The New Infinix Hot 3 Review; Should You Buy It?

Have you bought your Infinix Hot 3?

Well Have you? Is the Infinix Hot 3 worthy of your time or money? Well today I will be reviewing the Infinix Hot 3 to help you make your decision.

The Infinix Hot 3 smartphone is the latest Infinix phone in the market, it succeeds the Infinix Hot2 on the Hot Series.

Price and Availability

The Infinix Hot 3 goes for Ksh7,899 or about 78USD. It’s available on Kilimall online shop and if you remember there was a #PimpMyHot3 promotion where the first hundred buyers would get to have their name or message engraved on the back cover.

Speaking of weight The Infinix Hot 3 is a very light phone. The first time I held it I thought its light because the battery was not inserted but even with the battery this is the lightest 5.5 Inch phone I have ever used. And that’s a very good thing because light things according to science receive less damage when dropped from a height.

Operating System and Performance

The Infinix Hot 3 is runs on Android Lollipop 5.1 customized to produce XUI. The phone itself however displays it as an “Android security patch level.” A 1.3Ghz quad core processor powers the Hot 3 with the help of 1GB RAM. With those specs I expected a lot of excessive heat problems but the Hot 3 has its surprises. Even with multiple apps open, the heat is not that much and its safe to say you can ignore it.

The good thing about XUI is that it has the system manager app. Clearing unused memory and cleaning cached trash is what it does best. Here are some screen shots of the same

Even when playing a somewhat heavy game, the temperature rise is not that high and lags are non existent. No wonder the Hot 3 comes with Asphalt Nitro Game. The HD screen really comes in handy playing such a game. It brings out the graphics and has smooth transition in between the car crashes and Nitro boosts.

Music and Entertainment

Just like the Hot 2, the Infinix Hot 3 has Google Music as the default music app. Its good but it’s not that great. But unlike before Google Music now has equalizer settings. I have seen better music apps plus the boom player is available on the play store for free (plus it does not have any advertisements). One user on the Infinix Forum agrees with me on that.

The headset is what you expect for that price, it works.

Camera

Indeed Infinix listened to its fans on the Hot 2 camera shortfalls because the camera is indeed now much better. The main camera is 8MP and can shoot some nice photos.

The back camera can also shoot videos in Full HD (1080p) and the audio is  also captured using a secondary mic below the main camera at the back. Check second photo above to see the mic opening. So when shooting videos while holding the Hot 3 in landscape mode blocking the main mic, you are sorted with the secondary mic. Each microphone records audio to a different channel and there is one more thing the dual mics do. You will see that below.

When it comes to videos it can shoot up to 1080p picture quality. That’s the quality that can fill a whole LED TV screen using original picture size settings.

The front camera is a 2MP camera and it shoots decent selfies even in low light thanks to the Flash.

Noise Canceling For Clear Conversations

The Two mic combo I spoke about earlier also helps during calls to lower background noise. It does so by capturing the noise and reproducing it as an out of phase signal to the speaker.  These two signals, the original noise and the reproduced out of phase sound cancel each other.  So calls become much more clearer.

Network And Slots

The Hot 3 is a 3G/2G device and it accepts Micro SIM cards. The internal storage is 16GB and it’s expandable to 32GB using a micro SD card.

The removable 3000mAh battery can last a full day of use but while using the 3G network I noticed that that time reduced. With a single charge during the day I prolonged the use to around 11pm.

Infinix Hot 3 Official Discussion Thread

At the official Infinix Hot 3 Discussion Page you can ask any question about the Infinix Hot 3 and get answers from the Infinix Staff and the XCLUB community!

Verdict

As a first time smartphone user or a seasoned android user, the Infinix Hot 3 will not disappoint. The advantages outweigh the little shortcoming it has. Some of these shortcomings can be solved by a simple uninstall or an app download.