Infinix Zero ULTRA Review; What’s in an ‘ULTRA’ Smartphone?

I have been using the new Infinix Zero ULTRA for a few days now. In this review we will dive in to the things you want to know before spending your money on this device. If by the end of watching the video above, you still have questions, feel free to leave a comment asking whatever it may be you want to know.

In this day and age, whenever a phone has the name ULTRA, it must be a top of the line device, with specifications that should blow your mind. Does the new Infinix Zero ULTRA offer that? Let’s find out. 

Unboxing:

Something I will keep mentioning whenever I am unboxing devices is this: It’s great to see companies giving you all the things you need in the box. 

This unnecessary taking away of necessary accessories in the name of saving the planet is annoying. Especially when you later on have to buy the same accessories – meaning they have to be packaged and shipped differently. 

Infinix is offering you all the necessary accessories in the box. That includes a type-C to headphone jack adapter since they didn’t include a 3.5mm jack on the device. With the thinness of the device, I think it was a reasonable decision to do away with a headphone jack. 

Ultra Specifications:

Infinix has actually launched two new ZERO devices: The Zero ULTRA and the Zero 20 which continues after the ZERO X Series. 

I think Infinix looked at the specs of the new device and decided the huge numbers qualify it as an ULTRA phone. Their first ULTRA device. 

It comes with a ridiculous 200MP camera which as we will see later on is pretty impressive.  It also supports 180W fast charging – which we will also see later on as being out of this world. 

The phone is powered by the Dimensity 920 5G chipset which we will also dive a little more on when talking about performance. You get 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage as standard. And, you can expand RAM thanks to virutalisation. 

The 6.8 inch display supports 120Hz refresh rates and is very nicely curved to the sides, giving the device this premium look we’ve seen many Android devices adopt. If you’re concerned about accidental touches thanks to the curved display, worry not as I’ve not yet encountered any serious issues. 

The phone is made of glass both at the front and at the back. The frame is metallic, and we are guessing it’s aluminium thanks to the device being very very light on the hand despite its 4500mAh battery. 

Thanks to the display being AMOLED, there’s optical sensors underneath it powering the fingerprint scanner. It’s a pretty fast and accurate scanner and I’ve had no issues with it. 

You get all that at a price of KES 68,499

People’s reactions to the Infinix Zero ULTRA:

I’ve been showing people the new Zero ULTRA to try and register their reactions so as to help with my review. I’ve been amazed with many of the reactions I’ve received. 

For example, there being no huge branding on the white device I have, many have been shocked when I tell them it’s an Infinix phone. I’ve had to prove that to some by showing the tiny Infinix branding on the top of the device. 

I think that speaks to just how different this phone feels and looks in real life. If you can find an Infinix shop near you, i think you should go check out the phone. 

On TikTok, I shared a small clip talking about the phone, and I believe you will find that comment section pretty interesting. Link in description. 

Now let’s discuss the things you badly want to know about the Zero Ultra. 

Cameras: 

200MP main camera:

Mentioning to anyone that this device has a 200MP camera is something I’ve enjoyed doing in the past few weeks. Immediately you say that someone wants to see the sort of photos the phone takes. 

Well, the video above shows you both day and night photos I took with the device. Let me know what you think.

Pixel Binning:

You don’t always take 200MP photos by default. The phone, like every other smartphone with huge Megapixel lenses does something called pixel binning. You can however choose to take 200MP pictures. And they take a little longer to process.

Once you’ve taken a 200MP photo, you’ll see that you’re actually able to tell the difference between a normal photo and the one taken in 200MP mode. The 200MP photos have more detail when you zoom in, and they are also very big files. 

While a normal photo may be 5MB in size, a 200MP photo can be over 60MB in size.

32MP selfie:

Selfies are detailed and clear and bright, and the processing is good enough with skin tones in different lighting scenarios. In the video you will be able to see selfie samples too.

Something a little off with the selfie camera is this: despite being a 32MP lens, you can only shoot 1080p videos at a maximum of 60 frames per second. There’s no 4K option.

I think it would have been great to see that especially for people who create content with their phones.

Camera Modes 

There are multiple camera modes including a Film mode which helps you capture different scenes thanks to preset looks. You can do timelapse videos, AR Shots and slowmo videos at either 120fps, 240fps or a crazy 960fps. 

Videography: 

Something that’s still a challenge for the phone is videography. To be fair, this is still a challenge for even the best of Android smartphones. Though there’s Optical Image Stabilisation, you will still find that footage can appear shaky when walking. The processing is also a little off sometimes and contrast isn’t always accurate.

Check out the included sample footage in the video above.  

Fast charging: 

The 180W fast charger included in the box is the best thing ever. Especially for someone like me whose devices all use USB type-C. 

This year, Infinix has checked all the boxes with their new charger and cable. First of all the cable included is Type-C to Type-C. That’s different from many other manufacturers – OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo, TECNO and more – who always have a Type-A to Type-C cable. 

Secondly, most other manufacturers have their own fast charging standards. Which mean whenever you use their cable on a different device, it doesn’t fast charge the other device. Well, Infinix has adopted I guess every other standard. 

The charger will fast charge the Infinix Zero ULTRA in just above 14mins from 0 to 100%. Not once did the device get hot. 

And, it will fast charge almost every other device up to that device’s supported fast charging rate. For example, it fast charges my M1 Macbook Pro at the same rate – I believe – Apple’s charger does. It fast charges my Galaxy Fold 4 too, and my Xiaomi 11T. And literally every other device I have in the house, be it an OPPO or a TECNO phone. 

I love this charger, and I hope to see it being sold separately. 

Performance:

I normally don’t go all in on performance of devices in my reviews. This is because I don’t do much with my devices apart from social media, and reading. I don’t play phone games. Which means, I find most of the recent processors – even those on 20k phones – to be good enough. 

However, the TikTok video I already mentioned had some weird comments which forced me to do some benchmark tests. 

As you can see in the embedded video under the performance section, I have included Geekbench and 3D Mark Benchmark results. I think the phone is quite okay in performance.

Also, I must say I noticed the phone to be very smooth in my use in a few aspects: 

• First, the display’s refresh rate makes it very sweet to scroll on 
• Secondly, app installs are very fast. Normally when installing an app, with certain devices you have to wait a bit. Here once an app is done downloading, installs take literally no time. 

The 8GB of RAM and the 256GB of fast UFS Storage has proven to be adequate. Thanks to RAM Virtualization – called MEMFusion over here – you can expand RAM by up to 5GB of internal storage to 13GB. It comes enabled to 3GB extra by default. 

Also, the phone never gets hot even when running benchmarks, using it on Android Auto, or just having many apps open. I’m impressed. 

Software:

Infinix has tweaked the look of XOS a little more once again. It looks way better than before, but is still bloated a lot. I wish their higher end devices weren’t full of apps I don’t need and features I haven’t asked for. 

Also, there are certain causes of concern with certain permanent apps having certain permissions that one cannot change. Check this out in the video where I show you apps like FOLAX and PHONE CLONER which have permissions you cannot disable while not being un-installable.

It’s weird because these aren’t apps you’ll be using, yet the can access contacts, cameras, and locations. I hope Infinix comes clear on that. 

I also hope they do a lot more in to assuring customers of regular system and security updates. 

Conclusion: 

It would be nice to know that when you get this phone Infinix will keep it up to date – on a monthly basis for up to 4 years. That would mean whatever value you’re giving into acquiring the phone will be stretched out to many many months. The hardware is pretty capable. 

It would also be really nice to see official IP water and dust ratings. 

What are your thoughts on the Infinix Zero Ultra? Would you get it? Why?