Infinix Hot 10 Play Review – Get This If You Are Low On Budget

Infinix Hot 10 Play was released in the second half of January 2021 as a trimmed-down version of Infinix Hot 10. It is an entertainment-focused smartphone with a colossal display, a huge battery while other specifications are fairly basic for an entry-level smartphone. Priced at a much cheaper price tag, Infinix Hot 10 Play falls into the lap of those who are interested to buy a smartphone for Rs 8K or less although its topmost variant is priced at Rs 9K (details in the Pricing section).

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In any case, I have been using Infinix Hot 10 Play for a long time, and here’s what I have conferred about it including its performance, design, display, camera, and battery, and more in a hands-on review.

Infinix Hot 10 Play arrives with a 3GB+32GB variant priced in India at Rs 7,999/- while the higher 4GB+64GB storage at Rs 8,999/-. Available on Flipkart, get up to Rs 8,350/- off on availing discount via its exchange program. Get 10 per cent off on using the Bank of Baroda Mastercard debit card for the first-time transaction on Flipkart India. You can choose between 7° Purple, Aegean Blue, Mordani Green, and Obsidian Black colourways.

Before we talk in detail about the Infinix Hot 10 Play let’s see what the on-paper specs look like?

• Display: 17.32 cm (6.82 inch) HD+ IPS LCD Display
• Processor: Mediatek Helio G35
• Storage: 3GB/32GB, 4GB/64GB
• Software: XOS 7 based on Android 10
• Rear cameras: 13MP + Depth Sensor
• Front camera: 8MP
• Battery: 6000 mAh
• Weight: 207g
• Dimensions: 171.8 x 78 x 8.9 mm

Infinix Hot 10 Play sports a shiny matte-like glossy finish at the back that Infinix calls flow texture design. The back panel gives an illusion of some right angles and inverted ones that shine as the light reflects through them. The panel is actually polycarbonate but that hasn’t stopped Infinix from adding a glass-like feel to it.

It is brought to some fingerprints and smudges so beware. The rear panel has a rectangular camera bump with a dual rear camera. However, with four three lenses in the camera bump plus an LED flash, you will actually mistake it to have three cameras instead. There’s a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner just beside the camera bump.

At the front, you get a glass top but it is no Gorilla Glass. Instead, Infinix has used a glass called DragonTail. The display is huge, to be honest, and since Hot 10 Play is an entry-level smartphone, it is no surprise that there will be thick bezels around it. Perhaps, a waterdrop-shaped notch looks okay on it though since it doesn’t eat much of the screen real estate.

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The frame is plastic as well. You don’t get anything on top; the bottom side has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a micro USB port, and a primary mic. On the right, you get a power button and volume rocker; and finally, a triple SIM Card tray on the right that you can use for two SIMs and a memory card.

Hot 10 Play is considerably huge and the weight of 207 grams means you would need some time adapting time to the bulk. Once you get used to it, I don’t think the size and the weight would be a problem anymore.

Infinix Hot 10 Play sports a giant 6.82-inch IPS LCD panel with a 720 by 1640 pixels resolution and a 263 PPI density. The device has an advertised brightness of 430 nits. The display mounted on the phone can do 720p resolution only so even if you can watch YouTube at 1080p, it will have to scale down to 720p which is a bit disheartening. But at this price tag, I don’t have hopes that Hot 10 Play will be able to satisfy even those coming from midrange segments.

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Talking about the positives, the display is huge, to be honest. It’s just the resolution that takes a hit but the size does mean you can have a wholesome viewing experience. The bezels are considerably thick which is again something every phone in this price segment will have so that’s nothing to worry about. The waterdrop-shaped notch does look a bit outdated but luckily, it doesn’t eat into the amount of screen real estate you get on Infinix Hot 10 Play.

Viewing angles on Hot 10 Play are great with no noticeable colour shift. It isn’t an AMOLED so colours aren’t that rich and inky but IPS LCD isn’t that bad either especially when you are shelling out 9K INR on a smartphone so that’s not a deal-breaking.

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The display gets extremely bright at above 430 nits which makes it visible even under direct sunlight. I have used Infinix Hot 10 Play for a while and would not simply make a statement out of the blue. It is far brighter than the likes of Redmi 9A so you won’t have any issue using the phone under any lighting conditions.

Hot 10 Play from Infinix packs in an entry-level gaming-oriented chipset aka MediaTek Helio G35. It is an octa-core chipset produced on a 12nm node and has four high-performance cores and four power-efficient. Well, this chipset is available on the base 32GB+3GB and 64GB+4GB variant. However, Infinix Hot 10 Play is also available in Helio G25 SoC as well for its higher 32GB+2GB variant which isn’t available in India.

