I recently got my hands on the just launched dual SIM Infinix Note 3 which is something of a shocker since the Infinix Note 2 was only launched at the end of last year. The Infinix Note 3 basically has nothing in common with its predecessor from a design and build perspective except for the name and massive 6 inch screen.

The Note 3 is a unibody smartphone made from aluminium, just like a premium smartphone but a fairly reasonable Kes. 15,000.00 at launch. The overall look and feel is impressive and I certainly hope its as durable as it appears. The Note 3 also comes with some impressive features such as a fingerprint sensor which is a first for a device of this calibre, as well as a gargantuan 4,500 mAh battery which means it should be able to get through a whole day and more on just one charge, just fine.

Other aspects the Infinix Note 3 include the 13 megapixel back-facing camera and 5 megapixel front-facing camera which means getting off decent shots and selfies should be a snap, literally! It also has a fast charging feature which means that you can get up to 200 minutes of talk time with just 5 minutes of charging – not bad. In addition, the screen really ‘pops’ in terms of the colour and clarity making it easily one of the better ones at this price point – true story! It also comes with 2GB of RAM which is really nice considering that the Note 2 had only 1GB of RAM. Kudos on this one Infinix!

Out of the box, other things I liked about the Infinix Note 3 are the fact that they included the earphones. These are increasingly becoming absent in many low to mid-range smartphones so for me this is a huge bonus, if included? In addition, you also get a free screen protector thrown in the mix as well. The Infinix Note 3 also comes with Android 6.0 or Marshmallow installed but with the proprietary Infinix XOS skin on it which actually looks quite nice even though its quite different to stock Android.

Off the bat, two things that I did NOT like about the Note 3 are that it comes with only 16GB of memory and 3G as opposed to 4G. However, it is expandable using the Micro SD slot so you can have that extra space for music and movies on the same. In addition, I am reliably informed that a 4G variant of the Note 3 with an amazing 3GB of RAM is coming to Kenya soon so that will be sorted out pretty comprehensively but I wonder at what price point?

I will be doing a full review of the Infinix Note 3 by next week at which point I will be able to share all the nitty gritty on it, good and bad. The Infinix Note 3 is currently on sale from the Jumia Kenya website as part of an exclusive deal with them.