The Infinix Hot 30 series has been available in the Kenyan market for the better part of the month of April after being launched on April 7.
The series includes the Hot 30, the Hot 30 Play and the Hot 30i. We got a chance to review the Hot 30 which retails at Ksh 22,899.
Here are our thoughts.
Exterior and dimensions
The phone measures 6.64 inches tall by 3.02 inches wide by 0.33 inches thick. It has a weight of 196 grams.
The Infinix Hot 30 has a monolithic glass front with a slender strip curved into the top edge for the phone’s earpiece. Below that is a punch hole that houses the 8-megapixel, wide-angle selfie camera.
The top edge of the Hot 30 is plain while the right edge has the volume rocker and the power button. The power button also doubles up as the side-mounted fingerprint sensor for securing the phone.
The bottom edge has the stereo speaker, the USB Type C charging port, the microphone for phone calls and the 3.5mm jack. This is used to connect a pair of headphones which act as the antenna for radio reception and for media playback.
The left edge has the SIM tray which houses slots for two nano SIM cards. A third slot enables internal memory expansion by way of a microSDXC card.
The back is made of plastic with a textured design underneath. It also has dual camera bumps with a third bump for the quad LED flash.
The exterior is a simple yet attractive layout that will certainly excite users with the colour variety (Racing Black, Surfing Green, Sonic White, Free Fire).
Screen and Camera
The screen is 6.78 inches in size which is about 85 per cent screen-to-body ratio. It has a resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels representing approximately 396 pixels per inch density for the screen. Additionally, the screen is an IPS LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and a base brightness of 500 nits. The brightness peaks out at 600 nits which is ideal for viewing even in brightly lit spaces such as outdoors on a sunny day.
The Infinix Hot 30 has a total of three cameras, the front-facing 8 megapixels selfie camera, and the dual 50 megapixels main camera at the back of the phone.
Both sets of cameras are capable of shooting video of up to 1080p at 30 frames per second. The main camera can additionally shoot up to 1440p at 30 frames per second as well.
Camera modes that are available with the Infinix Hot 30 include Film, Video, AI Camera, Beauty, Portrait and Super Night Mode. The latter especially utilizes the phone’s high dynamic range capability producing great photos in low-light situations.
Performance, Storage and Battery
The Infinix Hot 30 comes with an octacor processor with two of those being Cotex-A75 which max out at 2.0GHz. The remaining six are the Cotex-A55 which clocks 1.8GHz each. This makes for the speedy execution of tasks on the phone.
The chipset is a Mediatek Helio G88 while the GPU is a G52 MC2. This pairing is ideal for gaming which is one of the selling points of the Hot 30 series.
For storage, the Hot 30 comes with 256 gigabytes of read-only memory that is further expandable using a microSDXC. It comes with a random access memory allocation of 8 gigabytes and can be expanded up to 16 gigabytes. This is also essential for the smooth running of games as well as connectivity and browsing.
The pre-installed operating system is Android 13 paired with a custom XOS skin version 12.6. The custom skin borders of bloatware with the number of applications it comes with. Those can however be easily uninstalled or disabled.
The battery is a Li-Po 5000mAh non-removable power cell. It is coupled with a 33-watt fast charger that doesn’t heat up the battery during charging and can juice it up to about 50 per cent in about 30 minutes of charging.
That is a largely accurate rating though over time and with deterioration this cycle will take longer.
Communication Connectivity and Sensors
The phone connects via GSM/HSPA/LTE when on the cellular network. The Hot 30 also has dual-band Wi-Fi 802.1.1. Bluetooth, GPS, Near-Field-Communications and USB-Type C 2.0 are other communication options the Hot 30 comes with.
A side-mounted fingerprint sensor integrated into the power button keeps the content of the phone secure as well as applications with e-wallets. An accelerometer for changing between landscape and portrait orientation, a proximity sensor to switch off the screen when the phone is held to the ear during phone calls and a compass for positioning, round off the sensors on the device.
Verdict
For the price point and the associated features, the Infinix Hot 30 is a great purchase that has a great balance of work and play.
It doesn’t run on the best chipset, CPU, or GPU combination for gaming compared to other devices in the same category. But the difference in performance isn’t as noticeable.
It has great battery life with an acceptable recharge speed.
The screen is big enough for browsing and gaming and the dimensions allow users to handle the Hot 30 well either one-handed or with both hands.