This behavior puts a question mark on why this is happening? Hopefully someone at Infocus is listening to this feedback and can fix it.
Camera
As we noted above, it comes with 13-meagpixel main camera sensor with dual-LED flash unit. Even though camera did perform well under good lighting conditions, it faulted under varying light conditions e.g if you are standing in shade with heavy sunlight. The pictures turned out to be good with almost no noise in them. The color reproduction was good. But again, it fails when the lighting is bad and if you want to take pics in dark or low light, the pictures come out with lot of noise in it.
The front camera is just good enough to produce some great selfies under normal lighting condition. The viewing angle is wide and can help you get a wider selfie shot.
The camera app comes with loads of options including different modes for shooting for different conditions. It also comes with options to change different parameters just like professional photographers.
Check out some of the camera samples below under different conditions.
Camera Samples
Operating System and UI
It operates on Android 5.0.2 lollipop operating system with Infocus own InLife UI 2.0 running on top of it.In terms of customizations, it is quite similar to some of the ROMs available and you can customise too many options quite easily. It also comes with some motion features which lets you do many things like rejecting calls just by turning over the phone or answering a call directly when you move the phone near your ear.
But we still prefer a stock Android without any bloat that often comes with every OEM device. Even Infocus M812 came with some of the usual bloat, but one of the pre-installed apps that we loved is Power Detective. It gave detailed information about the smartphone battery and its usage over the time. It can help you find the battery hogging apps easily. Apart from this, it came pre-installed with WPS Office, Safebox etc.
Screenshots
Battery
The InFocus M812 is powered by 2900 mAh battery and it did perform quite well. The best thing though is the battery consumption during idle hours and battery graph almost stays flat with negligible battery loss even after hours.Under normal usage or even a bit of moderate usage, it lasted for more than a day. Under heavy usage, it was able to last till evening quite easily and you can charge it before sleep.
Conclusion
The InFocus M812 is priced at Rs 19,999 which puts it in the same league as Motorola Moto X Play or even the old One Plus one. Considering that both these devices are better perceived by consumers, M812 may face tough competition from them. It could have done better if priced a bit more competitively.
Yet consumers who are looking for a design similar to iPhone, a metallic build , a good battery life and better CPU in the form of Snapdragon 801 may still like M812. ALso, if Infocus can fix some of the drawback as mentioned in the review like Dual SIM / SD card issue, the Antutu benchmark issue and a bit of better camera, then the device has the potential to beat others in the mid range category of smartphones in India. Also, Infocus is unable to give timely software upgrades to some of its old devices like M2 and M530 which may be another issue that can be addressed.
