Infinix Note 40 5G review: hard to ignore

The last two mid-range phones from Infinix that I reviewed – the Zero 30 5G (review) and GT 10 Pro (review) – left a good impression on me. I even got to use the GT 20 Pro (review) for some time and the handset seemed to have a lot going for it. This is why I was keen to get my hands on the Note 40 5G and see if it comes with the same ethos that makes the brand’s other recent handsets compelling buys or not. Priced at Rs 18,999 (Rs 17,499 with bank discounts), the Note 40 5G is the most affordable handset you can buy right now that supports wireless charging. While this USP alone makes it worth checking out this phone, there is much more to it. Having spent more than two weeks with the phone, I can now share with you whether you should consider buying the Note 40 5G or opt for another phone in this price range. Without further ado, let’s get into the detailed review.

Verdict

While the Infinix Note 40 5G offers decent performance on most fronts, the key selling point of this phone is that it supports wireless charging. No other phone in its price range can boast of this feature. The phone offers a comprehensive set of features and a clean UI on the software front but performance-wise, it faces stiff competition in its price range.

Design and display

Although design has been a strong point for some of the Infinix phones in the last year, the Note 40 5G feels a bit underwhelming in this department. The handset features a matte finish at the back and a glossy finish on the sides. This means that while the phone doesn’t collect fingerprints through its back panel, the sides of the phone act as a magnet for these. Infinix has gone ahead with a very minimalistic design here and apart from the camera setup, nothing sticks out (pun intended). The rectangular protruding camera setup comes with three sensors and an ‘Active Halo’ circular light with an LED right around it. Infinix says that this is “first-in-segment AI lighting” and that “it effortlessly sparks up engaging conversations and brightens up various scenes with mesmerizing light effects.”

The lighting effects can be used for different scenarios – incoming calls, notifications, charging, games, music, startup, and voice assistant. You get three settings for the lighting effect – Lively, Rhythmic, and AI. In the AI setting, the colours in the backlight change dynamically, according to the scenario. In all three of these effects, you can choose to either have a primary solid colour or a mix of colours.

Although the phone has a blocky design and features a massive display (one of the largest in its price range), the handset doesn’t feel unwieldy. Power and volume buttons are located on the right spine of the Note 40 and are easily accessible with the thumb. The USB Type-C charging port is present at the bottom of the phone but there is no 3.5mm headphone jack here.

You get an FHD+ AMOLED panel here with a maximum refresh rate up to 120Hz and a peak brightness of up to 1300 nits. These specifications translate well to real-life usage too as the phone holds up well under direct sunlight and provides you with butter-smooth animations. The AMOLED panel offers an impressive contrast ratio that provides a good viewing experience, irrespective of the content you’re watching.

I enjoyed watching TV shows on Netflix on this handset and the bottom-firing speaker also did a reasonably good job whenever I didn’t want to connect my Bluetooth earphones to the phone.

Cameras

Infinix Note 40 5G comes with a 108MP primary camera with f/1.9 aperture, a sensor size of 1/1.52″, and PDAF support. The primary sensor is assisted by a 2MP shooter with f/2.4 aperture and a tertiary camera. The primary camera does the heavy lifting here as the secondary and tertiary cameras essentially provide the primary shooter with the depth information for enhanced portrait shots.

In my review, I tested the phone’s camera performance against the CMF Phone 1 (review) and Nord CE4 Lite (review).

Daylight

Have a look at the daylight comparison between the Infinix Note 40 and the CMF Phone 1 below.

Infinix Note 40 Daylight

CMF Phone 1 Daylight

Now check out the daylight shot comparison between the Note 40 and the Nord CE4 Lite.

Infinix Note 40 Daylight

OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite Daylight

In the daylight shots, as you can see above, the Infinix Note 40 boosted the colours a bit, which will make it ideal for those of you who want your pictures to look vibrant on social media. On the other hand, the CMF Phone 1 produced pictures that seemed a bit washed out. However, the Nord CE4 Lite combined the best of both these phones and offered more natural colours but preserved details really well too.

Let’s move to the Portrait shots now. First, we have the Note 40 vs the CMF Phone 1.

Infinix Note 40 Portrait

CMF Phone 1 Portrait

Now, let’s look at the comparison between the Note 40 and the Nord CE4 Lite.

Infinix Note 40 Portrait

OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite

In the portrait shots, the Nord CE4 Lite came out as the clear winner, followed by the Infinix Note 40. CMF Phone 1 simply didn’t provide the kind of details the other phones captured.

Moving on to the night shots. Again, we will first compare the Note 40 and the CMF Phone 1.

Infinix Note 40 Night Shot

CMF Phone 1 Night Shot

Now, have a look at the comparison between the Note 40 and the Nord CE4 Lite.

Infinix Note 40 Night Shot

OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite Night Shot

In the night shots, surprisingly there was close competition between the Infinix Note 40 and the CMF Phone 1 as the Nord CE4 Lite produced blurry and grainy shots. Overall, the Note 40 offered better details and even handled light sources well in night shots for me.

Next up, we have the selfie comparison. First, we have the Note 40 vs CMF Phone 1.

Infinix Note 40 Selfie

CMF Phone 1 Selfie

And now, let’s look at the Note 40 vs Nord CE4 Lite comparison.

