Infinix Zero 5G review

XOS 10 on top of Android 11

Infinix has its own XOS Android skin, which has already gone through quite a few iterations over the years. So many, in fact that it is a bit hard to keep track of. Our Infinix Note 10 Pro unit originally arrived running XOS 7.6, whereas the Note 11 Pro came with XOS 8 and got updated to XOS 10.

The Zero X Pro came with the same XOS 10 out of the box, and so did the Zero 5G. Yet all these XOS versions are based on Android 11. There's no word on a potential update to Android 12 yet either.

XOS 10 is chuck-full of features and options. Perhaps even overwhelmingly so.

The bloatware is abundant Infinix has included quite a few of its own apps, as well as third-party ones, oftentimes with overlapping feature sets.

A large number of pre-loaded apps

The important thing to note is that XOS 10 works smoothly, with no hiccups or stutters despite the influx of apps. So Infinix has done its job pretty well on that front.

Customization run deep. Starting from the lock screen, you get an optional Magazine service. Beyond that, the clock screen is also affected by the powerful Theme support, which includes things like video slide shows, custom fonts, as well as an online Theme repository in the shape of a separate XTheme app.

Lock screen • Magazine service • Extensive themes support

The home screen includes a custom feed as the leftmost desktop pane, as well as big folders to organize and categorize your shortcuts by default.

Home screen and folders

Of course, if this is not to your liking, you can revert back to just having a list of shortcuts on the home screens, sans folders. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to customization. You can tweak things like grid size, gestures, notification badges. You can even switch to a vertical rather than horizontal scrolling for the homescreen and change the text color.

Launcher options and customization

XOS 10 is more visually polished overall, with rebound effects and a refreshed look and feel. While not new with XOS 10, it is worth noting that the notification shade and control center are separated out into two separate entities. Notifications are called up with a swipe down from the top left of the phone, while a top-right swipe reveals quick toggles and other controls.

Notifications and quick toggles

We won't be going through every feature and app available in XOS 10, but there are some noteworthy highlights. There is actually a dedicated Special function menu that houses many of these.

Special functions menu

Lightning Multi-Window has a self-explanatory title. It is a floating window implementation. Far from the best we've seen, but still functional.

Lightning Multi-Window

The same goes for Smart Panel. It's among the more customizable implementations of this feature that we have seen.

Smart Panel

Social Turbo houses a whole slew of powerful features meant to work on top of WhatsApp and enhance its factory experience.

Social Turbo features to enhance WhatsApp

MOL is a rather powerful translation engine that works system-wide and can even function offline. Not only can you use it to translate text, but it also features a Face-to-face translator component, which can be used to have an in-person conversation with a foreign speaker. Nothing that's not available as a third-party app, but still quite convenient to just have baked-in.

MOL translator

Naturally, you get other things like extensive gestures, app cloning, known as XClone, as well as some gimmicks like Peek Proof, which "hides" parts of the screen for whatever reason.

Gestures • XClone • Peak Proof

You get in-depth control over battery endurance and power-saving too through the Power Marathon app, including some interesting "smart" AI features.

Power Marathon

Speaking of AI features, XOS 10 has a whole menu of these as one of the highlights of the new version 10 update. AI Assistant can monitor for a number of triggers, gather all sorts of usage data, and then send out notifications and suggest actions accordingly. Definitely worth checking out.

Smart Scenes and Smart Accelerator

Another highlighted XOS 10 feature, or rather set of features, called Monster Game Kit has to do with game optimization. Infinix has a baked-in Dar-Link 2.0 software, which promises AI-driven optimization of games, including frame rate stability, decreasing touch latency and managing hardware performance and temperature. There is a system-wide Game Mode toggle, as well as a Game Mode setting menu to tweak most of the behavior.

Game Mode

The XArena app is your standard game launcher, complete with various tweaks, like notification suppression. Once you add an app to XArena and start it from there, you also get an in-game toolbar with plenty of convenient shortcuts, including floating app support.

XArena and in-game toolbar

Again, this is far from the most cohesive or feature-complete gaming suite we have seen. An fps counter, finer performance controls and some capture/streaming options are notable omissions. Still XOS 10 goes far and beyond most of its Android UI rivals in this department.

