When Infinix launched the S series of devices a few years back, it was mainly focusing on the selfie camera and hence the S. This is still the case today but the company is not just focusing on the selfie camera as the back cameras have also seen improvements over the years.
The latest device in the S line up is the Infinix S5 that was launched in the country not so long ago. I have been using this phone for a while and I wanted to do a camera review to see how these cameras perform and if they are worth your money.
The Infinix S5 is available on Jumia starting from Ksh 14,000 and the price goes up depending on where you get the phone from. For this price, you expect some decent camera performance and features and this is what we will be looking for in this camera review.
32MP Selfie Camera
Since the front facing camera is the star of the show, let us start by looking at it. Here we are getting a 32MP one that sounds promising especially at this price. This is not the first phone with a 32MP camera but I was still curious to see what it has to offer.
The selfie camera is housed in the punch hole notch on the top left section of the phone. The ring around the camera lights up when you switch on to the selfie camera. Some of the features you should expect from the front facing camera include the AI Camera that is good for scene recognition, beauty mode, portrait mode, AR features and a widescreen mode. There is also HDR support, flash support as well as a few filters to add some character to your shots.
With this selfie camera, expect good photos most of the times but not all. The shots are quite good when the lighting is good too but they appear grainy when you try taking photos when the lighting is not good. This is not necessarily what I was expecting on a 32MP camera but it is what you are getting. You can still get high quality shots if you are always in well lit environments as you’d good colour reproduction and saturation. Most of the times you will not need to add any filters as the photos will be good from the start.
When in a well lit environment, the details captured by the selfie camera stand out compared to other competing devices or even its predecessor, the Infinix S4. You may even see the imperfections you have on your face but if that scares you, activate beauty mode to fix that. There are different beauty mode levels from unnoticeable skin smoothening to the slightly more refined level that will give you a very smooth face. If you are going to use beauty mode, I would suggest you go with the AI mode as it will choose the right level for you depending on your environment and lighting. This gives more desirable results in my opinion.
There is no front facing LED flash on this phone so for that, the display will light up to illuminate your face when taking selfies with not so good lighting.
Here are some samples.
For video recording, you can record Full HD (1080p) videos with the front facing camera and this is amazing to say the least. The quality of the video is good and way better that what we saw on the Infinix S4. If you are shooting videos or photos outdoors with so much light, the background is usually over exposed and this may lead to some not so pleasant shots.
Four Back Cameras
For the back cameras, we are getting a quad setup made up of a 16MP main sensor (wide), 5MP ultra-wide angle and macro lens, 2MP depth sensor and QVGA low light sensor.
The quality of shots you get with the back camera is average. Nothing out of the ordinary and nothing will wow you here. You get the same modes found on the selfie camera but an additional one added here is panorama mode. HDR is also supported so is full HD video recording.
The photos I got with this phone are good but the lighting has to be the best for that. If you take a lot of photos indoors or at night, the experience may not be that good. These cameras do struggle a bit in low light environments and you may end up with grainy photos.
I also noticed an issue with portrait mode on this phone. Even though it is good, it does cut of the edges a bit and looks as if it has been enhanced with the software. The phone has a dedicated portrait lens and I was expecting better results.
For most other shots outdoors, the results are good with great colour accuracy and saturation. No major cases of overexposure experienced.
Conclusion
I was looking forward to reviewing the cameras on the Infinix S5 but to be honest, I was not impressed. Yes, the selfie camera is good but for a camera-centric smartphone, I was expecting a much better experience. You can get good shots with both the back and front cameras but I think I had a better experience with the Infinix Note 5 over this. The shots are quite good and detailed but that is mostly the case when outdoors.
Portrait mode on this phone is disappointing for both the front and back cameras. It appears to be artificial most of the times with the edges cut off weirdly. I believe the cameras could have been better than what we got here. If you take a lot of photos outdoors, you can get this phone but otherwise, you may have to choose a different one.