InFocus Turbo 5 Review: A reliable and cheap big battery smartphone

Recently, InFocus launched the InFocus Turbo 5 in India thus relaunching the brand in the country. This new device from the company will be a new offering in the sub Rs.10,000 price bracket. Infocus in partnership with Amazon India will be providing two variants of the Turbo 5 in the country. The 2GB RAM and 16GB Internal Storage variant will cost Rs. 6,999, and the 3GB RAM and 32GB Internal Storage variant is priced at Rs. 7,999. The USP of the InFocus Turbo 5 is its 5,000mAh non-removable battery. This new device will be competing against the already well selling Xiaomi Redmi 4 amongst many others. We had the 3GB RAM and 32GB Internal Storage variant for our review, and here is how it faired.

InFocus Turbo 5 Design

The first thing that you would notice on the InFocus 5 is the narrow side bezels. When the phone is turned off it seems that there aren't any bezels on the side. We feel that this makes the phone feel much more premium and is less distracting while watching any content. However, we felt that the bezels on the top and bottom are extremely thick. The phone features a 5.2-inch display, even after which we felt that the phone is quite manageable. You can use the phone easily with a single hand. The phone measures at 8.95mm and weighs 164 grams which is slightly more than the competition. However, we do feel that the 5,000mAh battery makes up for it a bit. The power and the volume rockers are located on the right side. The 3.5mm audio jack is located at the top. And you can find the micro USB charging jack at the bottom.

On the bottom bezel, you can spot the capacitive navigation buttons. We did feel that InFocus could have used on-screen buttons instead and saved on space. InFocus released two colours in India, Mocha Gold which was the one we had for review and Pure Gold.

The screen is protected by 2.5D curved gorilla glass protection, it also comes with rounded edges which help in improving the grip. The antenna run across the top and bottom. The back is made out of plastic made to feel like metal. You can also spot the InFocus logo on the back along with the fingerprint sensor above it.

InFocus Turbo 5 Specifications

The InFocus Turbo 5 features a 5.3-inch 720P display with 2.5D curved glass protection. It is powered by the MediaTek MT6737 quad core processor clocked at 1.3GHz accompanied by Mali T720 MP1 graphics. Two variants are available for the phone, 2GB RAM/16GB Internal Storage, and 3GB RAM/32GB Internal Storage. All of this is backed up by a 5,000mAh non-removable battery which the company says will last for almost 2 days on a single charge. The Turbo 5 also features reverse charging which allows users to charge other devices from the smartphone itself.

As for the camera, It features a 13-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front facing camera for selfies. Both the cameras feature a f/2.2 aperture. The Turbo 5 on the connectivity end, features 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, FM, and more. It runs on Google's Android 7.0 Nougat operating system.

InFocus Turbo 5 Performance

While testing out the InFocus Turbo 5 we found that it was able to handle daily usage fairly with ease. We had gotten the 3GB RAM variant for our review purposes, which we found performed better than the 2GB variant we tested out in the launch event which took place in New Delhi. We do recommend you if you are considering this device to go with the 3GB RAM variant by paying the extra Rs.1,000. However, you need to keep in mind that we were only able to play around with the 2GB RAM variant for a bit and we cannot comment on how it would perform in daily usage.

While gaming, We tested out the Turbo 5 with Injustice 2, Asphalt 8, Dead Effect 2 just to name a few. We did feel that the phone while playing heavy games did lag. It was struggling to mostly keep-up with the graphics in the graphic intensive games. But we did expect this from the start as it features a MediaTek chipset. However, while playing games like Candy Crush, Angry Birds and lighter games the phone faired great.

Our unit came with 32GB of internal storage which translated to 24.3GB of space available for the user. This was enough for us but some people will need to put in a microSD card to expand the storage, which in exchange would take away the dual SIM card capability. The hybrid slot in the device supports two nano SIM cards. The InFocus Turbo 5 in our benchmark tests faired okay. We got a score of 29232 in our Antutu Benchmark test, it scored 562 on single-core and 1054 on multi-core test in Geekbench, and 198 frames in GFXBench.

As for the display, we felt that the display panel used in the smartphone is a good one as we did not face any problems while using the device in direct sunlight or indoors. The colours were vibrant and the text was sharp. However, with a pixel density of 320ppi, we felt that the device could have done better.

InFocus Turbo Camera

The images that were taken from the device's 13-megapixel rear camera in daytime and outdoors were decent. However, when seen carefully a lack of sharpness could be seen. It was also noticeable that the areas which weren't well light were having a lot of noise. In low light the images didn't fair good, serious noise and lack of texture could be seen in the image samples.

The camera might be the Turbo 5's biggest weakness as while reviewing the device we and the camera both were struggling hard to get good images. Even the autofocus in low light situations didn't function properly and there were times we just got fed up and stopped trying to take the photo.

The Turbo 5 features a 5-megapixel front camera for selfies, which is combined with a screen flash to help users take selfies in the dark. The photos taken from the front camera are though are decent but don't expect them to compete with the likes of flagship devices.

InFocus Turbo 5 Battery

The InFocus Turbo 5 comes featuring a 5,000mAh non-removable battery which is also the USP of the device. Keep this in your mind that we have tested a lot of smartphones featuring big batteries, so we know what to expect out of the device. This was able to keep up with our expectations and was able to deliver on what the company had promised. During our day-to-day activities, the phone managed to get us through 2 to 3 days on a single charge and normal usage. On heavy usage, while we were playing games, editing, and basically using the phone for other tasks it was able to stretch itself and give us a day worth of usage.

While running the PCMark battery test we were able to get the phone to give us a score of 16 hours 36 minutes which is great. During our review, we also tried the phones ability to reverse charge on the OnePlus 3 and the Apple iPhone 5S. We found it as a neat trick which could help you in tricky situations. While charging the smartphone it went from 0 to 100 percent in less than two hours which is surprising as the phone doesn't officially support reverse charging.

Also Read: Asus Zenfone 3s Max In-Depth Review

Verdict

While using the InFocus Turbo 5 as our daily driver we didn't feel that the phone was dragging us down in any way, and believe us when we say that the phone is a literal powerhouse when it comes to battery life. The phone can get you around for a solid 2 days on medium usage on a single charge. Otherwise, the phone is much similar to its competitors in the same price bracket and the fact that it comes with the latest Android 7.0 Nougat might be what makes it stand out of the pack.

We did feel that the phone could have been a lot more than just a big battery smartphone. The primary camera was our biggest gripe during the review. But if you are in the market looking for a secondary device that will not let you down, then this is it.

Image Gallery