Infinix, the budget smartphone maker, seems to have been punching above their weight lately. Not only are they making their presence felt in the smartphone space with mid-range offerings, but they have also established a name for themselves in the TV space. The next area where the brand seems to be moving is the personal computing space with their INBook X1 series laptops.
The Infinix InBook X1 series comes with three models, two under the X1 branding and the third under the X1 Pro branding. The series starts at INR 35,999 for the Intel i3 variant and goes up to INR 55,999 for the maxed version with the Intel Core i7 CPU. For that amount of dough, these laptops promise to deliver a lot.
We have been using the Intel Core i7 variant of the INBook X1 for close to three weeks now, and here’s our full review.
Infinix INBook X1 Pro Specification
- Processor: 11th Gen Intel Core i7 1065G7
- Graphics adapter: Intel Iris Plus graphics
- Memory: 16GB, DDR4-3200Mhz
- Display: 14-inch 16:9, 1920 x 1080 pixel, IPS LED, glossy: No, 60Hz
- Storage: 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD
- Connections: 2 x USB 3.0 Gen 1 Type A, 1 x USB 2.0 Gen 1 Type A, 2 x USB 3.2 (Type C), HDMI 1.4, Audio Connections: Combo audio, microSD card slot
- Networking: Wi-Fi 6 (802.11b/g/n/ac/ax) (2×2), Bluetooth 5.2
- Battery: 55Wh Lithium-Polymer (4 cell)
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 64 Bit
- Camera: 720p@30fps
- Additional features: Speakers: Stereo, Keyboard: 6-row chiclet, Keyboard Light: Yes
- Weight: 1.48 kg
Box Contents
A complete list of items you get inside the box:
- Infinix INBook X1 Pro laptop
- Power Adapter
- Warranty and User Guide
Design
The Infinix INBook X1 comes in three shades: Red, Grey, and Green, and we have the Grey variant with us. The laptop is made out of high-quality plastic and alloy. The lid is made out of a metal alloy that makes it sturdy and light at the same time. The lid is cold to the touch, especially the two-tone finish gives this laptop a premium feel.
There is not much wobble on display, and it can be propped down flat, which is very common in these kinds of notebooks. In all their marketing material, Infinix has stressed the quality of the laptop and the workmanship that goes into making these laptops, and it shows in the overall build quality. There are thick bezels on the bottom of the display that house the Infinix branding.
The laptop is just 16.3mm thick and weighs 1.48kg, making it one of the lightest 14-inch notebooks currently on the market.
Connections
In terms of connections, Infinix has not cut any corners. Starting off with the left side, we get the DC charging connector, a full-sized HDMI slot, a USB3.0 Type-A port, two USB Type-C Gen 3 ports, one of which supports the Power Delivery protocol. Moving to the right side, we get to see a microSD card slot, another USB3.0 Type-A slot, a USB2.0 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm combo jack.
Since this is not a gaming laptop, we don’t see a Thunderbolt 4 slot or an Ethernet jack. There is a fingerprint sensor next to the touchpad, but that is only available in the maxed-out InBook X1 Pro model.
Software
The Infinix INBook X1 comes with Windows 10 Home out of the box. Unlike other legacy manufacturers, Infinix here hasn’t added too much bloatware. There are some battery-related apps, like the DTS audio app for tuning the speakers. Apart from this, we get all the usual Windows apps here and the InBook X1 also happens to be Windows 11 certified, meaning customers will get a guaranteed upgrade to the new Windows 11 build.
Keyboard & Touchpad
A good keyboard on a laptop can do wonders and boost the rating of that particular model. So far, we have been satisfied with the keyboard on offer here. We get a 6-row layout unit with standard-length keys. The keys are adequately placed, with the travel distance merely being 1.4 mm, which is good for effective typing. The pressure point and resistance are well adjusted, and typing on the keyboard is a breeze once you get accustomed to this key layout.
The keyboard here is backlit, and we can change the degree of brightness as well. We were hoping to get a full-length numeric pad, but given the size and price of the INBook X1, this can be overlooked.
Moving to the touchpad, the laptop here gets an adequately sized unit. The touchpad is large enough for comfortable use and comes with Windows Precision Drivers, which gives the added ability to use gestures like 3 finger swipes to change desktop and 3 finger touches to launch Cortana.
Display
The Infinix INBook X1 packs a 14-inch Full HD LCD panel with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. The bezels on the sides are kept to a minimum, while the top one has some girth to accommodate the HD camera. The bezels on the bottom are also particularly thick, which is very much the standard in sub-50k laptops. This is a 100% sRGB panel with a 300 nit peak brightness. The panel gets bright enough in harsh lighting, and the colours right out of the box are set to a cooler tone.
This can be tweaked by going through the Windows display settings. The panel, given the price, is decent at best, with punchy colours, and has a lot of potential with the right calibration.
Performance
The performance of the Infinix INBook X1 model is top-notch. Our unit comes with the 11th Intel Core i7 1065G7 processor, which is the latest upper-midrange chip from the chipmaker as of writing this review. The Core i7 here has a TDP of 15W and demands less power while boosting the throughput. Both the Core i3 and i5 models come with 8GB of RAM, which is memory-on-chip and hence not expandable. We would recommend demanding users shell out some extra cash and go for the X1 Pro model (used for this review) that gets you 16GB of RAM.
There is no option to get a dual-storage model here, but you can swap out the supplied 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD for a higher one. The performance on the drive is quite good, with average reads going all the way to 3,000 Mb/s and write speeds in excess of 1,500 Mb/s. The X1 runs cool for the most part, but lightly struggles due to a not-so-great cooling system. The hot air pushed out towards the screen, leaving the bottom relatively cool.
Audio
Coming to the audio, this is where the Infinix INBook X1 performs the best. The speaker setup here gets the DTS HD treatment. The speakers get pretty loud and seem powerful for their sheer size. The same can be said for the microphone setup. Just like the majority of the Windows laptops, the HD Webcam here has pretty poor output.
Battery
The Infinix INBook X1 comes packed with a 55Wh 4-cell battery. In our tests, the battery lasted for about 8 hours with all the networking peripherals turned on, with the laptop in aeroplane mode, and on a video loop test, you get up to 12 hours of use out of this unit.
There is fast charging enabled on the laptop, and using the supplied adapter, you can charge about 70% of the battery in about 55 minutes at a maximum pumping rate of 65W.
