Infinix Note 40X Review: Focused on Entertainment

The Infinix Note 40X is the latest smartphone to arrive in the highly competitive budget segment in India. The Transsion-owned company launched other Note-series handsets earlier this year with notable features, including support for ‘MagKit’ wireless charging, and the company is touting the 256GB of inbuilt storage available on the Infinix Note 40X as one of its most notable features. It strongly resembles Apple’s current-generation flagship smartphone — the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Other popular phones in the same price range include the Samsung Galaxy M15, Lava Blaze X, Redmi 13C 5G, Vivo T3x, and the Realme P1 5G.

Pricing for the Infinix Note 40X starts at Rs. 14,999 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of inbuilt storage, while the handset is also available in a 12GB + 256GB variant that costs Rs. 15,999. We received the model with 12GB of RAM for this review.

Infinix Note 40X Design: Very familiar

• Dimensions – 168.94×76.49×8.26mm
• Weight – 201g
• Colours- Lime Green, Palm Blue (in this review), and Starlit Black

If you glance at the Infinix Note 40X in someone else’s hand, you might easily mistake it for an iPhone at a certain distance. That’s because the rear panel on the handset has three cameras that are arranged in a slightly raised island that resembles the iPhone 15 Pro Max — even the LED flash is located in the same position.

Infinix Note 40X is equipped with a triple rear camera setup

 

The rear panel has a matte finish that doesn’t pick up fingerprints or smudges and has a colour gradient that is visible when viewing the phone at different angles. The branding is extremely minimal, with a small Infinix logo at the bottom left corner. The phone has thick bezels around the display, especially at the bottom.

This phone has flat edges that appear shiny, are made of plastic, and are rounded at all four corners. There’s a speaker grille along with a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm audio port at the bottom edge, while the power and volume buttons are located on the right side, and there’s another speaker grille at the top. You get a transparent TPU cover, a charging brick, and a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable in the box.

Infinix Note 40X Software: Feature packed, some bloatware

• Software- XOS 14
• Version- Android 14
• Latest security patch- May 5, 2024

The Infinix Note 40X runs on Android 14 out-of-the-box, along with the XOS 14 skin. Like other phones from the company, this handset has a handful of preloaded apps that can be uninstalled or disabled (WPS Office, Aha Games, Hola Browser, Visha Player, Wow FM). Still, I didn’t encounter any spam notifications during the time I spent using the handset.

The company has included several software features that add useful functionality, including support for floating windows, a floating sidebar, a game mode, support for cloning apps (using WhatsApp with two numbers on the same phone), and a mode for kids.

A Dynamic Bar feature and AI wallpaper generator are both available on the Infinix Note 40X 

 

A few companies have mimicked Apple’s Dynamic Island, introduced with the iPhone 14 Pro and the Infinix Note 40X, which also includes a similar feature. It appears when you use the Recorder app in the background, use the face unlock feature, charge the phone, or when you’re on a phone call. The black pill expands from the hole punch camera cutout, and you can tap the bar to expand it or even return to the app you were using.

There are two features powered by artificial intelligence (AI) on the Infinix Note 40X — Smart Touch (text extraction from several apps) and AI wallpaper generation. These features work as expected, but you’ll need to configure which apps Smart Touch can access in case you want to stop it from reading information in apps that contain sensitive information — health and banking for example.

XOS 14 feels optimised on this handset, and you can switch between apps quite smoothly. The phone did move some recently opened apps out of memory, and they had to be reloaded when I switched back to them.

Infinix has not committed to any Android OS version updates, which means that it could remain on Android 14. The company says that the phone will get two years of security updates. Other smartphone makers promise between one and two OS updates, while the Samsung Galaxy M15 is slated to receive four Android OS upgrades.

Infinix Note 40X Performance: Gets the job done

• Processor- MediaTek Dimensity 6300
• Memory- Up to 12GB (LPDDR4X)
• Storage- Up to 256GB (UFS 2.2)

The Infinix Note 40X is powered by a 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 6300 chipset, which is a rebadged Dimensity 6080 SoC that was launched in 2023, which, in turn, was a rebranded version of the Dimensity 810 chip that arrived in 2021. It does offer small improvements compared to its predecessor, though, in terms of GPU performance.

Most apps run without issues on the Note 40X, from X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram to video editing apps like InShot and KineMaster. The built-in storage is as fast as competing handsets in this price segment when copying large files to and from the smartphone.

Infinix Note 40X benchmark results

 

Games like PUBG, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Asphalt Legends Unite (formerly Asphalt 9: Legends) work well on the Infinix Note 40X at medium settings. I was also able to play Genshin Impact in the lowest graphics settings, and it actually worked without issues, except for some lagging in a few areas. I didn’t notice any throttling after about 30 minutes of gameplay, and the phone didn’t get hot or uncomfortable to hold.

