Infinix Hot 30 Play review

The Infinix Hot 30 Play is the middle-of-the-road child of the Infinix Hot 30 series. It sits between the Hot 30 we reviewed the other day and the Hot 30i, which is the entry-level member of the series.

As such, it has a few things going for it that make it a super value proposition to anyone looking for a budget smartphone in the Kenyan market. Yes yes, I know. The term “budget” is relative and is often misused in our space but you do agree that something that’s less than Kshs 20,000 is truly budget, don’t you? Especially if it looks as good as this Hot 30 Play that we’ve had in for review for over a month now.

The first thing that the Infinix Hot 30 Play has going for it is the price. The price is right. The Kshs 18,400 price tag it had at launch is a sweet spot for a capable affordable smartphone. Since our depreciating shilling makes that look like a lot, it’s just over USD 130. See? For that much, you’ll be hard-pressed to find something better from the competition. Sure, they exist but can they match up to the Hot 30 Play’s proposition?

The other thing that the Hot 30 Play has going for it is, well, being a member of the Hot 30 series. That means that it gets to draw as much inspiration as possible from the standard Hot 30 which sits at the head of the Hot 30 series table as the flagship device. It gets that design of the Hot 30 that we really loved and, overall, looks very good.

Its display, though a resolution lower than its standard sibling, is still fine to stare at for hours on end doing whatever you’d be doing on a phone for that long. It’s an HD panel but it looks crisp when you’re reading text in it. With a surprising peak 90Hz refresh rate, it is also very fluid when you’re interacting with it at that higher refresh rate. Since it has a bigger battery (6,000mAh) than the standard Hot 30, that also means that using the high refresh rate is the least of your worries as far as the overall endurance of the device is concerned. A bigger battery and just an HD panel are more than enough to make sure everything balances out just the way you’d expect.

And that takes me to the most impressive feature of the Hot 30 Play: the battery life. It’s fantastic. I regularly got more than two and a half days of battery life with relative ease. Two-day battery life is more than assured on the Infinix Hot 30 Play, making this an easy recommendation for anyone on a budget but still interested in getting as much as they can from a smartphone with more than decent endurance.

What some may regard as a downside – but which I don’t – is that it is rated for 18W fast charging. That, of course, is less than the 33W you get on the Hot 30 but, at this price point, do I care? After your second day of usage when that battery is on its last echo, just find sufficient time and plug it in. You should be good to go in 2 hours tops and that’s just fine.

Even better, Infinix still gives you the accessories to allow you to do this – others don’t. Heck, you’ll even get some earphones and a clear case in the box. I did not notice that there was no documentation, something we usually expect in the retail packaging of a device but, hey, other than fulfilling regulatory requirements, does anyone ever read those things? I’m also interested in knowing if anyone has ever “cashed out” the electronic currency (XClub “gold coin” note) that Infinix usually includes in phone boxes.

The subtlety in the packaging, however, doesn’t extend to the software which, as we have shared here many times in the past, remains largely bloated and does leave a sour taste to anyone who likes things a tad cleaner. Don’t get me wrong, everything looks clean when you’re setting up but that’s easily forgotten as you come face to face with the many pre-installed apps and services and, as you continue using the device, as those apps and services bombard your notification shade with countless notifications every few minutes. Given Infinix’s persistence on this front, it’s easy to argue that the people they target with their devices are okay with this so the rest of us that find them irksome are probably either in the minority or just not loud enough.

I have to say, however, that I like the software experience on the Hot 30 Play better than I do on the standard Hot 30. I was never onboard with the yellows on that XOS version. XOS, by itself, is already heavily customized to deliver on Infinix’s vision. Adding a colour shade and some sharp angles in the iconography and every other part of the user interface makes it overwhelming to minimalist pretenders like yours truly.

Now, the cameras…

This, as per all the marketing material on the Hot 30 series that you will encounter, is supposed to be the core. The anchor point of the series. The main selling point. Well, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the 16-megapixel main camera at the back. Of course, it’s less than what you get on the Hot 30 but, it gets the job done. You’ll have good enough snaps for sharing on social media in sufficient light conditions with acceptable colour reproduction, detail, sharpness and dynamic range.

At night, the results aren’t all the same. It’s a hit-and-miss situation with more leaning on the miss side of things than the hit. The front-facing 8-megapixel selfie camera is surprisingly good in sufficient lighting. Even its portrait mode will surprise you. Good job!

Everything runs smoothly on the Infinix Hot 30 Play courtesy of the 8GB RAM and the Helio G37 chipset from MediaTek. Infinix will be quick to tell you of the extra 8GB memory they’re matching to the aforementioned RAM for those moments when you need an extra boost and oomph in the performance but, don’t count on that. Technically, it’s usually significantly slower than the dedicated flash memory. But, it’s still there…

It’s my considered opinion that it would be nice if Infinix was very upfront about what it labels on its retail packaging with regards to this. The Hot 30 Play’s box, just like that of the Hot 30, can easily get you off-guard if you’re not keen enough. They’ve used a larger font summing up the RAM as being 16GB. Only if you’re keen on the fine print will you discover that this is an 8+8 generalization and not exactly the true situation. That’s misleading.

The low down

The Infinix Hot 30 Play is a good budget smartphone that you should definitely consider when looking at devices in the under Kshs 20,000 segment in Kenya. It looks good, performs well and lasts and lasts. It’s, all round, a very decent smartphone. If you find anything not to your taste then that’s why the Infinix Hot 30 exists.