This week alone I’ve met three random people who were using an Infinix smartphone, the first was my barber, and the other two were riders from FoodPanda and Grab. And all of them were actually planning to get an upgrade– and coincidentally all of them are eyeing the HOT 20S.
So when I told them I was reviewing one they were all eager to find out what I thought about it.
Last year, Transsion, the mother company behind Tecno Mobile and Infinix, became the second top smartphone brand in the country charting +89 percent growth and claim 18 percent of the local market.
Though I was unable to review their Note and Zero series, I did have the HOT 10S which turned out to be an impressive budget-gaming device.
This week we take a look at the HOT 20S, the latest iteration of the series which brings several upgrades but at a slightly higher price tag.
It’s the brand’s current best offering for gamers on a budget, boasting of a 120hz display, a MediaTek Helio G96 processor, and up to 13GB of RAM for just P8,499.
UNBOXING
The unit we have is the Infinix HOT 20S Free Fire Edition, which comes with a custom artwork sleeve featuring Kelly, four character customized wallpapers (Kelly, Moco, Hayato, and Kla) game-inspired icons, ringtones and notifications sound effects that is built into its customized XOS 12 UI.
The actual box is the same bright green one as its predecessor with the bold HOT 20S branding. Included in the package is your standard set of accessories such as a USB-C cable, 18w wall adaptor, and plastic case. A free pair of earphones or a Free-Fire themed case would have made it an even better package though.
The HOT 20S comes in four colors, Light-Rider White, Fantasy Purple, Tempo Blue and Sonic Black which is the one we have.
It has a shiny glass-like finish that makes its plastic back look more premium and a sunray-like pattern that is quite eye-catching.
The glossy finish does make it a fingerprint magnet and it will look quite messy unless you slap on that plastic case.
The rear camera setup features two large circular modules (one holding the 50-megapixel main camera) with a smaller circle in between them.
You’ll find the volume controls and the fingerprint scanner that doubles as a lock/power button on the right while hybrid SIM card slot is on the opposite side. The top is clean, while the bottom has the USB Type-C port, 3.5mm headphone jack, built-in microphone, and the main loudspeaker.
The phone is quite big measuring 168.65 x 76.75 x 8.47mm and weighs a hefty 202g so it might be a bit hard to use for those with smaller hands.
The design and build are quite good though I wish they’d bring the Neon variant here as well.
The HOT series got a lot of attention for offering a 90hz display, and Infinix further pushes the limits by making the HOT 20S the most affordable phone to have a 120hz display again another feature that will make a lot of gamers excited
The HOT 20S has a 6.78-inch display, FHD+ IPS display, with a 2460 x 1080 pixel resolution, 396 pixels per inch, that 120Hz refresh rate and a punch-hole for a cleaner look. The bezels are quite thin all around to maximize the screen space.
Also worth noting is that the earpiece on top works as a second loudspeaker for that stereo setup. The dual speakers are of decent quality and produce clear sound at a reasonable volume without any distortion, even at maximum level.
The large screen also makes it more immersive for gaming and watching movies and since it comes with Google’s Widevine L1 certification, you can stream HD-quality videos from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus.
If you are worried about battery life, you get the option of three refresh rates ranging from the standard 60Hz to the fastest 120Hz.
If there’s one thing I noticed about the display though, is that you can’t rely on auto brightness especially when using it outdoors so you have to manually adjust it for the proper brightness
The Infinix HOT 20S has a sharp 50-megapixel main camera and two 2-megapixel sensors. We wish Infinix just went with a dual-camera setup and made the latter ultra-wide, which could’ve been more useful. On the front, there’s an 8-megapixel selfie snapper.
For its cameras the HOT 20S is equipped with a 50-megapixel main camera and a pair of 2MP sensors for portrait and macro shots. It’s the same camera setup as its predecessor but based on our tests, Infinix definitely improved the camera performance especially in low light.
Still, I would have opted for a wide-angle lens instead of those two which are basically useless.
If this is your first time to use an Infinix phone you might be looking for the basic photo mode, well, here you get AICam which basically tries uses AI to enhance your photos to make it a bit sharper. The colors though still look a bit pale and washed out. You can shoot at up to 2K (1440p) resolution for videos but then again take note that there is no stabilization here so you might want to use a tripod or gimbal.
The HOT 20S has the same camera setup as its predecessor, which we don’t mind. The main reason for this is that Infinix did put in some effort to improve its camera performance. One of our complaints with the HOT series is that the cameras are often subpar–but that’s not the case with the HOT 20S.
The front-facing camera packs an 8-megapixel sensor for those selfies. Again photos come out okay for social media posting but the beautification mode here is so aggressive they might as well have called it “beatification” as it would make you look like one of those saints you see in church.
Here are a few sample photos taken using the Infinix HOT 20S
The Infinix HOT 20S is powered by a MediaTek Helio G96 octa-core processor that’s designed for gaming, a Mali-G52 GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage that’s expandable up to 1TB via the microSD card slot. The Helio G96 is proven chipset for budget gaming and so far it was able to run all of the games we installed on it very smoothly.
I do find it a bit weird though that despite the FreeFire co-branding, the game wasn’t pre-installed on the phone considering the amount of bloatware I had to uninstall. Like this app called ScooperNews which floods you with a lot of useless and annoying notifications.
The Infinix HOT 20S ships with the Android 12 with XOS 12. If you are getting the Free Fire edition, it probably means you are a fan of the game and wouldn’t mind the special colorful themes out of the box. But you can always opt to switch to the standard look and theme if you want a more relaxing vibe.
Looking around the settings I found the Special Function tab which gives you access to options such as lightning multi-window, MemFusion to virtually increase the memory up to 5GB, game mode, video assistant, kids mode, XClone for multi-account management and a few more.
For battery it has the now standard 5000mAH which should easily last you a day of gaming and moderate use. The 18watt charger is a bit slow and it takes more than two hours to fully charge the phone.
There you have it our initial impressions of the Infinix HOT 20S. Be sure to check out our full review soon on our column The Technivore on the Business Mirror!