Infinix Hot 10 Play arrived with Helio G25 SoC on its launch outside India. It soon arrived with a more capable G35 SoC in India with two storage trims that bring eMMC 5.1 storage along with expandability via a dedicated memory card slot.

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Talking about the performance in real, Helio G35 SoC is far more capable than G25. It allows entry-level gaming with ease. Other tasks including watching movies, listening to songs, calling, browsing, texting and others are a piece of cake for Hot 10 Play. I mean you can even play some high-end titles like Asphalt 9 although if you tune into the lowest graphics settings available. If you don’t, be ready for a lagging interface as a result.

The Infinix Hot 10 Play comes with Android 10-powered XOS 7.0. Infinix should have included Android 11 which is the latest Android OS and gives better features, customizations, and more than the Android 10. In any case, you get some bloatware to cope up with.

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There’s a feature called Video Assist which is a feature that you can use to record screens, mute notifications, and listen to audio of a video in the background all while playing a video.

Infinix Hot 10 Play hosts a dual rear camera setup. This includes a 13MP primary snapper with f/1.8 aperture, AF, 1.12micron pixel size, and 1/3.1” sensor size along with a secondary depth camera. There’s an 8MP selfie shooter onboard with an f/2.0 aperture. As you can see, there’s just one camera at the front and one at the back, and the other is often referred to as a decorative sensor.

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Apparently, Infinix Hot 10 Play gets the same camera setup as its non-Play version minus the macro sensor. The primary 13MP snapper at the back is decent enough to give you good-quality shots in abundant lighting conditions. In fact, the snaps were surprisingly good for their price tag and that is something you will love too. Of course, if you crop or zoom in, the quality of the photos will degrade as you move forward since it is the only 13MP.

Indoor photos and those with shadows were subpar but usable. The lowlight photographs are unusable although it wildly based on the lighting conditions.

The other cam on-board is a depth sensor which is essentially an add-on that the primary cam uses for portrait shots. It is likely a 2MP snapper (as the company hasn’t described it). In any case, you can do portrait shots without needing a depth sensor.

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At the front, the 16MP snapper clicks stunning images with decent image quality and detail retention. Although the skin was smoothened in the shots, the overall quality of the shots was good and on par with the price tag that the phone arrives at.

The 6,000 mAh battery on Infinix Hot 10 Play is what makes it a trooper. It is the same as that I have seen with many entry-level phones including Xiaomi Redmi 9A. Of course, you get more than a day of battery life with ease. If I am not being too optimistic, you can drag the battery to over a day and a half with proper usage. What makes Hot 10 Play better is a feature called Power Marathon which essentially uses a software solution to extend battery capacity by 25 per cent.

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The charging speed is slow at 10W. This means you will technically have to tether the phone to the charger for about 3 hours to fill up the juice from flat to full. It isn’t much given the fact that Hot 10 Play is an entry-level smartphone so these are some of the trade-offs you will have to make anyway.

There’s a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner which is something you won’t get on most entry-level phones, however, Infinix chose to include it and that’s a good thing. I was able to tap and unlock the phone in a jiffy so you will enjoy using this feature. You get PIN and Pattern unlocking mechanisms as well.

Unfortunately, the phone lacks a bottom-firing loudspeaker, and instead, it relies on the front speaker on the earpiece to carry out the same function. It is loud if you aren’t in a huge room with many onlookers peeping into to watch the content being played. Infinix Hot 10s has a bottom-firing loudspeaker and it is not that loud so you can compare where the Hot 10 Play lies in the pecking order.

Infinix Hot 10 Play packs in micro USB 2.0 for data sharing and charging purposes. There’s Bluetooth v5.0 with LE and A2DP as well as dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac. There’s no NFC on-board Infinix Hot 10 Play. You get a compass, proximity, accelerometer, and rear-mounted fingerprint sensors on the device.

You get access to 4G Dual VoLTE so connecting to 4G networks using both the SIM cards isn’t a problem. I didn’t have any cellular connectivity issues when testing the phone although going into the basement would weaken the network strength a bit. Luckily, there’s Wi-Fi Calling feature on-board so you get crisp and clear call sessions when connected to Wi-Fi.

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Pros

• 6.82-inches HD+ display
• Large 6000 mAh battery
• Rear-mounted fingerprint sensor
• Face Unlock feature

Cons

• Entry-level average camera
• No fast charging support