InFocus Corporation has been known for providing value for money devices and one such device is the Infocus M260. It is introduced in the budget-friendly range of Rs. 4,000 which is competitive as well. With a 4.5-inch FWVGA display and 3G support, having 1GB of RAM it is a decent device for the price asked, but does the performance and user experience match the price? Let’s check out in the review below.
Before we begin, the Infocus M260 shouldn’t suffice for all kinds of usage, since you can expect the phone to do quite well with general calling and app usage, but multitasking won’t be that great. Again, for some who is looking to use an Android smartphone for the first time, or is thinking to have a secondary device alongside their main smartphone, we can recommend this phone.
Design: The InFocus M260 is not the sleekest or the thinnest of the smartphone in this range, it measures 10.48mm in thickness and it is bulky as well at 150 grams. It feels solid to hold in your hand as well with good grip. InFocus has given neat design with a dual color plastic back, having combination of a common black with options like yellow, orange and white on the top of the back panel. It has a rubberish feel to it in hand.
The front has the display with rather thick bezels, Infocus branding on the bottom of the screen. A Front camera on the top beside the ear piece, on the right side is a power button on the top and single button volume rocker below it. The back sports the dual tone panel along with the primary camera and LED flash below it, a loudspeaker is present at the bottom left of the device. The top of the device has a 3.5mm audio jack and a microUSB 2.0 port.
Not at all disappointing with the design, the phone has a polycarbonate body with a rubberish feel, and for the device of this price range, one would feel quite happy holding it.
Display: The InFocus M260 sports a 4.5-inch basic FWVGA display with 480 x 800 pixels resolution, the pixel density is low and with daily usage, we found that the viewing angles are poor. There is no auto brightness setting, which means you have to adjust the brightness manually. The display in direct sunlight was very difficult to view even with full brightness.
Considering the price it can be considered decent enough for daily use without having much expectations. Only if Infocus had done something about the proximity sensor, it would have been a good addition to the user experience, since the user now has to manually turn the screen off while making calls.
Performance: With a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 and a 32-bit cortex A7 processor and ARM Mali-400 GPU, the device performed smoothly through most of my daily regular usage like Facebook browsing, Whatsapp chatting and normal browsing. The only game we could play well on the device, was the Real Racing 3, and some of the other high-end games that we use generally, couldn’t install on the device.
Taking photos and videos was smooth, switching to see photos after clicking some was also smooth. It was not as smooth in case of multitasking which must not be expected as well from it. Also, the Infocus M260 did show some lagging after calls, while exiting the phone app and getting into any other app. There are lags that are usually expected from low-end devices, for example, scrolling through the long list of contacts and call logs.
RAM and Storage: It comes with 1GB of RAM and 8GB internal storage. Out of the 1GB RAM, about 510MB will be free on boot up, and out of the 8GB internal storage around 5GB will be used up by the OS and pre-installed apps and 3GB will be free. Having a MicroSD card slot is a savior, since 3GB doesn’t help much for long usage. We inserted a 32GB MicroSD card, and it was well detected and functioned well.
Camera: With a 5MP rear camera having LED flash and capable of taking 2880 x 1728 resolution photos along with a 2MP front camera, the camera performance is decent but not the best for a 5MP camera.
With fixed focus you can get good shots of objects a bit far and which are not fast moving, photos in natural lighting are good, under artificial lighting the photos are a bit grainy. The LED flash is not so great, under low light the photos are not so great either. The front camera is decent without exact color reproduction but it does the job.
Battery: The InFocus M260 comes with a 2000 mAh Li-Po battery which is decent for the display and the specs, after a normal day usage the battery lasted the whole day. There was minimal drop in battery percentage even after close to 30 minutes of continuous gaming, the drop was approximately 8-10%. For the same duration of video viewing with the highest resolution possible on the display a drop of 10% was seen.
Overall the battery fared well and gave decent battery life at the end of the day this is what we expect from a budget device to last the day. I could charge the device from 0% to 100% on standby in approximately 3 hours from a wall charger.
Conclusion: In the Rs. 4,000 or below price range it is a decent deal, with a dual tone back having multiple color options and decent performance. The camera is decent but not great, the battery life is Ok. the display does not have great viewing angles and the low pixel density can be seen. If you compare it with the smartphones under Rs. 4,000 it stands out and wins, but if you can spare a bit more change then there are many better options for just a bit more.
