InFocus Vision 3: Decent looks, good camera for its price (Tech Review)

By Vivek Singh Chauhan

New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS) In a bid to offer a pocket-friendly smartphone with good features, US-based technology company InFocus Mobile has launched a new device -- Vision 3 -- in India with bezel-less (edge-to-edge) display in the sub-Rs 7,000 category.

At Rs 6,999, Vision 3 offers a camera feature called "Dualfie" for photography enthusiasts.

Let's see what works for this affordable device.

One high point is its 5.7-inch "full-vision' HD+ display with an aspect ratio of 18:9 for a better and immersive viewing experience.

Most smartphones in the past featured displays with a 16:9 aspect ratio -- a standard ratio for TVs and cinema theatre screens. However, several smartphone makers moved to an 18:9 ratio this year and InFocus has now tried this.

The display was bright and readability under direct sunlight was good. The bezels surrounding the display are thin that makes the smartphone look impressive.

Though the device bears a hefty look, it is light-weight and comfortable to use.

Vision 3 sports a dual camera set-up with 13MP auto-zooming (AZ) lens and 5MP 120-degree wide-angle lens at the rear. The camera app is handy and comes pre-loaded with features such as "beauty" mode, "panorama" and "pro".

The 8MP front shooter delivered decent images in both proper and low-light conditions. Both the rear and front cameras worked fine and clicked decent images during daylight conditions with enough details.

Given the budget pricing, the camera quality of Vision 3 is the best when compared to previous devices launched by the company.

The "Dualfie" camera feature that we first saw in the premium Nokia 8 smartphone allowed us to capture images from the front and rear camera simultaneously and view it on the screen. The company has named the feature "PIP" in the camera app.

On the battery front, the device sports a 4,000mAh battery which is applaudable. It lasted more than a day on a single charge with rigorous usage that included gaming and 4G connectivity.

The device also has a fingerprint sensor on the back that works fine.

Powered by 1.3GHz MTK 6737H processor paired with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage which can be expanded up to 64GB via a hybrid MicroSD card slot.

The phone runs the company's custom Smile UX User Interface UI) based on Android 7.0 Nougat Operating System (OS).

What does not work?

A single speaker at the rear is a bit dated when compared with other Android smartphones in this price segment.

Also, the 2GB RAM seemed to be insufficient as we noticed significant lag while playing heavy games on the device. However, this is expected from a low-budget smartphone that tries to balance out the features with the pricing.

Conclusion: The display and camera of the phone are good enough to make you ignore the few misses. The device offers a decent camera with smooth performance in the sub-Rs 7,000 price segment.

(Vivek Singh Chauhan can be contacted at vivek.c@ians.in)