Cherry Mobile Infinix Pure XL Review: Rounding Out The Family

Cherry Mobile Infinix Pure XL Review: Rounding Out The Family

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We review the Cherry Mobile Infinix Pure XL

Cherry Mobile has shown that they’re going all in with octa-core smartphones this year with the release of two high-profile devices in the opposite sides of the price spectrum – the Me Vibe and the Cosmos One Plus. Of course, the company isn’t stopping there, as it’s also bolstering it’s mid-market segment with their Infinix Pure and Infinix Pure XL smartphones. Today, we’ll we reviewing the latter to see if CM’s octa-core mid-range offering is a good as their quad-core devices that the company offered in the past.

Infinix Pure XL specs

  • 1.4GHz MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor
  • 1GB of RAM
  • 5.5-inch HD IPS display, 1280 x 720 resolution
  • 8GB of storage, expandable via microSD
  • 13-megapixel rear camera
  • 2-megapixel front camera
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
  • Android 4.4 KitKat
  • 2600mAh battery
  • Php 6,999

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Cherry Mobile took the safe route with the design of the Infinix Pure XL

The Infinix Pure XL isn’t as bold or as striking as the company’s other offerings as far as design is concerned. It’s probably the most inoffensive design that we’ve ever seen in a smartphone, which is to say it kinda looks generic (to our eyes at least). Much like Cherry Mobile’s other entry-level octa-core smartphones, the Infinix Pure XL is constructed mainly out of plastic – matte black plastic in this case – though it does have a silver band running along its sides that helps to add a bit of visual flair to the device. The volume rocker and the power key is located on the left and right side of the device respectively, and conform to the outline of the plastic silver band that runs along the entirety of the device. Both the 3.5mm jack and the USB port are located up top.

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Turning the phone over, you’ll see the matt black plastic back of the Infinix Pure XL, along with the 13-megapixel rear camera and LED flash right beside it. Like most of Cherry Mobile’s octa-core smartphones, the back is removable, which reveals the 2600mAh battery and the two dual SIM slots and microSD expansion slot.

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The 5.5-inch HD display hits all the right marks – good daytime visibility, excellent viewing angles and good color reproduction considering the price. Unfortunately while you’ll be tempted to use the Infinix Pure XL as a multimedia phone because of its rather large 5.5-inch display, you’ll be supremely annoyed at just how bad the speakers are on this thing. Even at full volume we could barely hear a thing, which means that separate portable speakers are a must if you’re looking to share a video or two with your buddies.

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Respectable power under the hood

Like many of Cherry Mobile’s other octa-core offerings, the Infinix Pure XL is powered by a downclocked 1.4GHz MediaTek octa-core processor, instead of the usual 1.7GHz one that’s present in the smaller Pulse. While you’re getting slightly less raw processing power with the 1.4GHz version, the upside is that you’re also consuming less juice than the Pulse. That’s probably why the Infinix Pure XL is more expensive than the (theoretically) more powerful Pulse: longer overall battery life, plus a bigger resolution screen.

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We’re not surprised at all by the benchmarks of the Infinix Pure XL, as we’ve seen the hardware configuration before in other smartphones. The result is a smooth user experience, though we’re also going to partly credit Android 4.4 KitKat for that. As far as gaming goes the Infinix Pure XL is capable of running most Android games, though we did notice that Real Racing 3 struggled a bit while we were playing it.

As far as call quality is concerned, we didn’t notice any issues with the Infinix Pure XL at all.

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Good performance out of the 13-megapixel snapper

The camera on the Infinix Pure XL are rather decent, which has been the trend lately for Cherry Mobile’s offerings. Colors were okay considering some of the photos were taken with artificial lighting only. The camera isn’t the best out there, but it’s not the worst either, and at the very least it’s a testament that Cherry Mobile is responding to user critique and offering smartphones with better sensors. The only gripe we have is that the HDR shooting mode with the camera introduces too much noise into the mix to really be useful when shooting in low light.

Better battery life than your typical octa-core device

Octa-core smartphones have a bad rap of running out of juice before the day is over – heck even Cherry Mobile’s own Pulse only recorded 8 hours of battery life before it went kaput. Thankfully a combination of a roomier 2600mAh battery and slower 1.4GHz clockspeed on the Infinix Pure XL meant that it could go for much longer – with moderate use, we recorded 14 hours of usable battery life on a very long day (watching streams and writing during CES) which is quite impressive, as far as octa-core smartphones go.

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Verdict: a respectable octa-core smartphone from Cherry Mobile

So, what’s the verdict for the Infinix Pure XL? Well, it’s certainly a very capable octa-core smartphone, generic looks aside. It has the performance that you’d typically expect from an octa-core smartphone, as well as surprisingly long battery life. Surprisingly enough its biggest competitors are the lower models that Cherry Mobile is offering, as the lower tier Infinix Pure is expected to retail much lower with only a few downgrades from its bigger brother.

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