by The maker of the Infinix Note 12 VIP (and little brother, the Note 12) might not yet be well known in these Western parts, but in a sea of plentiful and often confusing choices when it comes to smartphones, Infinix has one thing clear to emphasize in a concentrated way: camera specifications.
And the Note 12 VIP certainly does. Especially when it comes to the combination of price and camera. With a cool 108MP main camera and 16MP selfie camera, as well as capable ultrawide and macro capabilities, it makes for a serious proposition for a smartphone photography fanatic on a strict budget, as it’s currently available for under £250 im retail is available . In the meantime, the Note 12 might have the best camera specs of any bargain phone out there, as the device, which can be had for under £170, has a 50-megapixel main camera and the same 16-megapixel selfie camera as its beefier Siblings.
But is that enough to make either the Note 12 or the Note 12 VIP one of the best budget camera phones out there? (opens in new tab) out there? I’ve received a test unit of each model and if I’m going to be driving them for several weeks the answer depends heavily on whether you want to do other things as well, as unsurprisingly there are a number of compromises made to do this to achieve lower price point.
Infinix Note 12 VIP: key specifications
chipset: Mediatek MT6781 Helio G96 (12nm)
R.A.M: 8GB
Storage: 256GB
Operating system: Android 12, XOS 10.5
Screen: AMOLED, 6.7 inch IPS screen, 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: 199 g (7.02 oz)
Battery: Li-Po 4500 mAh, non-removable
Infinix Note 12 VIP review: design and screen
Externally, the phone takes many cues from iPhones, with the slightly boxy design and rounded corners on the aluminum sides framing the large, sharp 6.7-inch screen. It’s certainly less distinctive than the waterfall design of the larger and more premium Infinix Zero Ultra, but it’s comfortable in the hand and feels reassuringly sturdy, especially for a budget phone.
It is available in two colors, Cayenne Gray or Force Black. I received the Cayenne Gray One and the matte back is slightly grippy and textured, which helps my little fingers feel like it won’t slip out and have an unplanned quick collision with the ground every time I hold it .
The screen is 1080 x 2400 pixel AMOLED offering with a frame rate of 120Hz and is both sharp and bright and relatively free from annoying or uncomfortable glare. It remains fairly readable even outside in bright sunshine, although you’ll need to set the brightness to maximum and turn off the auto-brightness adjustment to fully enjoy it. The screen smudges quite easily, but can be easily wiped with a suitable cloth.
The camera lenses protrude from the back quite slightly, so when it’s sitting on a table it wobbles just a bit, but not to the point that I was afraid it’d go over the edge as soon as it got a notification or vibrated incoming call begins. A protective case is a smart move to protect the edges of the camera lens, however, and one is helpfully included in the box, albeit a vanilla clear one.
Infinix Note 12 VIP review: features
As mentioned above, the main feature of the Note 12 VIP is the 108MP camera with an f/1.8 lens. It also has a fingerprint scanner on the power button for quick unlocking, as well as face recognition. Both are easy to set up within 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 that turns on the screen when you pick it up.
The phone comes packed with preinstalled 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 to Chrome called Hi Browser. Like so many Android phones, it feels crowded right off the bat, which always makes me feel a little anxious and gives me less control than I want to create my own experience with the apps I want.
The internal storage is 256GB, with 8GB of RAM expandable to 13GB.
Battery life is also really good thanks to the 4500mAh battery. It easily got me through nearly two days of relatively heavy use, and using the included super-fast 120W charger I charged it from empty to full in under half an hour.
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Infinix Note 12 VIP review: Camera
This is where the Infinix Note 12 VIP comes in. The 108MP main camera takes pictures with really sharp detail, impressive for a budget phone like this. Outdoor images are effortlessly bright and vibrant, and portraits have a nice pop even in fairly subdued indoor environments, 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 megapixel claims, but for the money you’re paying you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that significantly outperforms it on the camera side.
As with the Infinix Zero Ultra, the camera app has an “AI Cam” and “Beauty” mode, the second of which seems mainly geared towards the trend of slightly oversaturated images you’re seeing on social media. I tended to switch between the highly adjustable AI cam setting and the portrait setting most of the time, depending on the occasion.
The Note 12 (non-VIP) has a 50MP camera, which also performs better than most phone cameras under £200. It’s a little less crisp than its VIP counterpart
Video performance is decent. On the Note 12 VIP you get 1440p HD video at 30 fps, which is good but not spectacular for a phone in this budget category, and on the Note 12 the video maxes out at 1080p at 30 fps.
Why is it so cheap, I hear you yell. Well, to have such impressive camera specs at this price point you have to make a compromise somewhere, and with the Note 12 VIP (and Note 12) that compromise is easy to see…
Infinix Note 12 VIP review: performance
…and that’s the processor. With a MediaTek Helio G96 processor, the Note 12 VIP is much less powerful and multitasking than all current Snapdragon processors as well as the MediaTek Dimensity processors like the 920 that powers the Zero Ultra. With a low Geekbench 5 multi-core score of 1875, the Note 12 VIP stands out here as the budget phone it is.
If you want to do serious creative work or gaming anywhere outside of casual app gaming, the Note 12 VIP will soon struggle, and I did notice that performance dropped noticeably when multiple apps were open at the same time, although I didn’t I’m having the same reboot loop issue as its brother, the Zero Ultra, perhaps because I didn’t load as many apps onto this already-crammed phone as I did on the Zero Ultra.
However, if you’re just concerned about the camera then this shouldn’t bother you too much as it works very well on that front as sharing with nearby devices or cloud accounts (to reduce the load on local storage) works effortlessly.
Infinix Note 12 VIP review: price
The Note 12 VIP is available in the UK for under £250 (import must be declared as it is not currently sold by high street retailers here) and the Note 12 is available for under £170. Yes, it has budget-priced innards, but it’s neatly designed and a camera that well beats this price point.
Should you buy the Infinix Note 12 VIP?
If you’re looking for a super cheap phone primarily for its camera specs, the Infinix Note 12 VIP should definitely be on your shortlist. There are a few caveats, however. One of them is that the processor is very weak. So if your ambitions extend beyond an Insta machine with an admittedly very good camera, you might soon find yourself frustrated (as you probably would with most phones in this price range). Another reason is that at the time of writing it is not currently stocked or supported by any UK retail store and is therefore only available as an import. General phone shops may be able to help with problems, but unfortunately we cannot guarantee this.
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