InFocus M680 Review

InFocus is an American headquartered company that began their journey by making projectors and later ballooned its product line up to large format displays, televisions, tablets and smartphones. In 2013, they began selling Smartphones in China, Taiwan and far eastern markets and in 2015 they entered the Indian market. In no time, they launched an array of devices in India at many affordable price band and they are in focus (pun intended!) at the budget-conscious buyers offering a decent looking devices with good hardware specs. The InFocus M680 is one such device which is priced at Rs 10,999 and is available exclusively on Snapdeal. Clad in a full metal body, the M680 looks premium for the segment it comes out but will the good looks be enough to be a compelling reason to own this phone? I find out in this review.

Design and Build Quality

• Full metal casing
• Unibody
• 76.8mm x 156mm x 7.25mm
• 158 grams
• Gold / White and Silver / White color options

I received the gold colored device (the color reproduces in the picture didn’t justify the actual color of the device)  and when looked from rear, the M680 looks solidly, pleasant looking device. It has a matte metallic finish with a half-inch strip on the top and bottom, a shade darker than the rest of the rear. It also gives an impression that the rear panel is removable, but it is not. The back camera and the LED flash is aligned to the one corner and the InFocus branding at middle of the top half. Overall, the M680 is promising design-wise at the rear. The front face is all-familiar though, with a white frame around the display, the InFocus branding at the front could have been avoided though, it only clutters the front that also houses the front facing camera, ear-piece, notification light and host of sensors. There are three capacitive buttons and they are not backlit. The right side houses the power button and adjacent to it is the hybrid dual-SIM. The M680 can work on two nano-SIMs but the second SIM has to be sacrificed if you want to accommodate a microSD card for storage expansion. The volume buttons are placed on the left side and is positioned well for easy reach. An audio jack, microphone and a radio cutout features on the top While a five-dot speaker grille and a primary phone flanks the USB port in the middle of the bottom along with two more antenna cutouts. Overall, the M680 has a solid build quality, pleasant looks and the metal adds a premium dash to it.  The 7.25mm gives it a slim profile, which is good to hold on. Anything smaller than this could get too slim to be discomfort for some people. It weighs 158 grams, with a metal body and a 5.5-inch display it doesn’t weighs down.

Display

• 5.5-inch IPS display
• 1080×1920 resolution
• 401 ppi

A full HD is an expected addition these days on phones and the M680 also offers one in its 5.5-inch display. The display is a good with nice color reproduction and is decently bright too. The sunlight legibility is good and so is the viewing angles. The texts are crisp to read. And overall, the display has no complaints at this price level. The display settings include a bluelight filter, convenient for long hours of browsing where it reduces the blue light emissions and while many phone these days includes a bluelgiht filter, the M680 includes four level of intensity. There is also a color temperature setting to choose between cool, natural and warm. What is lacking on the display is the absence of any protective glass layer, so if you buy a device it is pertinent to secure it with a tempered glass or screen guard.

Software and Features

• Android 5.1 Lollipop
• InLife UI

Lollipop is still the standard Android flavour for the devices this year and we might have to wait for the second quarter of the coming year for Marshmallow to across the board. InFocus M680 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop and InLife being their user interface to come on top of it. The UI is fairly clean, though the various app permissions and management features can be a bit confusing. There is an app drawer and in case you want to get rid of it and opt for a one layer with all apps sitting on the home screen, there is an option in the settings. The UI gives you a free hand to arrange the apps on user defined layout or opt for arranging it by frequency, alphabet or installed time. The UI treats a custom icon set. Swiping up the screen takes you to the desktop settings, and there are also some motion features like turn over to reject call, volume quiet on pickup, direct call and answer, shake to next song. The settings screen can be toggled into a list mode or tab mode. I have done a video to list all the software features, tips and tricks that you can do on this device and if you are interested take a look. https://youtu.be/DhxpgKRR5yM

Performance

• MediaTek MT6753 SoC
• Octa-core, 1.5GHz
• 2GB RAM
• Mali-T720 GPU
• 2600mAh battery
• Wi-Fi, 3G/4G/2G, GPS, Bluetooth, microUSB charging port, USB OTG

The M680 comes with all the hardware specs list one would expect these days in a Smartphone in the price bracket of Rs 10K. Powering the device is a MediaTek chipset MT6753 with eight cores clocked at 1.5GHz, combined with a 2GB of RAM, Mali-T720 GPU. There is a 16GB of internal storage with around 10GB which is user available, there is also a provision for a microSD card. While the specs could be good on paper, the performance does not necessarily be taken for guaranteed. It depends on various factors and how well it is optimized.  The AnTuTu benchmark tests yields a score of 37,956. Scores apart, here is how the phone performs on practical terms. For general tasks, the InFocus is very responsive and largely lag free. The call quality was good and the speaker was loud. Though the loudness doesn’t translate into a good audio output experience when listening via the speaker. The small speaker is tinny but throw in a decent headset and you can be assured of a decent audio playback. Where the device disappointed me was at gaming. I was surprised it struggles to cope up with the graphics when playing Ashpalt 8, the frame rate stutters and it was a frustrating to drive around the track. I lowered the graphic setting to medium and it fared better. The 2600mAh battery is on a lower range and it manages an average battery life. There is a power saver feature but lacks the features we have seen in the power saver mode in some of the other phones.

Camera

• 13MP front and rear camera
• f2.2 aperture
• fullHD video recording

InFocus M680 does not discriminate between the front and rear cameras and is equipped with a 13-megapixel camera on both the sides. The camera app has its own flavour with modes like panorama,  motion track, face beauty, multi angle view and live photo mode, most of the modes are gimmicky and you would be sticking with the normal mode. The camera is a decent performer. Quiet snappy with quick focus lock. The day light pictures come fairly good, though the dynamic range could have been a bit better. The low light pictures are decent too. Though there is a 13MP front camera, it does not necessarily deliver a much better selfies than what most rivals produce. [gallery link="file" columns="4" ids="10492,10494,10495,10496,10497,10493"]

Conclusion

What works for the M680 is its build quality in aluminum clothing for the price of Rs 10,999. The phone performs well at general tasks but where it lets down is on the gaming. If you are not into gaming, the M680 is a fair deal. It has a good display, packs a decent sets of camera and a good option to look at sub-12K segment, especially if looks matter.]]>