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The world of foldable phones was once reserved for those willing to spend a significant amount, but that’s no longer the case. Last year, Motorola and Tecno were among the first to introduce affordable clamshell foldable phones in India, and this year, Infinix has joined the fray. In October, Infinix launched its first foldable phone in the country – the Zero Flip. The phone is priced at Rs. 49,999 and offers standout features such as a large cover screen, the largest battery in the segment, and more.
But does the price and the large cover screen make the Zero Flip a strong contender in the affordable foldable flip phone market, especially against Motorola’s offerings? Does it stack up in terms of features? How does it perform in everyday use? I spent the last few weeks on the phone to find out, and here’s my take.
Infinix Zero Flip Design: Premium
- Dimensions (Unfolded) – 170.4 x 73.4 x 7.6 mm
- Dimensions (Folded) – 87.5 x 73.4 x 16 mm
- Weight – 195g
- Colours – Blossom Glow, Rock Black
Despite its affordable price tag (for a clamshell foldable), the Infinix Zero Flip is well-designed. It’s got flat sides, rounded corners, and curved edges. The bottom rear panel is made from glass and features a distinct texture on both colour options.
The phone is available in two colour options, and we got the Black Rock variant
We got the Black Rock variant, which features a sand-like finish, resistant to fingerprints and smudges. The back panel is protected by Gorilla Glass 7. The phone feels solid in hand, both when folded and unfolded, and gives off a premium look.
The bottom rear panel has a matte finish
When folded, you’ll notice that the hinge cover has a pattern with the Infinix logo. The hinge seems durable and is rated to last 4,00,000 folds. However, the phone doesn’t come with any IP rating, so I’d recommend not using the phone in the rain. It’s also not possible to open the phone with one hand as the sides are flat. The hinge has a hover range of 30 to 150 degrees, and you can use it at any angle, as there is no spring mechanism to force the phone to open or shut.
The hinge is claimed to have survived 400,000 folds
The volume and power buttons are placed on the top right frame, with the power button doubling as a fingerprint scanner. The scanner worked well during the review, with only a couple of failed attempts to register my finger.
The Zero Flip has no visible gap when folded
The bottom houses the USB Type-C port, a loudspeaker, a SIM tray slot, and a microphone. You’ll find another microphone at the top.
The SIM card tray has a rubber gasket, but the phone has no IP rating
When open, the inner display has decently sized bezels all around. You also get a slit flash for selfies on the top next to the earpiece.
The inner screen protector loves smudges and dust
The display crease is similar to what we’ve seen on the Motorola Razr 50 lineup and the Galaxy Z Flip 6.
Infinix Zero Flip Display: Flexible inside, Big outside
- Main display – 6.9-inch flexible LTPO OLED, 120Hz, full-HD+ resolution
- Cover display – 3.64-inch AMOLED, 120Hz, 1056 x 1066 pixels resolution
- Protection – Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (Cover screen)
Both panels on the Infinix Zero Flip are quite good in terms of specifications. The cover screen is one of the largest among flip phones in this price bracket. The 3.64-inch AMOLED panel on the outside offers 1,100 nits of peak brightness, which is plenty for indoor use, and is somewhat readable under bright sunlight.
The cover screen isn’t super eligible under direct sunlight
The screen gets an always-on display and is protected with Gorilla Glass Victus 2. In my few weeks with the phone, the outer screen managed to keep scratches away. You don’t get a lot of customisation options for the cover screen. You can change the wallpapers, place some interactive pets, and access certain quick settings.
You can open and use several apps on the Cover screen
There’s no way to add widgets, which is a bummer. The screen has cutouts for the dual cameras and LED flash. To read about the outer screen’s usability, head to the Software section.
Moving on to the inner flexible screen, you get a 6.9-inch LTPO panel that supports up to 120Hz refresh rate but has 1,400 nits of peak brightness, which is good enough for indoor and outdoor use. As for refresh rate, you can choose between 60, 90, 120, and auto modes. The colour output is good, and you get two modes – Bright-coloured and Original.