Infinix Note 40 Selfie

OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite Selfie

With the 32MP selfie camera, the Infinix handset does take some decent shots, especially in terms of capturing skin tone. In comparison, the Nord CE4 Lite boosts the skin tones to make them more vibrant. On the other hand, the CMF Phone 1 falls somewhere between these two. The Infinix handset, however, struggles with lighting though. In this department, the Nord handset comes out ahead.

Performance and Software

Although the Infinix Note 40 5G comes with a capable chipset in the form of MediaTek Dimensity 7020, there is stiff competition in this price range. Before we get into the comparison, let’s discuss what you get here.

The Note 40 5G offers you up to 8GB of LPDDR4 RAM (16GB with MemFusion on the 8GB RAM variant and 24GB on the 12GB RAM variant) and UFS 2.2 storage. With the extended RAM, the phone is able to offer faster app launch speeds and can keep up to 25 apps running in the background (effectively reducing force closes). With the X-BOOST frame control feature, the brand says that the Note 40 5G can deliver consistently high frame rates in some of the most popular online games, particularly in the MOBA and FPS genres. In my experience, the gameplay was smooth and I didn’t face any stutter or lag issues while playing games such as Battlegrounds Mobile India. It is important to note, however, that in Call of Duty: Mobile, the phone managed to run the game at High graphics settings, compared to the ‘Very High’ graphics settings supported by CMF Phone 1. On the Nord CE4 Lite, the game could only run at High graphics settings.

As you can see, the CMF Phone 1 outperformed the Infinix Note 40 (table above), however, the Nord CE4 Lite registered lower scores than the Note 40 on both Geekbench and AnTuTu benchmark tests.

Interestingly, in the Burnout test, which shows how the handset performs under strenuous load, the Infinix phone trumped both CMF Phone 1 and the Nord CE4 Lite. In this benchmark test, the phone was able to offer 71.3 percent of its peak performance under heavy load. In comparison, the CMF Phone 1 offered 58.2 percent and the Nord CE4 Lite offered just 55.4 percent of its peak performance under a similar situation.

This goes to show that the Note 40 can tackle demanding tasks without compromising on its performance. It goes in line with my usage too. As I shared earlier, in regular usage, the Infinix handset performs well and doesn’t present any major issues while gaming or multitasking.

Coming to the software experience, the Note 40 5G boots Android 14-based XOS v14.0 out of the box and comes with just a handful of pre-loaded apps. Most of these can be uninstalled too. So the overall experience does feel really clean.

The handset features most of the apps and features that you expect from Infinix phones by now – MemFusion (increases RAM), XClone (dual accounts for apps), Floating Windows, Smart Hub, Folax, and more. These are all convenient features to have and over time, you’ll find yourself coming back to use these features. This is always a good sign as in many other phones, some of the features just feel like gimmicks.

The dynamic bar feature shows notifications around the selfie camera cutout but this feature is more for the aesthetics than anything else. Talking about the more useful features, The handset also comes with ‘Note AI’, a group of AI features that help you with content creation, content summarisation, natural language image search and more. In my usage, I found these features to work well and the added convenience does make its presence felt.

The brand is offering 2 years of OS upgrades and 3 years of security updates with this phone. However, this is the same issue that plagues the CMF Phone 1, Nord CE4 Lite, and almost all other phones in this price range. It’d be good to have at least 3 years of OS upgrades and 4 years of security updates as a standard for this price range.

Battery and charging

Infinix Note 40 comes with a 5,000mAh battery and supports 33W fast charging. In regular usage, the phone will easily last you a day of usage but will need charging at the end of it. In the PCMark battery test, the phone lasted 10 hours and 3 minutes for us. This is short of the battery life offered by CMF Phone 1 and the Nord CE4 Lite in this test. These handsets registered timings of 15 hours and 11 minutes, and 11 hours and 32 minutes, respectively in the same benchmark test.

With a standard charging speed, the phone charges in over an hour. It is pretty much in line with the competition in this price range. However, the standout feature is of course wireless charging support. The Note 40 5G holds the distinction of being the most affordable handset in the market to support wireless charging right now. This is indeed a convenient feature to have and 15W Wireless MagCharge never feels slow either. While the brand initially offered a wireless charger bundled with the phone, it can be bought separately for Rs 1,999.

Final Verdict

Infinix Note 40 5G comes with a good display, offers decent performance, and acts as an all-rounder. As we mentioned above, the CMF Phone 1 offers a compelling package in this price range too, but the Infinix phone offers a better camera performance. While the OnePlus Nord CE4 Lite offers a better camera performance and faster charging, it doesn’t match up to the Infinix handset in general performance. If you have your priorities set in mind, you can easily take your pick out of the three. As one of the biggest feathers in its cap, the Inifinix Note 40 5G supports wireless charging, which comes in handy and helps the phone stand out in its price segment. We earlier reviewed the Pro variant of the phone and it won’t be wrong to say that this phone offers a similar experience at a more affordable price point. 

Editor’s rating: 7.5 / 10

Reasons to buy

• The 120Hz AMOLED display is ideal for watching video content.
• This is the most affordable phone that supports wireless charging.
• Night shots are good for the price range.
• Offers consistent performance under load.

Reasons to not buy

• Powerful competition in the same price range.
• The camera performance could have been better.