In fact, there is no denying that Infinix clearly has an ambitious software effort, bordering on a whole dedicated ecosystem of its own. In case you need any proof of that, consider the Folax voice assistant, which appears to be a totally unique Infinix entry into the niche. A fairly-capable one at that, which doesn't even require a network connection to function.

Folax voice assistant

And then there are also apps like InSync and Welife, which are meant to manage IoT ecosystems. The first appears to be a first-party Infinix one, with support for a range of Infinix smart TVs and an Infinix laptop.

IoT apps and ecosystems

Circling back to our original point about XOS 10, there is truly a lot to cover here, and we barely scratched the surface. If we had to sum up the experience, we would say it is fluent and pleasant from a performance standpoint, but quite chaotic. XOS is still in desperate need of some debloating and organization. Thankfully, for the most part, you can do that yourself with a bit of time and tweaking, and the end result could be a solid Android 11 experience.

Performance and benchmarks

Performance is sort of the main focal point for the Infinix Zero 5G. That and connectivity, but both come courtesy of the upgrade to the MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset. Like we said previously, Infinix phones, even the flagship Zero X Pro, stuck to lower-end MediaTek G series chips, so this is new best by the manufacturer.

The Dimensity 900 has two Cortex-A78 big cores, clocked at up to 2.4GHz, which is markedly better than the pair of Cortex-A76 ones running at 2.05GHz inside the MediaTek Dimensity G96 or G95. Alongside those are six Cortex-A55 units, working at up to 2.0GHz. The GPU inside the Dimensity is also a nice step up from G-series chips - a four-core Mali-G68. All of this inside a modern and efficient 6nm package, compared to the 12nm manufacturing process on G96 and G95 chips.

On top of all that, the Infinix Zero 5G pairs its Dimensity 900 chipset with 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. These details matter at the end of the day, particularly for system responsiveness.

Infinix is marketing an advanced cooling system for the Zero 5G. In particular, something it calls "Heat Pipe Thermal Module 2.0 & 3-D Cooling Master". The latter likely being a thermal management solution rather than hardware. In practice the Zero 5G doesn't really heat up to the touch even with aggressive and prolonged loads.

Let's kick things off with some pure-CPU loads and GeekBench. First off, while the Dimensity 900 is still not a particularly popular chipset, we do have at least one point for comparison in the Oppo Reno6 5G. We are happy to see that the two devices score very closely across the board, which means that Infinix is making the most out of the chip and not leaving performance on the table.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  2909
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  2832
• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• Infinix Zero 5G
  2169
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  2131
• Realme 8i
  1886
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  1800
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1797
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  1796
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  1719
• Realme 8
  1690
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  1674
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1673
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  1644
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1599
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  1576
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  1372
• Xiaomi Redmi 10
  1294
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  889

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  803
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  787
• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  722
• Infinix Zero 5G
  706
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  597
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  560
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  560
• Realme 8i
  539
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  534
• Realme 8
  533
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  520
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  510
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  506
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  505
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  502
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  376
• Xiaomi Redmi 10
  361
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  179

As expected, the Dimensity 900 is handily beating out its Helio G-series siblings, same goes for Dimensity 700 and 800 chips, as well as most older 700 series Snapdragon chips and definitely the Snapdragon 600 models. It comes shoer of the Snapdragon 778G and 780G chips, as well as the Snapdragon 860 in both single and multi-threaded workloads.

AnTuTu paints a similar picture for overall performance. Since it is a more well-rounded benchmark, it also includes graphics tests and considers memory and storage performance.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Poco F3
  631850
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  465534
• Poco X3 Pro
  453223
• Infinix Zero 5G
  419083
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  362450
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  313652
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  310342
• Realme 8
  298328
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  296721
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442
• Realme 8i
  293507
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  290797
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  290172
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  242155
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  226561
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  218788
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  185358
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  174332
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  103465

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  527663
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  522490
• Infinix Zero 5G
  487639
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  430765
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  365490
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  363939
• Realme 8
  357488
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  353663
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  343527
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
  330909
• Realme 8i
  308544
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  294251
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  223188
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  222125
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  165959
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  101299

The latter are actually quite important to illustrate the importance of the faster memory Infinix is using. You just need to look at the AnTuTu score of the Reno6 5G, which is also rocking the Dimensity 900 5G chipset, but is stuck with UFS 2.1 storage.

