Is it possible to play normally on a budget smartphone? Tested Infinix Note 40, here are the results

Record FPS in games on flagships will not surprise anyone, but about budget smartphones there is quite a stale myth about their poor performance. Like, since the middle peasant bought it, so do not complain.

But in fact, now smartphones up to 25,000 rubles work fine, for which large developers quickly adapt games. The audience is large, a neighbor is not allowed.

Today we will check the impact on the new state employee Infinix NOTE 40. It has the most powerful processor in its class, a large flat 6.8-inch AMOLED screen with a voltage of 120 Hz and a large 5000 mAh battery. What a platform for a skating rink in Genshin or Call of Duty!

First, let’s quickly deal with the hardware, and then move on to the tests.

What are we playing on? 6nm based chip from Pro series

Infinix NOTE 40 is part of the company’s line of recently launched smartphones in Russia.

We have already published a review of the Infinix Note 40 Pro, with which we drove around Malaysia and took some juicy photos. And also the features that the basic Infinix Note 40 has the same top-end features as the iPhone 15 Pro, such as a high-refresh screen, magnetic charging and 3x zoom without loss of quality.

Powered by a central processor Helio G99 Ultimate from Taiwan from MediaTek, the first smartphones that began to be released in early 2024. It is built on 6nm technology, which allows for the highest power efficiency in a large size, which is clearly visible not only in frames per second, but also in batteries. It also helps even after 20 minutes of playing throttling*.

*Throttling is when the processor automatically measures its frequencies (and therefore performance) to avoid overheating.

The smartphone runs on XOS 14, which is based on the most current Android 14. This provides the smartphone with support for all modern APIs in games.

The 8GB RAM can be expanded up to 16GB using persistent storage. The technology has been introduced into smartphones for several years now; there is no direct replacement for RAM, but for a budget employee up to 25,000 rubles, 8 GB on board is already strong, but for games it’s enough.

It is also built in at the hardware level status barwhich can be called up during the game to see the FPS counter, CPU and GPU load, and also enable the enhanced performance mode, which overclocks the processor frequency.

On this note, let’s begin our testing.

Shooters. Call of Duty, PUBG and Fortnite are flying

Infinix works directly with select developers of various games to ensure compatibility. For example, in the built-in XArena application for PUBG Mobile there are graph settings like battery saving, balanced or kitchens.

Thanks to this, the game runs smoothly and balanced, they also have an “ultra” mode in the frame rate section, which is not often seen on budget smartphones. The textures look nice, and you can react quickly to your opponents.

The same applies to Call of Duty, which is even better optimized. There was no such thing that the match had to be changed due to freezes.

As for Fortnite, the game produces about 30 frames on average average graphics. It looks quite nice for a phone for 25,000 rubles, plus the style allows you to knock off a couple of points on complexity. The most important thing is that with these parameters the game does not lag even after half an hour of constant load. Thanks to the energy-efficient chip, any other budget segment of the processor would have burned its hands or turned off the game at the same time.

At the end of the session, the heating was about 28°C after Fortnite and no higher than 34°C after PUBG Mobile. This just means that the chip is not in danger of tortling.

Adventures. Genshin Impact and Honkai are working on 30 frames.

Since Helio G99 Ultimate is based on the already proven Helio G99, we are dealing with a time-tested platform.

Smartphones have been based on it for the third year, in large volume. This affected the high performance of even the most demanding games Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail.

Games, although popular, are resource greedy. On “ultra“Even top-end flagships don’t fly; this setting is more likely for benchmarking new smartphones.

So it turns out that in Infinix NOTE 40 highest Graphics settings in Genshin Impact produce about 24 frames per second, but switching to medium gives an absolutely comfortable 30 frames in simple scenes, which drops to 25 frames in intense battles.

For greater smoothness, you can go to short or the lowest, there will be no problems with performance at all. But if you really want to, high it will be original.

Regarding Honkai: Star Rail, measurements show that best The game graphics show about 17 frames per second, but like this amounts comfortable comfortable 30 frames.

The result is normal, considering that, finally, the developer of these games is squeezing the maximum out of the hardware. It’s clear there, so the basic settings look cartoonishly nice. You can play.

Simulators. Roblox, FIFA and Asphalt 9

Despite the differences in the mechanics of slot machines in Roblox, FIFA and Asphalt 9, they have one common principle that they initially created for a mass audience of mobile players.

Optimization plays a primary role here and the fact that the Helio G99 Ultimate processor from Infinix NOTE 40 is popular, researched and tested helps to quickly get the big picture.

FIFA Mobile plays comfortably on Average part and height resolutions that produce stable 30 frames per second.

Roblox runs absolutely smooth on this smartphone. There is little luck here, since the game does not match the resources. Some locations, due to the abundance of objects, can heavily load the processor, and the test showed that the Helio G99 Ultimate is capable of them.

The more demanding Asphalt 9: Legends can be played without problems if you turn off anti-aliasing. Settings are closer to Average provide up to 60 frames per second, which is ideal for high-speed action. All the effects of reflections, smoke, particles and acceleration are there, so immersion is guaranteed. We remember that there is also an OLED, so we can play the project on hand with real blacks and rich colors.

The key chip did the job. Suitable for games

When starting the test, it was not only interesting to understand what would work, but also how long the games would work without drawdowns. Fortunately, frequency slowdown in the long phase was not observed not only in synthetic benchmarks, but also in practice.

Infinix NOTE 40 Thanks to its “brains” in the form of Helio G99 Ultimate from MediaTek, it puts a full stop on its “adult” characteristics. Juice’s 6.78-inch AMOLED screen, large 5000mAh battery and chip with accelerated graphics cores make for a smartphone ideal for the gaming trio.

The built-in FPS counter in the working status panel helped to understand the accuracy of the measurements, with which, in addition, you could activate the performance mode with increased processor frequencies.

Let me remind you that this is a smartphone for 25,000 rubles (and sometimes cheaper), which can run top games, sometimes even at high power. During the review, there was no such thing that any of the popular projects did not work.

Therefore, if games are important to you, you have a budget of a hundred thousand for a flagship, now you know which way to look 👀.