Infinix has launched the Infinix Hot 10 Play a few days ago in the sub Rs. 9,000 price segments succeeding its Infinix Hot 9 Play, which was launched last year with the MediaTek Helio A22/25. The device is quite a decent offering from Infinix with a larger display and a massive 2-day battery. The killer pricing makes it a decent offering to grab, but is it worth it? Let’s find out in our comprehensive review of the Infinix Hot 10 Play.
Specifications Roundup
The Infinix Hot 10 Play is launched at a competitive price to compete with the Micromax IN 1B, the POCO C3, Redmi 9A, Realme C12 and Realme C21. The device features a 6.83-inch HD+ IPS LCD panel with a waterdrop-style notch that houses the phone’s 8MP selfie camera along with the peak brightness of 400 nits. Under the hood, it is powered by the MediaTek Helio G35 chipset along with an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU.
The device comes with a massive 6,000mAh battery that supports charging up to 10W. At the back, it sports a 13-megapixel main sensor along with a depth sensor. In the software department, it runs Android 10 with Infinix’s custom XOS 7 UI. It only comes in one variant, 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage which is priced at Rs.8,499. Now, let’s dig deep into the design and performance of the device.
Design and Display
The Infinix Hot 10 Play feels quite large in hand and but still feels comfortable to hold. The device features a 6.82-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 720×1640 pixels and a waterdrop-style notch. It’s an enormous display and the biggest we have seen in this segment. The display has a good amount of bezels which is quite natural for this price. The display is quite good at the price point and is perfect for media consumption.
The device weighs 207g which makes it quite heavy. The device also has a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner which is quite unseen in this segment. The power and volume buttons are located on the right side of the frame. The sim tray is located on the left with triple slots (2 x for SIM cards and 1 for micro-sd card). At the bottom, the device has a Micro-USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack and the primary microphone.
Infinix Hot 10 Play comes in four colour variants: Aegean Blue, Morandi Green, Obsidian Black, and Purple colour. The back panel is made of plastic with a glossy finish. The design is quite similar to other Infinix devices. Overall the design and build quality of Hot 10 Play is quite decent and for the price that the device comes at, we have nothing to complain. It’s a sturdily built device and there are no compromises made in terms of build materials and quality.
Performance
The Infinix Hot 10 Play is powered by the MediaTek Helio G35, which is also found on the Redmi 9A. The chipset has eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2.3GHz with an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU which is a decent offering from MediaTek.
The processor performs moderately in everyday tasks and surprisingly the Helio G35 performs quite well in the gaming department as well. We tried multiple high graphics-intensive gaming titles such as Call of Duty MObile, Free Fire and Asphalt 9 and all these worked flawlessly in medium graphics settings.
We also ran some benchmarking apps on the device and here are the results of Antutu and Geekbench.
Software
If we talk about the software, the Hot 10 Play runs Android 10 with Infinix’s custom XOS 7 UI. Infinix’s XOS 7 UI has plenty of customizations and features and Infinix has optimized the device quite well. There is a built-in Ultra power saving mode that can boost the battery life by limiting the performance of the device, this comes in handy when you are running low on charge and can’t find a power source to charge the device.
There is a dedicated theme store as well where you can download tons of themes, wallpapers, fonts and a lot more options to customize your device as per your liking.
To assist the gamers there’s also a dedicated gaming mode that when enabled boosts the performance of the device and also limits the notifications. This enables a distraction-free, immersive gaming experience. Along with all these features, there’s a social turbo mode that comes with some handy tools to power your social media conversations. And a smart assistant section from which you can enable gestures, smart panel and shortcuts.
All these add-on features on the XOS 7 are great but the thing that we didn’t like was that Infinix preloaded a few apps and games on the smartphone and some of them keep pushing notifications and we couldn’t find a way to uninstall the app but could be disabled.
Camera
The Infinix Hot 10 Play has a dual-camera setup with a 13-megapixel primary sensor and a depth sensor. At the front, it has an 8-megapixel camera and a selfie flash. The cameras are pretty decent for the price point.
The camera app is very minimal and doesn’t have too many features like the rest of the competition has to offer. The UI is quite simple and gets the job done without the bells and whistles that other OEMs like Xiaomi have to offer. There’s an AI Cam mode that is the default shooting mode on the device, along with this there is a Beauty mode, Bokeh Mode, AR Shot mode and Slow Motion Mode Video.
The Daylight shots from the primary rear camera were decent in bright daylight with decent dynamic range and colour saturation. The low light performance of the camera was quite average but that’s expected from all devices that are priced under 10k. If we talk about the videos, you can shoot videos up to 1080p resolution but the experience was decent.
Overall, the camera gets the job done for bright daylight photography and videography and things. If we ignore the low light performance the Hot 10 Play is quite a decent device for photography and at the price at which the device comes at you can’t ask for more.
Connectivity
The Infinix Hot 10 Play supports all standard connectivity features seen in this segment like Bluetooth 5.0, Dual 4G VoLTE as well as VoWiFi. The network reception was quite good and we didn’t face any network drop.
Battery life
The device comes with a large 6,000mAh Li-Po battery which can easily get you through 1.5-2. Thanks to the HD+ display and the Helio G35 chipset the device is a powerhouse. Also, activating the built-in Ultra-power mode at 15%, can get you through a day if it is minimally used. But the only downside is the 10W charging which is incredibly slow and takes 3 and a half hours to charge. We hope that we can see fast-charging solutions in future devices from Infinix.
Conclusion
The Infinix Hot 10 Play is quite a decent offering from Infinix. If you are looking for a device with a big display for online classes, a humongous battery and your budget is near about 9K, then the Hot 10 Play is the option to go for. Although there are a plethora of devices from Realme, Xiaomi and Micromax in the same price segment if a large display and a big battery that easily lasts for 3 days is your priority that this is one of the best under 10k device that you can buy right now.
Pros:
- Humongous 6000mAh Battery
- Large 6.82 inches Display
- Decent camera performance
- Excellent build quality
Cons:
- Infinix’s XOS needs to trim down a lot
- Slow charging
Disclaimer: This product was thoroughly tested by the editor, whose thoughts regarding the product are being portrayed in the article. The Author did not test the product himself, but, has been briefed regarding the experience of the Editor post usage.
