The Infinix HOT 30 has been marketed as a gaming device since it was introduced. In some Asian markets the packaging has even been designed with gaming graphics. Is this the real budget gaming device its touted to be? Let’s start with the price first.
The cost of the HOT 30 is KES 22,899 (around USD 173) This is a few thousands more than last year’s Infinix Note 12 which didn’t have a Full HD screen among other things. So, what kind of display and other gaming features does the HOT 30 have? Let’s find out in my review.
Full HD+ Display
The Infinix HOT 30 has a big screen measuring in at 6.78 inches or 172.2 mm. It is a Full HD+ LCD Screen with a resolution of 1080×2460 and has a rapid 90Hz refresh rate.
Not only is it big and with a high refresh rate, this display very bright even in sunny outdoor conditions. All these are specs perfect for a gaming device.
For best results, I would suggest setting the refresh rate settings to Auto Switch to get the best of both worlds. A low refresh rate when not needed will save on battery and a 90Hz refresh rate for smoother animations and gaming.
Gaming & Performance
The Infinix HOT 30 is powered by a Helio G88 processor. This is an octa-core processor with 2 cores being 2.0GHz Cortex-A75’s and the rest being 1.8GHz Cortex-A55’s. This is coupled with a Mali G52-MC2 GPU and 8 Gigabytes of RAM. All these specs are not required for taking photos or videos or consume TikTok’s and Instagram Reels in day-to-day use. These have clearly been chosen to make a budget gaming device.
Even the wallpaper and theme are designed to give you that gaming feeling with the Alvaro character from FreeFire game. The notification sounds are also from this game. Why this game didn’t come pre-installed on the phone is a mystery to me.
Up to 16GB RAM
Infinix is very proud of this feature, and it is proudly displayed on the packaging as well. At first glance you would think that the HOT 30 has 16GB’s of RAM but the additional RAM comes from the generous serving of internal storage. More on this as you read.
The official 8 Gigabytes of RAM can be extended up to 16GB by using the Memfusion feature. The phone comes out of the box with 8GB+5GB but the maximum is 8GB.
For a device to be regarded as a gaming device it must have enough storage to accommodate the big games that occupy a lot of space. The Infinix HOT 30 has 256GB ROM which is enough for a whole lot of games.
Gyroscope
For that price I mentioned at the beginning, you get all these specs and a phone with a gyroscope sensor. Thats why I termed this phone as the budget gaming king. For those who don’t understand what a gyroscope does then here is a very quick explanation.
The gyroscope sensor takes the phone movements and converts them to game inputs. You could consider this as a highly advanced tilt mechanism that is used in car racing games. The only difference here is that this input is used to control first person characters and make them faster than using the navigation icons on the screen.
Gaming on the Infinix HOT 30 with a gyroscope is much easier than gaming on the previous Infinix HOT 10 Play version which didn’t have a gyroscope.
Temperature
In my gaming sessions of various games, I didn’t feel any rise in temperature that would be considered as overheating. Even while gaming and charging at the same time, the temp rise was minimal, and didn’t impact the game being played.
What else is required in a gaming device apart form a capable processor, big RAM, big storage and a clear screen? A big battery and rapid charge times.
Battery and Charging
The 5000mAh battery is big enough to last at least 2 days without charging the phone. The included 33-watt charger fills up the phone almost halfway after about half an hour. This is the type of phone that you can charge to usable battery levels in a matter of minutes while making a snack.
Now Infinix claims that you can get the battery to 55% in only 30 minutes. To find if this is true, I conducted my own charging experiment video and here are the results.
| Time | Battery Percentage |
| 1 Minute | 2% |
| 5 Minutes | 6% |
| 10 Minutes | 15% |
| 15 Minutes | 23% |
| 20 Minutes | 30% |
| 25 Minutes | 38% |
| 30 Minutes | 46% |
| 40 Minutes | 60% |
| 50 Minutes | 74% |
| 1 Hour | 87% |
| 1 Hour 10 Minutes | 95% |
| 1 Hour 15 Minutes | 97% |
| 1 Hour 20 Minutes | 100% |
I didn’t get 55% in 30 minutes because Infinix conducted its own experiment in laboratory conditions. This is what Infinix has to say about this, and I copied this phrase exactly as they published it on their website. I also included a screenshot of this in my video above.
”The data comes from Infinix Labs. The actual use performance may vary slightly based on the test environment.”
Dual Speakers
The dual speakers on the HOT 30 deserve an honourable mention owing to how loud they are.
Camera
The dual Camera set up at the rear consists of a 50MP main camera and an AI lens not forgetting the bright Quad LED flash. The main camera can shoot videos at a maximum quality of 1440p or 2K at 30 frames per second. The front camera is an 8MP lens with dual flash and can also shoot 2K vides at 30fps.
Here are a few photo samples I took using the HOT 30. Overall, I can say that it takes decent photos, selfies and videos.
Conclusion
The Infinix HOT 30 is truly a budget gaming device. For that price you get a big Full HD+ display phone with a capable processor, up to 16GB RAM and a massive ROM of 256GB. If you were looking at the Infinix NOTE 12i then I recommend topping up a few coins to get the HOT 30.