Prospective laptop buyers such as college students and working professionals who operate on squeezed finances can get stumped by the lack of capable, affordable laptop choices in the market. However, Infinix is looking to remedy this situation to a certain degree. The company’s new laptop, called the InBook Y1 Plus, is a device that caters to cost-conscious laptop buyers and has an attractive starting price tag of Rs 28,990. In this review, let’s find out if the device is truly a value-for-money offering and if it can become a default choice for budget-constraint users.
The lowdown
The overall design of the laptop is quite robust and, for the most part, sleek. If portability is a factor in your purchase decision then the InBook Y1 Plus won’t disappoint. It weighs about 1.7kg and is 18.2mm thick, and won’t pose a problem when sliding into a backpack. There’s also a reasonably good angle of incline on the lid and the hinge is sturdy enough to hold it without wobbling. The laptop’s build is metallic and uses an aluminium alloy for its construction. There’s a webcam up top, flanked by a set of LED lights which are useful if you are doing a video call in low light.
The port selection on the device is better than I had expected at this price. On the right, the InBook Y1 Plus has a microSD card reader, a USB Type-C slot, a USB 3.0 Type-A port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The other side has yet another USB Type-C and a 3.0 Type-A port alongside which there’s also an HDMI 1.4 slot. Wireless options include Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi. Understandably there are no biometric options available for authentication.
Coming now to the keyboard and trackpad, the InBook Y1 Plus impresses in both aspects. The keys have a scissor-switch implementation that have 1.5mm travel and are quite responsive while typing. What’s more, there’s also a two-step backlight, which I think is a nice inclusion at the InBook’s price point. The trackpad has a smooth AG Glass panel on top which allows your fingers to glide effortlessly across the surface. Even the gesture controls and latency are quite good, which is optimidealal for normal Microsoft Office work and Chrome browsing.
In the display department, the laptop has a 15.6-inch LCD panel with moderate brightness levels of 200nits. You also get 60 percent coverage of the NTSC color gamut, which should make media consumption better than what the segment has to offer. Also, the bezels on three sides of the screen are slim and Infinix claims an 85 percent screen-to-body ratio for a more expansive viewing. My experience while perusing media content remained satisfactory and I think the target consumer will echo those feelings.
The device comes iwth a 10th-gen Intel i3 1005G1 chipset and up to 8GB of DDR4X RAM. There’s also a 512GB PCIe SSD which can be upgraded to 1TB if required. Long story short, there is not too much in the way of processing prowess with the InBook Y1 Plus and it is visible in the benchmarking numbers. Cinebench R23 multi-core result showed a score of 1,922 while on Geekbench 6 this figure was 2,522. However, the story here is that if your work is more geared towards Chrome and Microsoft Office’s suite of products, the InBook is able to deliver reasonably good performance. While running 20-odd tabs and multiple applications simultaneously on the machine might not be the best idea, you can manage a few windows for side-by-side work.
The 2W speakers placed on the bottom don’t sound great and you should consider an external wired/wireless speaker for audio needs. The webcam up top is a 2MP shooter which can take 1080p videos and the quality is pretty decent as well. In terms of software, the InBook Y1 Plus comes pre-loaded with Windows 11, which is pretty much standard on all laptops these days. Finally, there is the battery which is a 50Whr cell that can be fast charged at 65W via the USB-C port. In my time using the laptop, I got up to five hours of screen-on time, which is above average at this price point.
Verdict
My final thoughts about the InBook Y1 Plus are mostly positive. Most companies sacrifice a lot, in terms of a holistic laptop experience, to make their offerings more budget-friendly. Infinix has cut the right corners and managed to deliver a machine suitable for most daily needs. Of course, if you are buying this laptop for anything even remotely graphical intensive, then this is not the right choice. However, for general use cases, moderate office work, and web browsing the InBook Y1 Plus is a sensible practical decision.
Editor’s rating: 4 / 5
Pros:
- Well built
- Affordable
- Backlit keyboard
- Ample ports
Cons:
- Speakers are subpar
- Can’t handle strenuous tasks
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