The inner screen gets plenty bright outdoors
The screen offers a tall 22:9 aspect ratio, which means that there are going to be thick black bars when streaming 16:9 or 4:3 content. There’s no official HDR rating, but you get Widevine L1 support, meaning you can stream Netflix content in full HD resolution. The screen also comes with the usual protective coating, which I found to be more prone to smudging than usual.
Infinix Zero Flip Software: Needs improvement
- OS – Android 14
- UI – XOS 14.5
- Latest security patch – October 2024
The phone is claimed to get two years of Android updates and three years of security patches, but that only sounds good on paper as the Zero Flip runs Android 14 out of the box. That means you’ll only get up to Android 16. The phone doesn’t have a lot of bloatware, but you’ll find several pre-installed apps and XOS Family apps as it runs the XOS UI.
The phone gets 2 years of Android OS update support
Infinix claims that you can run over 100+ apps on the cover display. Yes, you can use a lot of apps on the cover screen. However, using the cover screen to watch videos is not something you should do. Using apps like Chrome or WhatsApp is also possible, but typing is cumbersome as you get a tiny keyboard.
You should avoid watching videos on the cover screen
The apps open vertically and don’t cover the entire screen, as the area above the vertically stacked cameras only shows the time and certain notifications.
As this is foldable, you get features that use the bendy form factor. A Flex-Still mode is enabled when the phone is folded to a certain angle. In this mode, the top and bottom halves of the display show different things. This works across apps like Camera, Gallery, and others. In the Camera app, the top part of the inner screen shows the viewfinder, whereas the bottom shows the controls.
Infinix Zero Flip Performance: Is sometimes a hothead
- CPU – MediaTek Dimensity 8020
- RAM – 8GB LPDDR4X
- Storage – 512GB UFS 3.1
The 6nm Dimensity 8020 SoC inside the Zero Flip is quite capable of performing regular tasks and gaming. It’s not a powerful chipset, but it runs smoothly on day-to-day tasks, UI animations, and multitasking. Compared to the Motorola Razr 50, the Dimensity performed better in most of the synthetic benchmarks that I ran on the phone.
| Benchmark | Infinix Zero Flip | Motorola Razr 50 |
|---|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 Single | 755 | 902 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 2534 | 2,675 |
| AnTuTu v10 | 805,272 | 647,833 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 16,412 | 12,932 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | Maxed Out | 5,037 |
| 3DM Slingshot | 5,586 | 5,762 |
| 3DM Wild Life | 4,370 | 3,142 |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 4,324 | 3,152 |
| GFXBench T-Rex | 60 | 91 |
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 | 59 | 47 |
| GFXBench Car Chase | 39 | 26 |
I did notice the phone heating up, especially around the external camera area, when running a few resource-intensive tasks or using the camera. Running apps on the cover screen also makes the device hot, but only around the cameras, which is quite strange.
BGMI ran exceptionally well with Very High graphics settings
As for gaming, the Zero Flip did a good job. I played BGMI and Real Racing 3 on the phone with ease. The phone also features a game mode, which lets you boost the performance. While the games ran smoothly, I did again find the phone getting hot towards the top edge of the cover screen.
The Infinix Zero Flip offers a hybrid stereo speaker setup, with the earpiece acting as the second speaker. The phone does get quite loud and provides a bit of bass as well. However, I did notice some crackling at max volume. When it comes to microphone and earpiece performance, everything was good.
Infinix Zero Flip Cameras: Decent
- Main camera – 50-megapixel, f/1.9, PDAF, OIS
- Secondary ultrawide – 50-megapixel, f/2.2, PDAF, 115 degree FoV
- Selfie – 50-megapixel, f/2.5, PDAF
Alright, it’s camera time. The phone offers a dual camera setup on the cover screen and a selfie camera on the inner display. All three sensors offer 50-megapixel resolution and autofocus. The primary sensor is a Samsung ISOCELL GN5 unit, the ultrawide is a Hynix Hi5022, and the selfie camera uses a Samsung ISOCELL JN1 sensor.
