Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Budget Selfie Champ

Review Verdict: The ZERO 30 4G keeps most of the things that made its 5G sibling great while sporting a clean look. At under Php 10k, the ZERO 30 4G stands out for the stellar performance of its selfie camera for both photos and videos.

Pros

-Best selfie camera for its price point

-Good performance on the main camera

-Aesthetically pleasing back panel (for vegan leather variant)

Cons

-No ultra-wide camera

-Finicky adaptive brightness on display

-Priced the same as another Infinix phone

After making a statement with the ZERO 30 5G as a mid-range device that’s geared towards content creation, Infinix brings over a more affordable version with the ZERO 30 4G. With an under Php 10k price tag, the ZERO 30 4G has some of the key features of its 5G sibling, making it a budget phone that’s great for content creators. With standout features like a 50-megapixel selfie camera, is the ZERO 30 4G a solid buy for Php 10k?

Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Design

Compared to the 5G version, the ZERO 30 4G has rounder edges on both the frame and camera module. Our review unit is in Misty Green, and the contrasting gold color makes the ZERO 30 4G aesthetically pleasing, especially with its use of vegan leather. While the ZERO 30 4G also comes in Sunset Gold and Pearly White, we highly encourage you to get the Misty Green colorway if you want something that looks unique for a budget phone.

Just like its 5G sibling, the ZERO 30 4G also has a curved display (more on that later) and a slim frame. The button and port layout are also the same, so you don’t get a headphone jack with the ZERO 30 4G–but still have stereo speakers.

Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Display

While you still get a curved AMOLED display, the ZERO 30 4G comes with a 120hz refresh rate. It may be lower than what its 5G sibling offers, but you will barely notice the difference between a 120hz panel and a 144hz panel with daily use. The ZERO 30 4G’s panel is more practical, as the lower refresh rate also means it consumes less power than the 144hz panel of its 5G sibling.

Our only complaint with the otherwise good display is the sensitivity of the ZERO 30 4G’s light sensor. There are times that it tends to aggressively lower the brightness level, forcing us to manually adjust it to suit our needs. We think that a software fix to recalibrate the sensor can solve the issue, so we look forward to Infinix rolling out a software update.

Just like all the 120hz curved AMOLED panels we’ve tried so far, the ZERO 30’s brightness range is decent, and you get goodies like adaptive refresh rate and Widevine L1 for Full HD Netflix streaming. Complementing the display is a decent set of stereo speakers. While not as detailed as the JBL-tuned ones found on the NOTE 30, the ZERO 30 speakers offer decent sound quality for general use.

Infinix Philippines told us that the ZERO 30 will be getting the same JBL tuning on its speakers through a software update, so we will wait and see if the update will improve the audio quality of its stereo speakers.

Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Cameras

The ZERO 30 4G gets the same 108-megapixel camera found on its 5G sibling but lacks OIS and is accompanied by two filler cameras. While this limits the camera features of the ZERO 30 4G, Infinix makes up for it by adding a usable 2x digital zoom on the main camera.

Outside of the ZERO 30 4G’s 2x digital zoom feature, the 108-megapixel main camera takes good photos, with color accuracy being better than the NOTE 30 5G despite using the same ISOCELL HM6 sensor.

The ZERO 30 5G shines in the selfie department, using the same 50-megapixel sensor found on its 5G sibling. You also get Eye Autofocus, which works great even in low light in ensuring that our selfies are in focus.

Budget phones do not focus on offering great selfie cameras, and the ZERO 30 4G is the first of its kind that gives you good selfies at an under Php 10k price point.

While most budget Infinix phones (specifically those in the HOT and NOTE lines) can shoot 1440p30 and 1080p60 video with the rear camera, we noticed that the ZERO 30 4G has better footage overall–especially when it comes to stabilization.

Being able to maximize the 50-megapixel selfie camera to shoot 2k video also makes it clear that the ZERO 30 4G is marketed towards content creators despite sharing the same price as the NOTE 30 5G–which focuses more on offering 5G at an affordable price point.

Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Internals and Battery Life

Being a 4G-only device, the ZERO 30 4G comes with a Helio G99 processor that’s paired with 8GB RAM and 256GB internal storage. Decent 4G-only processors are hard to come by these days, and the Helio G99 remains the top pick for budget phones.

The Helio G99 is a tried-and-tested processor that offers decent gaming performance–conservatively, it can run Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail at medium graphics without any performance issues. It’s also the best 4G-only processor option at under Php 10k, beating even the Snapdragon 680, especially for GPU-intensive tasks.

The ZERO 30 4G comes with Android 13 out of the box, and it includes a dynamic island-like interface around the punch-hole when charging the device or receiving notifications. There’s still some bloatware included, but it’s less than what we usually see on budget Infinix phones.

The ZERO 30 4G comes with the same 5000mAh battery and 45w charging that’s found on the NOTE 30 5G. However, we got close to 16 hours of battery life (15 hours and 55 minutes to be specific) on the ZERO 30 4G, which is 2 hours longer than what we got on the NOTE 30 5G. With its 45w charger, it takes around under an hour to fully top up the battery.

Infinix ZERO 30 4G Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions

Infinix went for a different approach with the ZERO 30 4G by focusing on content creation. The ZERO 30 4G does stand out as a budget phone for offering a selfie camera that’s significantly better than the competition for both photo and video. Despite being a budget offering, Infinix made improvements to the ZERO 30 4G’s camera software to make it a great device for content creation.

While the ZERO 30 4G’s price is the same as the NOTE 30 5G, it’s clear that Infinix caters to different markets for both phones, as the latter is focused on offering 5G on a budget.