I also ran a few benchmark tests on the Infinix Note 40X, showing the phone offers slower performance than other phones in the same price segment. While these are synthetic tests and do not necessarily reflect how well a phone performs in day-to-day use, they provide a good comparison of the processing power with competing handsets.

You can refer to the table below to see how the Infinix Note 40X fares against other smartphones that are available at a similar price in India.

The Infinix Note 40X sports a 6.78-inch Full-HD+ (1,080×2,460 pixels) IPS LCD screen with a 120Hz refresh rate. I could view content on the screen when I was outdoors during the day when the automatic brightness feature was enabled. The display is good enough for watching content on Netflix and Prime Video, and the dual stereo speakers get very loud without a lot of distortion.

The Infinix Note 40X sports a 6.78-inch IPS LCD display

 

There’s a fingerprint sensor located on the power button, and the phone also includes support for face unlock that works using the selfie camera and integrates with the Dynamic Bar feature. It’s also nice to see support for near-field communication (NFC) on the Note 40X, with support for tap-to-pay and other compatible devices, including Sony’s wireless headphones that support NFC-based pairing.

Infinix Note 40X Cameras: Decent daylight photos

• Main camera- 108-megapixel, up to 2K/ 30fps video
• Macro camera- 2-megapixel
• Selfie camera- 8-megapixel, up to 2K/30fps video

The Infinix Note 40X is equipped with a triple rear camera setup, comprising a 108-megapixel primary camera (f/1.8 aperture), a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. The primary camera can capture decent images during the day when there’s enough natural light, especially when capturing images of still objects.

Infinix Note 40X Daylight Camera Samples. Top to bottom – 1x Primary, 1x Primary, 3x Primary (Tap images to expand)

 

The primary camera can also be used to take 108-megapixel images that are larger and have a higher resolution than the default mode. The camera app also includes a 3x zoom mode (in-sensor crop) that lets you zoom in without losing a lot of detail.

 

In low-light scenarios, the camera app prompts you to switch to the built-in Super Night Mode, which takes a couple of seconds to capture images. If your subject isn’t moving, this camera mode delivers better images than the default mode, with less noise and smoothening, but some skin tones have a slightly reddish hue. You can also use 1x and 3x camera modes to capture images with the night mode.

The Infinix Note 40X is also equipped with a 2-megapixel macro camera, which is useful for clicking images of objects that are up to 4cm away. This camera mode is only useful during the day, and there’s a bit of noise and smoothening when you zoom in.

Infinix Note 40X Camera Samples. Top to bottom – 1x Night, 1x night, macro (Tap images to expand)

 

Meanwhile, the third 2-megapixel camera on the Note 40X appears to be a light sensor, and Infinix didn’t provide us with any information related to its specifications or features. You can’t access both of the secondary sensors (macro and light) via third-party camera apps.

Selfies captured from the 8-megapixel front-facing camera on the Infinix Note 40X are decent during the day, and the ‘beautification’ features were disabled by default. While there’s no night mode for the selfies, the camera app includes a useful Wide Selfie option that appears to click multiple images and stitch them together for selfies with larger groups.

Both the primary rear camera and selfie camera can capture images at up to 2K/ 30fps. There’s no support for optical image stabilisation or electronic image stabilisation, but videos captured at 1080p/ 60fps have less tearing than those shot at the highest resolution.

Infinix Note 40X Battery: Quite reliable

• Battery Capacity- 5,000mAh
• Wired Charging- 18W
• Charger- 18W (included)

The Infinix Note 40X has a 5,000mAh battery housed inside that delivered about a day and a half of battery life, with heavy Instagram, Threads, and X usage and occasional texting on WhatsApp. I got about five and a half hours of screen time. The overnight drain was not too high, with the phone’s battery level dropping by 2 percent over 8 hours.

In our synthetic video loop battery drain test, the phone lasted for 22 hours and 10 minutes before the phone shut off. After connecting the phone to the included charger, the phone took 2 hours and 17 minutes to fully charge.

Infinix Note 40X Review: Verdict

If you’re looking for a smartphone that can run a wide range of apps and games while offering a lot of inbuilt storage, then the Infinix Note 40X is worth your consideration. It also provides reliable battery life, which is good if you plan on watching content on the go. The software features on the phone are also quite useful in day-to-day use.

However, the Infinix Note 40X also faces immense competition from other smartphones in the same price segment that offers better performance and faster-wired charging. The Realme P1 (Review), Moto G64 (Review), and iQoo Z9x (Review) all achieved higher scores in our benchmark tests. These phones are also expected to receive one or more Android OS updates, according to their manufacturers.

Other phones that you can consider in the same price segment include the Samsung Galaxy M15, Redmi 13C 5G, Vivo T3x, and the Lava Blaze X. Stay tuned to Gadgets 360 for even more smartphone reviews to help you make an informed decision before you purchase your next smartphone.