There’s no doubt that Infinix Mobility put its best in their new handset in the HOT-series, the Infinix HOT 8. Succeeding the HOT 7 the phone has been improved in design, speeds & power, upgrade in features among other when placed head-to-head with the Infinix HOT 7. Consumers can upgrade to this for better user experience given its fair price.
Having spent some time with the phone, we have to say that the phone is at its best, and therefore the next in-line will be much better seeing that the company is moving with the trends. Innovating, improving & adding new features to satisfy its customers at even an affordable price.
So what’s our review?
Infinix HOT 8 Design and Display
Unlike the HOT 7 where you had to slide down the back cover to access your sim and microSD card slots, the HOT 8 comes with the trays placed on side-left of the phone. Having a slide-off cover is no-longer a trend and smartphone manufacturers are doing away with it. On the right is the volume & power button, while at the bottom is the single speaker grill, USB port, and a 3.5mm earphone port.
At the back is the triple camera setup with 13MP (main) + 2MP (deep) + QVGA sensors, and a fingerprint mount. And the front has a water-notch that houses a 8MP sensor.
The phone has got clean unibody design and appears thick compared to its predecessor — this could be because of the huge 5000mAh battery. The reduced bezels even though the chin is still big, still gives a wide display best for reading, multimedia, among others.
Because of its design, its quite comfortable to hold. The phone has a poly-carbonate finish which feels sturdy.
The Infinix HOT 8 has an 720P IPS LCD display thus not supporting full HD. Meaning the videos you watch with go to a max of 720p resolution. Infinix should work on this as now phones are supporting up to 4K resolution.
The display gives accurate colors, fair contrast, dip blacks & white, and saturated colors — this gives a better viewing experience.
Under direct sunlight, the brightness seemed sufficient to comfortably read text and watch media. The display is also reflective, and we also found to be quite bright and interesting in outdoor conditions.
Overall, the display was a good improvement.
Infinix HOT 8 Software, Performance & Battery Life
The phone runs on Cheetah XOS v5.0.2 based on Android 9.0 (Pie). Comes with 2GB RAM, 32GB of internal storage which is expandable to up to 128GB. With Infinix’s partnership with Google, the phone comes with the ‘File App’ that gives you more storage. So you can save your media, files to the app to using your phone’s storage.
The performance was quite good or better compared to the HOT 7 one reason to why you should upgrade. It comes with Helio a22 – 12nm chipset which is faster than the predecessor’s 16nm. Playing heavy games, running background apps, made the phone slow. Playing games alone without background apps gave some lags but this is because to the games heavy usage as it can work best if run with small game usages.
The upgrade in the battery from 4,000mAh to 5,000mAh gives consumers more time of phone’s usage. When run out, the phone charges from 0-100% in 2hrs and 30mins and can last up to two days if used optimal.
Camera Performance
Won’t say much, but the phone comes with a total of four cameras, a selfie-camera and triple camera at the back. The phones produced quite good photos which can be made better in edit. In low light especially the front-camera, the results weren’t that good. So it’s best to use it in better light setting.
The rear camera gave much better results with the HDR mode turned on.
Security
The phone supports fingerprint lock & FaceID on top of the default PIN, Password and Pattern. Fingerprint supports up-to 5 mounts while the FaceID supports only one face. The fingerprint opens fast which is good, same goes for FaceID is good light conditions.
Verdict
The Infinix HOT 8 is a good handset from the company and is worth upgrade-able. With its new features for an affordable price UGX420,000, it is worth the shilling.
