GTeL Infinity 10 review. Pleasant surprises

In terms of design we have very minor visual changes. I mean you’d be forgiven to say it’s the same design but again, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Exterior Design

It’s a little bit bigger than the Infinity 9. 6.7 inch display from the 6.5 inch on the Infinity 9 and it’s also sharper at FHD+ with a punchole camera vs just HD+ and a notch from last year. 6000mAh battery here vs 5000 on it’s predecessor and we finally graduate to a USB-C port now. Welcome to the party GTeL.

GTeL Infinity 10 review. Pleasant surprises

The rest is still pretty familiar. Fingerprint scanner on the back, triple slot sim tray for 2 sims and a memory card, triple camera setup with some interesting improvements, same clean software but with Android 11. Really if you have an Infinity 9 you won’t feel like you are missing out on much. That is until you get to play around with the infinity 10.

Software & Performance

The IPS panel on the Infinity 9 was pretty much one of the good ones on the market for the asking price and the Infinity 10 does one better on both size and sharpness. At FHD+ the content on it looks sharper. It’s just a more pleasing display compared to the Infinity 9 but not by much. Most might not notice.

Same goes for performance. The Infinity 10 again gets minor spec bumps. We have 4GB of RAM now and 128GB of internal storage. 1GB RAM and 64GB internal storage more than the Infinity 9. Small gains. But it’s optimized reasonably well enough that in the short time I have been playing around with it, it’s been performing smoothly. I mean ofcourse this will not be a hardcore gaming machine neither will it be a peformance productivity tool but for the day to day you are fine. Especially if your day to day involves a long lasting battery because GTeL’s power management on this phone is absolute witchcraft.

In our battery test of an hour each of gaming, video streaming and video recording, the GTeL Infinity 10 only lost 19% of its power. It completely desecrated the Tecno Pova 5G’s record by a whole 10%. As much as these 2 have the same battery I think the Tecno shows just how much juice you lose with a larger display, 240Hz touch sampling rate and 120Hz refresh rate plus a powerful, gaming grade processor and a 5G modem.

All of which the Infinity 10 happily does without because GTeL is not out here trying to make a gaming phone. Most of their clients are civil servants and they won’t give a thought to anything beyond what GTeL is offering because what they are getting is enough. So yes. The choices GTeL made when selecting what bits to add to the Infinity 10 have made it the battery life champion by quite the margin. I mean I don’t think a normal looking phone can dethrone it anytime soon but the year is still young.

Camera

The camera situation has a few changes as well. According to GTeL the camera system has a 48MP main lens, a 2MP 2x telephoto lens and a 5MP wide angle. But that’s what the box says and not what I am actually seeing on the ground. And this small bit is gonna get a bit technical.

The main and 2x telephoto cameras are taking 48MP images even though the zoom lens is said to be just 2MP. But if I use dev info, what the Android system is reporting to the app lines up with what the box says. The only conflict is on the actual image files that these cameras generate. I have no explanation for this right now but I mean this is interesting.

This is the 1st time I have seen a smartphone company downplaying the specs of their phone. From what I am seeing the GTeL has 48MP on the main and telephoto cameras and a 5MP ultra wide. I’m pleasantly surprised by this.

Also a fun fact. The camera app on the GTeL will close if it goes unattended for an extended period of time. Other camera apps disable and ask you to either tap or double tap to reactivate the camera. It’s pretty interesting.

Anyway this is how the camera system actually performs. It’s similar to the Infinity 9. Very usable pictures with rich color, good dynamic range and sharpness. The photos look pretty nice but I did feel like the focal distance on the main camera is a bit too far. I found myself needing to position the camera further than I am used to for it to focus which robbed me of the dramatic effect I get when I get the camera very close to the subject. 

Also shout out to GTeL for having a pro mode in the camera options. At least this one does not limit my creativity. Apart from that slight setback with minimum focus distance, it’s an all round solid camera setup. I like it.

Thoughts

As has been the theme of the GTeL Infinity 10, it’s just some minor changes here and there and generally majority of the bits both externally and internally have grown a little bit bigger. Battery, display, memory, storage and camera got subtle improvements. Which is great. But the price increase from the Infinity 9 to the Infinity 10 is nowhere near subtle.

From US$150 to US$220. A US$70 jump is a bit too much in my opinion looking at the marginal improvements. I mean yes the battery life on this thing can probably make it an easy 4 day phone before you need a charger but is that worth 70 bucks?

Also not forgetting that at 220 bucks you start seeing options like the Tecno Pova 2 with a bigger display, battery and more powerful processor and 50% more RAM or the Tecno Camon 18 with a more versatile camera system.

The GTeL Infinity 10 is a good general purpose phone. It will do the day-to-day stuff with zero frustrations but the US$220 price tag places it amongst some very tough competition that makes it seem like it’s not providing the best value in that price point. But then again, if you are getting it on credit then probably it won’t hurt as much.