INFINIX HOT S REVIEW:THE ICING ON INFINIX'S LOVELY CAKE
THE BAD:Meaty processor and screen puts a strain on the 'ample' 3000MAh battery,attracts fingerprints and scratches easily,no quick gestures,fingerprint sensor doesn't scan wet fingers(please don't try,the phone is not at all waterproof),high performance takes 10% of the battery in just 3 minutes of use.
THE BOTTOM LINE:Infinix has managed to put a good frosting on a very sweet cake,but will this frosting put off potential buyers(or eaters?). Find out in my full review(all this cake talk is making me hungry).
Infinix had this really good thing going for them. The HOT 3 and HOT 2(Africa's first Android One smartphone)sold like hot cakes(cake talk again),and the NOTE 2 was a massive boom with people(especially me. I remember begging my mom to get me one,but then...). Then they changed their game and decided to rub shoulders with the big boys(ie Samsung,Apple,Sony,Motorola,HTC,etc) with the HOT S and frankly,they don't hit the big boys very hard. If you want a big-boy-shoulder-rubbing-Infinix phone,check out my Infinix Zero 4 plus review here.But if you want a phone that is good enough to play heavy games like Injustice 2017 update(I'm not sharing the link unless you beg in the comments box)get a really nice depth of field if manual focus and proximity are used(seriously,the depth of field is great on the HOT S,but it'snot easy to get it as you have to quickly take the shot before it automatically refocuses the entire scene again;check out a pic of my new nike roshe runs. All I did was to use grayscale mode(found in the settings) and manual selective focus and I got this:
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| Ebuka's Nike roshe run black,with his poor keyboard in the background. |
Fresh and neat photo quality coming from the 13MP cell. The only downside is that in the picture above,the camera sort of made the shoes 'float' instead of lie on the rolled up carpet,giving it a somewhat fake look(a good fake look though)
NOTE:The picture above is copyright protected and cannot be recopied without my permission(I always give permissions,just ask instead of steal)
Anyway,I just realized that I used a lot of words to describe a phone(about 1000 of them;I kept count),so to the review proper:
DESIGN AND DISPLAY
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| Volume and power rockers to the right |
| on |
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| Sim and micro SD slot on the left(note that you can only use either 2 sims or one sim and an SD card) |
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| Guess the phone in the left! |
Infinix did a pretty good job with both the design,and the display. I got the gold variant and it's really beautiful and attractive. It's made completely out of airplane grade aluminium(1. I know a lot of people will doubt this ,but just "accidentally" drop the phone and see what happens. Plus it hardly picks up scratches,careless as I may be and 2. It's not completely crafted of aluminium;the top and bottom back panels are plastic to enhance reception and call quality.) which gives it a premium feel(it is premium,at N57500) and look. It almost looks like an iPhone(I said almost!) but this design is Infinix in itself. Metal back covers are great but they get hot easier than plastic ones since they're conductors, and it can really be unbearable to hold it while it's hot. But hot as it gets(the name is HOT S,so expect it) it cools down quickly and you don't even remember it got hot(the Note 3 cools down 2x faster according to Infinix,so imagine that). All in all,it's a good design.
The display is 5.2" 720p display. Some say they would have preferred a 1080p screen,but I disagree. First, it has only an "adequate" 3000mAh battery. Making the display 1080p will add double the sprain and kill the battery 2 times faster. What's the point of having a brighter screen if you can't enjoy it longer? Food for thought(Ebuka the wise....)
Anyway,at 283ppi,the screen is vibrant and color reproduction is surprisingly great,so are viewing angles(I may have to make another post entirely for this display,'cause I wasn't expecting such an awesome one for the price)It has absolutely no problem viewing under direct sunlight provided there are no smudges on your screen and it's at at least 30% bright.
I took the above picture at about 4:19 am today. Notice the great reproduction of colors and how bright the display is. Plus it has 320dpi. Super!
CAMERA
Usually,on this blog,if a camera is great,I run to that section immediately after the display section. And truly it's a masterpiece (at least the 13MP back cell is). The phone comes with a 13MP BSI(Back side illumination) autofocus camera with dual flash,just above the fingerprint sensor(more on that later)
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| Selfie camera works great too. |
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| The Nokia lumia 635 pic taken in the dark(review coming soon!) |
| It takes wonderful night shots with its flash,and it has this cool feature that makes the background black,making your photo stand out (note that it only works at night) |
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| This photo was taken at around 10pm. Notice the clarity of the bicycle and the great color reproduction. Also notice the background which is completely black to give a 'depth of fieldish look' Other photos I took are above this one. PERFORMANCE Sadly,this one comes with the outdated Mediatek MT6753 chipset with Mali T720MP3 GPU. But that doesn't stop it from performing optimally. It has 2GB RAM which,to me is sufficient for multitasking. It renders large and heavy graphic games well and there was no single lag or stutter whilst I banged away the latest Injustice: Gods among us game.
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All in all,it performs way over its price mark. It really does.
AUDIO AND CALL QUALITY
The phone blasts sound out through the mono speaker on the right(yes,the other is for mic) and sadly again,it's not awesome sound like the phantom 5 from Techno(I always thought that the HOT S will be like a mini Phantom 5,but boy! was I wrong)
The call quality is awesome,and video calls are crispy through that large 8MP cell up front. There were no distortions during video calls and voice calls ,and the recipient could hear me clearly and didn't complain about low sound pitch. Honestly,it's really good quality. The music app is normal,and offer some cool features like bass,tenor,etc.
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| Music app UI |
BATTERY LIFE
Sadly,yet again,a beautiful phone is spoiled by average battery life. It has a 3000 mAh battery with a quick charge feature. It can last a day oof regular use,but heavy users will have to have a plug nearby or carry a power bank around(God! I hate power banks). Thankfully,it has an ultra power saver to help you get those extra minutes before death of the battery. I think it triples the battery life by removing battery draining apps,magazine lockscreen,wallpapers,and leaves you with only 6 apps which are clock, calculator,contacts,phone,notepad and messages.
BENCHMARKS
It performed averagely in AnTuTu scoring 37000+ in it.
CONCLUSION
It's not bad,but let's say it's an Infinix phone that will satisfy every user's hand it touches,without a doubt. Though,there are some unticked boxes in it's performance,but it's just a minor setback. Plus,I got 3 updates in about 6 hours if use,which shows that Infinix cares. Two were to fix bugs,one was to bump the XOS UI v2.0 to v2.1.(I'll be doing an XOS review soon,so watch out!) My candid advice:if you want value for your hard earned money,buy thus one. But if otherwise,go for Tecno's over expensive for nothing phantom 6 plus(I assure you it will die on Android 6.0 even when Infinix rolls out Android 7.0 update,which they will). I rest my case.
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