Infocus has its focus set in different price segments, and the new device from the company, i.e. the Infocus M680 sets itself in the mid-range category with the challenging specs, and a price that is good enough to raise a concern for the competitors.
The important points to remember about the Infocus M680 include a 5.5-inch 1080p display, a metal body, and a camera combination of 13MP rear and 13MP front-facing cameras. But should that be enough to woo the consumers and make them ignore the devices from the known and well-doing brands? Let’s find out.
The hardware combination of both external and internal hardware seems quite common currently, with a bunch of phones having a similar screen size and similar processor powering them. It’s the Mediatek MT6753 octa-core chipset powering the device.
Design: With the design, it isn’t the look but the build quality that attracts, since the M680 is made of a metal body that feels so good in the hand, only if you are someone who’s pretty comfortable with the large size due to a 5.5-inch screen and a fairly wide bezel around the display. The back of the phone has symmetrical top and bottom parts demarcated from the center, which is lighter in shade, but the amber finish stays right from top to bottom. There’s a 13-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, and just the InFocus branding in the center on the back, and since the speakers are made a part of the bottom frame, the back gets a more premium look.
Although a phone that’s priced much lesser than the competitors having similar designs, here’s why we loved the design – chamfered edges on the front and back, a raised display part and the little curve towards the edges on the back. These three add up together to make it a sleek and good-to-hold unit, giving a feel of having a sturdy device in the hand.
Though it isn’t easy to reach the navigation buttons since they are in the bottom part, not a part of the display, the full-screen real estate given to the interface is actually good for those who rely on smartphones for entertainment.
Overall, the InFocus M680 doesn’t seem like a huge phone, even if it has a 5.5-inch screen, size these days, the phablet range is more of what people have easily got adjusted to. It gives a little better feel than most of the devices in its price range, thanks to the curvy back towards the corners, and a metal body contributing to the overall feel.
Display: It is a rather neat and sharp display, as there is 1080p resolution with the size of 5.5-inch, and the color saturation is good. Under the display options, we get to activate the bluelight filter, and that can be from 10% to 75% where the blue light is reduced, mainly for usage in the dark conditions.
There are options to change even the color temperature, as well as the screen mode (between Standard and Dynamic), which changes the color output.
OS, Interface: It is Android 5.1 Lollipop based InLife UI running in the phone. The Inlife UI provided in the InFocus M680 is, in a way, quite similar to how the standard Android would look like. That is good in a way since users can change the look with the help of a launcher, but there is not much played around with the internal sections as well.
The quick settings in notification panel can be rearranged, but cannot be removed, and new ones cannot be added. Apps in the app drawer can be arranged according to use frequency, alphabet, install time, or can be user defined. Pre-installed apps include Voice Note, Weather Forecast, FM Radio, Backup Tool, Torch, App Traffic Control, Power Detective, WPS Office, Dropbox, and the entire list of common Google apps.
There are a few gesture options included, and that is common with most of the InFocus smartphones, and they are quite useful. Though it wouldn’t hurt to have options of double tapping to wake the screen, they are not given, and most of the motion features are about phone calling.
We have already seen a couple of software updates on the device in just a week’s usage, one for improving the camera performance, and other for improved system stability. Not that we noticed any big difference, but company’s activeness in software support is evident, and that is good to see in the case of InFocus M680.
About 10.5GB storage is available to the user initially while the RAM available is above 1GB after a fresh reboot. The multitasking button shows an option to clear all apps, and also gives a shortcut to task manager that gives details about the usage of RAM.
Performance: One of the major pain points for smartphones in the budget range to the mid-range category has been more about their performance, rather than the battery. InFocus has included the Mediatek MT6753 octa-core processor in the M680, and that is coupled with 2GB of RAM. The performance while gaming is excellent and that is no surprise as the other devices running with the same processor performed almost the same way.
The UI did show some minor lags, especially when multitasking or killing all active apps at once. But the important areas such as camera, call UI, etc. were all smooth on functioning, and there was rarely a noticeable problem detected.
Camera: The InFocus M680 comes with a good 13MP dual camera combination, and with dual, we mean that there is a 13MP front facing camera matching the 13MP shooter on the back. To take it further ahead, InFocus has given some good options, including autofocus to the front-facing camera, to give an experience as using a standard smartphone rear camera, and not restricting it to the artificial beautification.
In the camera app, the user can change the ISO in a range from 100 to 1600, and the other options include anti-shake, face detection, gesture shot, smile shot, and continuous shot (40 / 99 shot). The app also has HDR mode, Motion tracking, Live photo mode, Panorama, face beauty mode, and multi-angle view mode.
Check: InFocus M680 camera samples.
There are not many options given for selfies, as we see only the normal mode and face beauty modes available in the app. With the capture quality, the InFocus M680’s camera do a very decent job with color reproduction, preserving the detail, etc. It is good even with the front-facing camera, where the manual focus control changes the exposure to bring out a good natural capture in the normal mode.
The rear camera supports 1080p video recording, it is quite decent with quality, except that the exposure changes rapidly even on a little change in background brightness. The shakes too are quite evident since the camera doesn’t come with hardware or software stabilization and thus, the shaking is not negotiated in any way.
Battery, Connectivity: Battery life of smartphones is one major concern for users, and it isn’t really about the battery capacity, but the optimization and usage that determines how well would the phone last on a single charge.
The InFocus M680 comes with a 2600 mAh battery, that does well to get you through the day with regular usage on Wi-Fi, and with 4G usage, it was quite a quicker drain noticed easily. The screen-on time was just around 3 hours and 30 minutes, and while one won’t be comfortable with this if they are a heavy user, the M680 manages everything very well on standby, and even better with the intelligent standby power saving featured turned on.
The phone supports 4G LTE connectivity, and apart from this and other standard connectivity options, don’t expect this to have things like NFC. There is support for USB OTG connectivity as well.
Conclusion: Is the InFocus M680 a bang for the price?
Rather than talking on whether the phone is worth its price, we rather look at whether the InFocus M680 hits the competition with its USPs, or has left some corners unpolished to let others take the lead.
The M680 won’t really beat the competition in every aspect, and if we talk about particular devices, the Asus ZenFone 2 Laser has a better battery life, the Coolpad Note 3 packs a fingerprint scanner, but both of them don’t have a good selfie camera as this one, and even the build quality of the M680 is better than the other two.
The display is impressive as well, but an even better optimization of battery should have made this an ideal choice for users. Still, the InFocus M680 is all worth it and offers a premium build quality for the price, along with an impressive front-facing camera.
Great stuff