by The maker of the Infinix Note 12 VIP (and its Note 12’s little brother) may not yet be well-known in these western parts, but in a sea of abundant and often confusing smartphone options, Infinix has focused on one thing . to stand out: camera specs.
And the Note 12 VIP certainly does that. Especially when it comes to price and camera combination. With a cool 108-megapixel main camera and a 16-megapixel selfie camera, combined with capable ultrawide and macro capabilities, it’s a serious proposition for a smartphone photography enthusiast on a tight budget, currently selling for under £250. Meanwhile, the Note 12 may well have the best camera specs of any budget phone, as the unit, which can be had for under £170, has a 50-megapixel main camera and the same 16-megapixel selfie camera as the best ambivalent brother.
But is that enough to make the Note 12 and Note 12 VIP one of the best budget camera phones around? (opens in new tab) out there? I received a test unit of each model, and using them out and about for several weeks, the answer will largely depend on whether you want to do other things as well, as unsurprisingly there are quite a few compromises to achieve this low price point. .
Infinix Note 12 VIP: Key Specifications
Chipset: Mediatek MT6781 Helio G96 (12nm)
PLUNGER: 8GB
Save: 256 GB
OS: Android 12, XOS 10.5
Screen: AMOLED, 6.7-inch IPS display, 1080 x 2400p
Cameras: 108 MP, f/1.8, (wide), 1/1.67″, 0.64 µm, PDAF, Laser AF, 13 mm f/2.2, (ultra-wide), 2 MP, f/2.4 (depth), 16 MP, (front), 1/2.76″, 1.12 µm
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, USB Type-C 2.0, microSDXC slot
Dimensions: 163.5 x 76.7 x 7.9 mm (6.44 x 3.02 x 0.31 in)
Weight: 199g (7.02oz)
Battery: Li-Po 4500 mAh, non-removable
Infinix Note 12 VIP Review: Design and Display
Externally, the phone takes a lot of cues from devices like the iPhone, with its slightly boxy design and rounded corners on the aluminum sides that frame the large, sharp 6.7-inch display. It’s certainly less subtle than the waterfall design of the larger and more premium Infinix Zero Ultra, but it’s comfortable to hold and feels reassuringly sturdy, especially for a budget phone.
Available in two colors, Cayenne Gray or Force Black. I received the Cayenne Gray and the matte back is slightly grippy and textured, which helps my little fingers feel like they’re not going to slide out and have an unplanned quick collision with the ground every time I hold it.
The display is a 1080 x 2400px AMOLED with a 120Hz frame rate and is sharp and bright and relatively free of distracting or unpleasant glare. It remains quite readable even outside in bright sunlight, although you need to turn the brightness down to maximum and turn off the auto-brightness setting to fully enjoy it. However, the screen smudges quite easily, but is easily wiped with a suitable cloth.
The camera lenses protrude ever so slightly from the back, so when sitting on a table it wobbles just enough, but not so much that I felt terrified that it would go off the edge once it started vibrating with a notification or incoming call. However, a protective case is a wise move to protect the edges of the camera lens, and is usefully provided in the box, albeit plain vanilla.
Infinix Note 12 VIP Review: Features
As mentioned above, the main feature on the Note 12 VIP is the 108MP camera with f/1.8 lens. It also has a fingerprint scanner on the power button, for quick unlocking, along with facial recognition. Both are easy to install on the native XOS operating system, which is basically a clone of the Android 12 operating system, so any Android user will find their way around very quickly. There’s also a lift-to-wake feature, which turns the screen on when you pick it up.
The phone is loaded with preloaded apps, both from Google’s suite of apps and Infinix’s own offerings, including a gaming-focused XArena and WeZone and a social XClub, along with an alternative web browser for Chrome, called Hi Browser. Like so many Android phones, it feels overloaded right off the bat, which always makes me feel a little uneasy and less in control of creating my own experience with the apps I want than I’d like.
Internal storage is 256GB, with 8GB of RAM, which is expandable to 13GB.
Battery life is also very good, thanks to the 4500mAh battery. It easily saw me through nearly two days of relatively heavy use, and with the included 120W super-fast charger, I charged it from empty to full in less than half an hour.
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Infinix Note 12 VIP Review: Camera
This is where the Infinix Note 12 VIP comes into its own. The 108-megapixel primary camera captures images with really sharp detail, which is impressive for a budget phone like this. Outdoor images are effortlessly bright and vibrant and portraits, even in fairly subdued indoor settings, have a nice look to them, while the super macro gives you very decent super close-ups for a phone in this price range. Yes, there’s digital enhancement behind some of the megapixels, but for the money you’re paying, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anything that clearly beats it on the camera side.
As on the Infinix Zero Ultra, the camera app has an ‘AI Cam’ and a ‘Beauty’ mode, the latter of which seems mainly geared towards the trend of slightly oversaturated images you see on social media. I tended to switch mostly between the high AI Cam setting and the Portrait setting depending on the situation.
The Note 12 (non-VIP) has a 50MP camera, which also performs better than most phone cameras under £200. It is slightly less crisp than its VIP counterpart
Video performance is satisfactory. On the Note 12 VIP, you get 1440p HD video at 30fps, which is good but not spectacular for a phone in this budget class, and on the Note 12, video maxes out at 1080p at 30fps.
So why is it so cheap, I hear you below. Well, to get such impressive camera specs at this price, you have to compromise somewhere, and on the Note 12 VIP (and the Note 12), that compromise is easy to spot…
Infinix Note 12 VIP Review: Performance
…and this is the editor. Using a MediaTek Helio G96 processor, the Note 12 VIP is far less powerful and capable of multitasking than any current Snapdragon processor, as well as MediaTek Dimensity processors like the 920 that powers the Zero Ultra. With a low multi-core Geekbench 5 score of 1875, it’s here where the Note 12 VIP stands out as the budget phone it is.
If you want to do any serious creative work or gaming anywhere above simple app games, the Note 12 VIP soon starts to struggle and I noticed that performance started to drop noticeably when multiple apps were open at the same time, although I didn’t experience the same problem with the reboot loop I did on its sibling, the Zero Ultra, maybe because I didn’t load as many apps onto that already crowded phone as I did with the Zero Ultra.
If you’re only concerned about the camera, however, this shouldn’t bother you too much as it does very well on that front, with sharing to nearby devices or cloud accounts (to reduce the load on local storage) working effortlessly.
Infinix Note 12 VIP Review: Price
The Note 12 VIP can be had for under £250 in the UK (as an introduction, it needs to be declared as it’s not currently sold by high street retailers here) and the Note 12 is available for under £170. Yes, it has a cheap internal phone, but it’s beautifully designed and a camera that far exceeds that price.
Should you buy the Infinix Note 12 VIP?
If you want an ultra-budget phone mainly for its camera specs, the Infinix Note 12 VIP should definitely be on your list. However, there are a few caveats. One is that the processor is very underpowered, so if your ambitions extend beyond an Insta machine with an admittedly very good camera, you may soon be disappointed (as you probably would with most phones in this price range). Another is that at the time of writing it is not available or supported by any UK retailer, so it is only available as an introduction. General phone stores may be able to help with problems, but we can’t guarantee that, unfortunately.
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