Infinix Smart 8 HD First Impressions: Serves Peak Budget iPhone Envy

Transsion Holdings, the parent company of Infinix, Tecno and Itel, is having a decent year in India. It has sold a significant number of phones in the country, allowing each of them to settle into the top 10 in terms of sales, as per Counterpoint. Infinix now presents its latest release, the Smart 8 HD – a budget offering lacking 5G connectivity but aiming to quench your iPhone envy at a modest price point. It is an intriguing device that borrows quite a lot from the iPhone.

Priced starting at ₹6,299, the Infinix Smart 8 HD is available in a single storage variant and goes on sale from December 13.

While smartphone design has hit a wall these days, Infinix attempts to keep things fresh with vibrant colours featuring pastel undertones. The Smart 8 HD also has a textured back, providing better grip. We received a Crystal Green unit for testing. Build quality is not exceptional, as the phone is primarily made of plastic. The way the two cameras are arranged might lead some to mistake it for a triple camera array; however, the third module is just a flash. From afar, the Smart 8 HD emits iPhone-like vibes.

What clinches the iPhone inspiration is the Magic Ring, a Dynamic Island-like bar inside the display incorporating the selfie camera and an area for notifications. This is the Smart 8 HD’s party trick, and you’ll see iPhone-style notifications for events and conditions such as face recognition, background calls, and charging status. I never found this extremely useful on the iPhone, and that doesn’t change much here. However, it offers people who desire an iPhone a taste of that experience, which might influence their purchase decisions.

In fact, the Infinix Smart 8 HD offers a couple of features not found on the iPhone. Above the “Magic Ring”, at the top of the frame, is a front-facing flash, which the company claims enhances the selfie camera's potency. The display has a 90Hz refresh rate, which the much more expensive iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus don’t have. It has a peak brightness of 500 nits and it seemed quite usable even under direct sunlight.

While I have not completed testing this phone, I expect excellent battery life. Its 5,000mAh battery should last more than a day on a single charge, and full figures will be shared in the final review. The Smart 8 HD features a Type-C port for charging, which has now become ubiquitous, and the charger is included in the box – a luxury strangely afforded only to buyers of affordable smartphones these days. The phone also has a 3.5mm jack and there is a side-mounted fingerprint scanner that worked quite well in the time I it.

Performance-wise, the Infinix Smart 8 HDis powered by the Unisoc T606 processor and has only 3GB of RAM. It runs XOS 13 based on Android 13. These specs might not excite anyone, and you shouldn’t expect this phone to set the performance charts on fire. These are bare minimum specs by today’s standards, and the Smart 8 HD is aimed at people who mostly want to make calls, browse the web and use social media.

Overall, the Infinix Smart 8 HD seems like an option for those who want an entry-level smartphone but with an aesthetic reminiscent of something more premium, like an iPhone.