Infinix NOTE 50 Pro Review - Affordable CODM Gaming Powerhouse
After two weeks of using the Infinix NOTE 50 Pro as our daily driver, we share our full experience with the affordable gaming powerhouse.
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| Unique rear camera module |
To recap, the previous-generation Infinix NOTE 40 Pro launched in the early second half of 2024. It was praised for its 108MP rear main camera and 70W All-Round Fast Charging.
A year later, the new Infinix NOTE 50 Pro was introduced. It has a 144Hz AMOLED screen, a MediaTek Helio G100 Ultimate SoC, an LPDDR4X RAM, a UFS 2.2 storage, and a 5,200mAh battery with 90W All-Round Fast charging via USB-C and 30W fast wireless charging.
For our review part 1: Infinix NOTE 50 Pro Unboxing, First Impressions, Camera Samples - The CODM gaming phone for the masses?
In our first impressions, we praised its metal frame and ultra-resilient design while adding innovations such as the AI Bio-Active Hali mini-LED notification lights.
In the Philippines, it is priced at only PHP 11,999 SRP for the 12GB/256GB model.
Note that Infinix even has an early bird price, making the phone start at just PHP 9,999 on Shopee.
Let's dive into the review!
Multimedia Experience
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| Infinix NOTE 50 Pro's display |
In front is a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with a 2436 x 1080 resolution, a 60Hz/120Hz/144Hz refresh rate, a 2,160Hz PWM Dimming, and a 180Hz touch sampling rate. It is Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protected.
Smooth 144Hz AMOLED screen for less
The panel is decently bright, at 550 nits typical and 1,300 nits peak brightness. This means it's readable under direct sunlight. The colours pop, while the text and fine details are crisp.
It supports 10 multi-touch points, making it good for multitasking or games that support multiple simultaneous touch inputs. It responds quickly and accurately to our taps and gestures.
It also comes with the Wet and Greasy Touch feature, which allows the phone to accurately detect taps and gestures even when the user's fingers are greasy or wet.
The bezels around the panel area are thin however, the chin bezel is noticeably thicker. On the top bezel is the super slim earpiece, while below it is the punch hole that houses the selfie camera.
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| Top and bottom |
The phone is equipped with JBL Tuned stereo speakers (top and bottom firing) for audio. It supports Hi-Res and DTS. Around the phone are microphones used for noise cancellation in calls and audio recording.
One of the better speakers for the price
The sound from the speakers has a decent maximum volume. It maintains good sound quality until 85 percent. Distortion is apparent from 85 percent until its maximum.
The microphones do a good job of picking up sounds from a meter away, while the noise-cancellation for calls is good too.
Cameras
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| Rear cameras |
The back is the rear camera made up of a 50MP f/1.8 main camera with OIS and an 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide angle camera with an LED flash.
The stock camera app comes with modes such as AI CAM, Portrait, Video, Vlog, Street Snap, Slow Motion, Time-Lapse, Sky Shop, Panorama, Super Macro, Documents, Wide Selfie, Super Night, Timelapse, Dual Video, and AIGC Portrait.
Users can transition between the 0.6x, 1x, or 2x zooms.
The Pro controls include EV (+-2), ISO (100-6400), Shutter speed (1/8,000-30 secs), Focus, and White Balance.
Added features include Aspect Ratio, Timer, Action Mode, Interval Shooting, and Live Photo.
The Portrait mode can use the 1x and 2x camera, and it comes with bokeh strength control and Retouching.
Rear Camera Samples
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| Rear camera daylight 1x |
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| Rear camera daylight 2x |
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| Rear camera daylight ultra-wide |
The images from the ultra-wide, 1x, and 2x are decent. The images pop with color, with just enough detail.
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| Infinix NOTE 50 Pro's close-up shot |
With close-up images, the areas that are in focus are sharp while the out-of-focus areas have a nice fall-off. The color and contrast are good, too.
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| Rear camera indoors 1x |
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| Rear camera indoors 2x |
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| Rear camera indoors ultra-wide |
Indoors, we shot partly against the light with the windows. What impressed us is the dynamic range of all images, as the image is well exposed across the images. The color and contrast are good, too. Like the daylight images, the sharpness, detail, and color are just good enough.
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| Rear camera lowlight 1x |
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| Rear camera lowlight 2x |
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| Rear camera lowlight ultra-wide |
For low light, the images are surprisingly better than expected. No need for Night mode. The best image is from the 1x and 2x. The ultra-wide camera's image was easier to overexpose, the colors were somewhat okay, and the detail was somewhat retained.
You know its good when the Night Mode is only used sparingly.
