THE Infinix brand recently made its debut on Malaysian soil with its Infinix Hot 20 budget smartphone.
Sporting a Mediatek Helio G85 chipset, the Infinix Hot 20 is said to bring budget smartphones to another level in terms of performance and efficiency.
HOW IT LOOKS
At the price of RM599, the Infinix Hot 20 is pretty light and weighs only 198g.
The review unit sports a Legend White colour, but you can always opt for other colours, such as Sonic Black, Tempo Blue, and Fantasy Purple.
I prefer mine the most as it suits the study feel and sleek design.
The top left corner of the phone houses vertically-stacked camera sensors that needed to be fitted with a phone casing to prevent them from getting scratched.
This is a much-needed addition for the back side of the smartphone considering that its glossy finish leaves fingerprints and dust easily. But thanks to the light shade, it doesn't give it away that conspicuously.
There are the volume rockers and power buttons on the right side, while the SIM tray is located on the left.
There are also the usual Type-C port, speaker grille, and surprisingly, an audio jack at the bottom for all the old-school kids out there.
With its 6.82-inch display, this phone is bigger than any other Android smartphone that I've reviewed so far, which is perfect for gaming and consuming content.
Despite its size, it does not tire my hands after long hours of usage and it certainly did not bulge out of my pockets whenever I slip it in.
DISPLAY AND PERFORMANCE
The smartphone sports a decent display, considering it being a less-than-RM1,000 smartphone.
The 6.82-inch FHD + LCD Display supports up to 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate, which gives me better responsiveness, smoother browsing, and speedy gaming controls.
Although the smoothness while browsing has improved from the 60Hz refresh rate option, it stuttered a smidge on Instagram and Facebook.
I could easily adjust the brightness when I use it under bright sunlight, but it's not necessarily the brightest given its blue-biassed tint.
Despite not using a Snapdragon processor that is known for its high performance and advanced features, the Mediatek Helio G85 chipset is just as great, especially for those who look for affordable devices without compromising performance.
The phone also comes with 6GB of RAM with an added 5GB of extended RAM for internal storage, which gives it 11GB of RAM. Thanks to that, browsing social media, switching between apps, doing some light gaming, and answering emails becomes faster.
After testing the phone's gaming performance with Asphalt 9 and PUBG, it turns out the Mediatek Helio G85 chipset does heat up a bit if you play it for 2 hours straight.
Mediatek chips are quite known to heat up easily, so I'm not surprised by the sudden transition.
Above all, the phone has great performance despite the chipset that they use. It's not the best chip, but it does have some perks that keep the phone running.
CAMERA
The phone features a 50MP camera with a depth sensor at the bottom, with an 8MP wide-angle camera that shoots decent shots for a phone of that price point.
The 50MP camera takes really great images without trying too hard on the exposure and saturation quality. The colours are vibrant and take on a natural hue, and the details are almost spot on apart from the minor blurriness for things in motion.
It took a few seconds for me to capture a photo with the Super Nightscape Camera, but the result was great nonetheless.
The shots had less image noise, and awesome details, and were bright enough for you to see the objects in the pics. But that is for a scenery that is accompanied by several lights.
Even in dimly-lit areas, the pictures taken had more clarity. There was less image noise and the subjects were more focused than I expected.
The portrait mode is great. The overall blurring effect was pretty consistent throughout the whole picture but it did engulf a petal on the left backside of the subject.
There are some areas where the effect is more overpowering than the other parts, but it did a good job of separating the subject from the background for the effect to take place.
VERDICT
At the price of RM599, the Infinix Hot 20 is a great gaming smartphone that won't break the bank if you're tight on a budget.
You'll be getting a decent phone that is practically great for daily use and won't cause you any issues in the long run.
So if you're aiming for a 'decent' gaming phone, the Infinix Hot 20 is definitely for you.
Verdict: 3/5