You get dual 50-megapixel cameras on the Zero Flip
The camera app automatically switches to the DV mode when you open the hinge to around 90 degrees. You can also use the external cameras to take selfies. The app is easy to use, and all main camera modes are available upfront. A Vlog mode, a Super Night mode, and several others are available under More. You can also easily connect your GoPro to the phone via the GoPro Quik app, and there’s also a toggle in the Camera app. You get plenty of beauty effects as well.
Talking about picture quality, the main camera takes good photos in daylight conditions with plenty of details, a wide dynamic range, and slightly saturated colours. You will notice some sharpening in the images, though, which isn’t necessarily bad. Even the 2x zoom shots are decent in daylight conditions but have fewer details and are generally softer.
Daylight photo samples from the 50-megapixel wide camera [Tap to Expand]
The ultrawide camera also works well in daylight conditions with good detail and sharpness. The colours are slightly different from the primary camera, but the dynamic range is good.
50-megapixel ultrawide camera samples [Tap to expand]
The primary camera holds up well in low-light conditions, with photos offering decent details and dynamic range. However, you’ll find plenty of noise, especially if shooting indoors. A Super Night mode is also available, but I didn’t notice any major differences when using this mode apart from better shadows. 2x photos in low-light aren’t great and have a muddy appearance to them.
Low-light photos from the main camera at 1x [Tap to expand]
The Ultrawide also doesn’t perform well in low-light. Its images are less detailed, soft, and noisy.
Moving on to the selfie camera, which gets its own slit flash, does a good job in daylight conditions. However, it’s just better to use the outer camera for selfies, which produces much better results.
As for the video performance, the Zero Flip can shoot at 4K 30fps from the outer cameras, but the internal selfie can also do 4K 60fps. However, neither modes support the stabilisation, which is only available in 1080p 30fps. The video output from the main camera is quite good in daylight conditions with pretty accurate colour output and dynamic range, but you’ll find some noise and artefacts around the edges.
Low-light video performance of the primary camera is also not bad, but there needs to be plenty of lighting for the video to have good details. The ultrawide camera records slightly softer and less detailed video, which dips in low-light scenarios.
Infinix Zero Flip Battery: It’s large
- Capacity – 4,720mAh
- Charging speed – 70W
- Charger – 70W included in box
The Infinix Zero Flip comes with a battery that’s much larger than that of more expensive phones, such as the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the Motorola Razr 50. I expected the battery to last much longer than the Razr 50, which, in our review, managed around 25 hours in the HD video loop test. However, the Zero Flip only managed to last about 15h 30m. This is with the refresh rate set to 120Hz and brightness at 50 percent with Airplane mode enabled.
The phone comes with a 70W fast charger in the box
Outside our test, the phone did manage to last a full day of regular usage, with about 20 percent of the battery left at the end. To top up the battery, Infinix provides a 70W charger in the box. In my tests, I was able to charge the phone from 0 to 100 percent in about 55 mins and about 60 percent in 30 mins.
Infinix Zero Flip Verdict
The verdict is simple. You can’t buy a better flip phone at this price that offers the same amount of features. The Infinix Zero Flip provides a large, mostly usable cover screen, good cameras, a large battery that easily lasts a day, and decent performance. If you don’t mind the trade-offs, the Zero Flip is an affordable flex.
The closest competitor is the Motorola Razr 50 (Review), which is slightly more expensive, has a smaller battery, a less powerful chipset, and similar camera performance. Then there’s the newly launched Tecno Phantom V Flip 2, which is cheaper but comes with a bunch of downgrades. I would like to also include the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 (Review), which offers better performance, an IP rating, and better hardware, but at almost twice the price.