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| Rear camera portrait 1x and 2x |
For portraits, the NOTE 50 Pro allows users to choose between 1x and 2x while having the ability to apply filters and artificial bokeh. The bokeh itself looks artificial, and the edge detection needs improvement.
Overall, the rear camera produced consistently decent images from a smartphone at this price point.
The 1x and 2x offered the best image quality, while the ultra-wide was slightly softer and overexposed more easily than the other cameras.
After taking any photo, the phone applies AI edits to photos, and it takes around 5 seconds before the final results turn out.
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| Infinix NOTE 50 Pro's selfie camera |
The 50MP f/2.0 selfie camera on the punch hole on the display.
Camera modes include Photo, Video, Portrait, Panorama, Night mode, and Dual View.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie daylight |
Daylight selfies from the Infinix NOTE 50 Pro are even better. The colors, sharpness, and contrast are good. Competitive with similarly priced smartphones.
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| Low-light selfie |
In low light, the selfie looks good even though some grain was introduced. Images are softer than in daylight with noticeable loss of contrast. Light sources overexpose easily as well.
Overall, the front cameras produce decent daylight selfies while producing softer images in low light.
The rear and front cameras can record up to 2K at 30fps. The footage is decently sharp and vibrant, but is shaky with noticeable grain and minor artefacts. The rear and front camera video capability of the NOTE 50 Pro is good enough for the price.
Performance
.png "AnTuTu and GeekBench scores") |
| AnTuTu and GeekBench scores |
Inside the Infinix NOTE 50 Pro are the 6nm MediaTek Helio G100 octa-core processor, Mali-G57 GPU, 12GB LPDDR4X RAM, and 256GB UFS 2.2 storage.
One of the better performing phones for the price
During the AnTuTu test, the phone's temperature increased by 2.2 degrees while the battery lost 4 percent power. This is an efficient result and deserves praise. It scored 440,191 in total in AnTuTu, and it scored 731 and 2,008 in GeekBench single-core and multi-core tests.
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| GeekBench AI and CPDT |
In GeekBench AI, it scored 1,752 in single precision, 1,733 in half-precision, and 2,435 in the quantized score. The internal storage got 658.19 MB/s in sequential read speeds and 725.36 MB/s in sequential read speeds.
Infinix NOTE 50 Pro benchmarks:
- AnTuTu - 440,191
- Geekbench 6 - 731 (single-core), 2,008 (multi-core)
- GeekBench AI - 475 single precision, 480 half-precision, 961 quantised score
- CPDT - 506.85 MB/s sequential read speeds and 353.77 MB/s sequential read speeds
The Infinix NOTE 50 Pro scores in AnTuTu and Geekbench are within the range of what is expected in its price range. However, there are better-performing smartphones with a similar price point.
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| Infinix NOTE 50 Pro's Genshin Impact Graphics settings |
In Genshin Impact, it managed to unlock the Lowest graphics settings as the default. This is expected at this price point. Gameplay-wise, it is playable at 30fps, but it will stutter when there is a lot of activity on screen, such as multiple characters and animations. The phone steadily increased in temperature, and it remained warm. But it never got alarmingly hot after nearly an hour of gameplay.
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| Call of Duty: Mobile Graphics Settings |
Call of Duty: Mobile is where the NOTE 50 Pro shines. It initially unlocked medium graphics and medium frame rate; however, the frame rate can be pushed to high. When pushed, the phone gets warmer than when only in medium frame rate, but the temperature was steady. It never pushed the phone to super hot temperatures. We managed to get an hour of gameplay with CODM on medium graphics and high frame rate.
Call of Duty: Mobile is where the NOTE 50 Pro shines.
When you launch a game, the OS's X-Boost starts up, and it is the brand's self-developed gaming engine that supposedly boosts performance and optimizes the resource allocation for games and applications.
@gizguideph #InfinixNOTE50Pro ♬ original sound - gizguideph
In our experience, the phone can handle the majority of tasks like navigating through the OS, opening apps, web surfing, and social media without struggling.
The phone has an optical In-Display fingerprint sensor and face unlock for security. The initial setup and subsequent uses are quick, and it detects our biometrics instantaneously. It works even if your finger is a little sweaty.
The face unlock only struggles when the camera is dirty. The screen brightens up when used in the dark.
Regarding connectivity, we have the following: WiFi, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, OTG, GPS, and dual nano SIM. Sadly, there is no 5G.
Connections are usually stable for WiFi, and we get 4 to 5 bars of mobile data signal most of the time.
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| 90W ALL-Round fast charging and PCMark Battery Benchmark |
Inside the phone is a large 5,200 mAh battery. It lasted for 10 hours and 1 minute on our usual PCMark Battery benchmark. In daily use, we would end the day with 25 percent battery after just under 6 hours of on-screen time, even when constantly connected to 4G, WiFi, and Bluetooth devices.