Moving on to graphics tests and GFXBench we see a similar picture for overall performance. The Dimensity 900 and its Mali-G78 MC4 beat out Helio G chips, like the G95 or G96.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  93
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  78
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  68
• Infinix Zero 5G
  57
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  49
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  48
• Realme 8
  48
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  42
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  40
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  37
• Realme 8i
  33
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  31
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  31
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  21
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  21
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  19

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  102
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  89
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  78
• Infinix Zero 5G
  64
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  54
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  54
• Realme 8
  53
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  45
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  40
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  37
• Realme 8i
  37
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  32
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  24
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  24
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  24
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  11

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  67
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  57
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  49
• Infinix Zero 5G
  35
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  30
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  29
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  29
• Realme 8
  29
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  28
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  23
• Realme 8i
  22
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  21
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  20
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  13

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  75
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  65
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  56
• Infinix Zero 5G
  43
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  34
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  33
• Realme 8
  33
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  26
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  24
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  24
• Realme 8i
  24
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  17
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  7.9

At the top of the chart we once again find the Snapdragon 778G, 780G and 860 with their respective Adreno GPUs. Mind you, you should be looking at off-screen performance to get comparable results not dependent on device resolution.

Things don't change much as the OpenGL ES test difficulty starts to ramp up either.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  35
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  28
• Infinix Zero 5G
  19
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  18
• Realme 8
  18
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  17
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  17
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  16
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  13
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  12
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  11
• Realme 8i
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  8.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  7.9
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  5.5

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  45
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  40
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  33
• Infinix Zero 5G
  25
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  20
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  20
• Realme 8
  20
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  19
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  19
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  16
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  14
• Realme 8i
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A03s
  3.5

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  26
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  19
• Infinix Zero 5G
  14
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  12
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  12
• Realme 8
  12
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  9.2
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  8.4
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  7.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  5

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  17
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  13
• Infinix Zero 5G
  10
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  7.7
• Realme 8
  7.7
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  7.6
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  5.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  3.7
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  3.3
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  3.3

The same is true when we switch over to Vulkan for our rendering, which is great to see.

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  27
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  20
• Infinix Zero 5G
  13
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  11
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  11
• Realme 8
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  9.4
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  7.8
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  7.3
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  4.4

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  18
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  14
• Infinix Zero 5G
  9.5
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  7.5
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  7.5
• Realme 8
  7.5
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  5.1
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  5.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  3.5
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  2.9
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  2.9

3DMark is even more generous towards the Infinix Zero 5G and its Dimensity 900 chipset. Particularly in OpenGL testing.

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  4979
• Infinix Zero 5G
  3845
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  3764
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  2778
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  2748
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2638
• Realme 8
  2610
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  2431
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  2391
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1471
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  1361
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1323

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  4608
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  3818
• Infinix Zero 5G
  3558
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  2860
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  2854
• Realme 8
  2639
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  2509
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  2257
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  2256
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  1383
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1372
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1371

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
  3136
• Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE
  2477
• Infinix Zero 5G
  2035
• Oppo Reno6 5G
  2024
• Infinix Zero X Pro
  1509
• Infinix Note 10 Pro
  1506
• Realme 8
  1486
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1232
• Samsung Galaxy A32 5G
  1185
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 4G
  1113
• Samsung Galaxy A22 5G
  1104
• Realme 8i
  1102
• Infinix Note 11 Pro
  1100
• Samsung Galaxy A22
  691
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  686
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  482

All things considered, the Infinix Zero 5G is a great all-around performer. It makes the most out of its MediaTek Dimensity 900 5G chipset in every aspect. The fast UFS 3.1 storage is an appreciated addition in an observable way too. XOS is not holding the Zero 5G back either. You get an excellent budget performer with a powerful and efficient chip with potent and modern connectivity to boot.