Fastest charging speed for the price
The battery charges via USB-C with the 90W wall charger, which charges the phone from 20 percent to 100 percent in around 50 minutes. It also features 30W fast wireless charging that works even when wearing the box-included case. It takes longer for the phone to charge wirelessly, but it is more convenient.
The battery supports reverse wired charging of 10W, too. You have to use a compatible cable, though.
Lastly, Infinix is claiming that the battery inside the phone will last users 6 years.
It is running on XOS 15 based on Android 15. It comes with builds on the previous generations' visuals and features by polishing them while offering new Android 15 features and design philosophy.
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| Infinix XOS |
Other features of the phone include the new One-Tap Infinix AI (Folax), which the brand claims simplifies daily lives with AI-powered features such as AI Eraser, AI Studio, AI Wallpaper, AIGC Sketch-to-Image, and more.
Folax is integrated with Deep-Seek R1 and performs surprisingly better than expected, given the price point of the phone.
AI Studio is integrated into the stock Infinix Photo app, where users can select the icon at the bottom of each photo. Once tapped, the user is given the option to either use AI Eraser or the usual Photo editing suite found in most Android Phones. When we used the feature, like other AI that takes advantage of the cloud, it takes a sizeable amount of time, and the results are either a hit or a miss.
Pros - Eye-catching, slim, and resilient design, premium build materials, IP64, power-efficient performance in gaming, fast 90W charging, fast 30W wireless charging, JBL stereo speakers, 144Hz AMOLED screen, 50MP main camera takes good pictures, Folax AI is useful
Cons - Ultra-wide camera images could be improved, no 5G, AI Erase needs improvement
Infinix NOTE 50 Pro Specs
Display: 6.78-inch AMOLED screen w/ 144Hz refresh rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming, FHD+ 2436 x 1080 resolution at 393 ppi
CPU: 2.2GHz 6nm MediaTek Helio G100 Ultimate octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G57 MC2
RAM: 12GB LPDDR4X
ROM: 256GB UFS 2.2
Back Camera: 50MP f/1.9 w/ OIS + 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide macro + Flicker sensor + LED flash Selfie: 32MP f/2.2 + Dual Flash
Battery: 5,200mAh w/ 90W All-Round FastCharge3.0, 30W Wireless MagCharge
OS: Android 15 w/ XOS 15
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (5GHz/2.4GHz), UPS tech, 4G LTE, Bluetooth, FM Radio, NFC, GPS, dual SIM
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: In-Display fingerprint sensor, face unlock, IP64 dust resistance and water splash resistance, IR Blaster, JBL stereo speakers, Hi-Res Audio, X-axis linear motor, Stainless Steel VC Cooling System, USB-C, Colors: Titanium Grey, Enchanted Purple, Racing Edition, Shadow Black
Dimensions: 163.3 x 74.4 x 7.3 mm
Weight: 198 g
Price: PHP 11,999
Verdict
We enjoyed our time with the NOTE 50 Pro. It isn't perfect, but it offers specs and features that you mostly find in significantly pricier phones.
The first is the slim and resilient design, while using a metal frame. This means the phone looks good while being durable. It is even rated for IP64 dust and water resistance.
It has a flat 144Hz AMOLED screen that is bright and vibrant that displaying crisp details and texts. It also has JBL-tuned Stereo speakers.
The MediaTek Helio G100 Ultimate with the 12GB LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 manages to perform competitively against similarly priced smartphones.
Its cameras consistently capture decent images with just the right amount of sharpness, detail, and vibrancy. What impressed us was the main camera's images in low light. The ultra-wide camera was somewhat softer and performed slightly worse in low light as well.
It also has a 5,200mAh battery that charges fast with its 90W All-Round wall charger and wirelessly at up to 30W.
Which other phone offers wireless charging at this price point?
Overall, we recommend the Infinix NOTE 50 Pro for those looking for a good-performing phone for under PHP 13K (PHP 11,999 SRP, PHP 9,999 Shopee intro price) that not only looks good, but also performs well in the majority of metrics, including durability.
By the way, those who will purchase this device will enjoy exclusive freebies and a FREE 1-year Viu Premium subscription until supplies last.
They also have the Infinix NOTE 50 8GB/256GB priced at PHP 8,999 with a PHP 7,699 early bird Shopee price and the top-end Infinix NOTE 50 Pro+ 5G priced at PHP 17,999 with a PHP 15,999 Shopee intro price.
What do you think, guys?
Build/Design - 4.25
Multimedia Experience - 4.25
Cameras - 4
Performance - 4
Average - 4.125/5
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