Full Reviews

Why the Infinix Hot 3 is the Best Priced Android Smartphone

This is not a full review. It is based on my first impressions. You can Buy from Jumia Kenya.

Update: Here’s the Full Review

The new Infinix Hot 3 goes for only Ksh. 7899. And Infinix have called it “the best priced Android Smartphone” and I think it is.

First if all here’s what you get at $78:

  • A 5.5 inch HD display
  • 3000mAh battery
  • 8MP Back camera, 2MP front camera both with flash
  • 1GB RAM
  • 16GB internal storage, Micro-SD card slot
  • 1.3GHz Quad-core processor
  • Android 5.1 Lollipop
  • OTG support

It is a beautifully designed, thin and very well done phone. It is very light on the hand, smooth to the touch and feels premium.

Infinix Hot 3

I’ve shown the phone to a couple of people and no one yet believes it goes for less than Ksh. 8000.

Here are a couple of things I think make it the best priced phone:

Design:

At cheap prices, phones tend to be bulky, ugly and poorly designed. This one isn’t. One can comfortably roll with this phone without anyone knowing it is this cheap. The slightly curved edges in the back make it all the more nice to look at, and easy to hold.

Value for money:

You get very good specifications at a very nice price. Though I wish there was a 2GB RAM model as the phone tends to lag a little at times. It is not a bad lag for someone who’ll be owning their first phone or moving from cheaper/older phones. Maybe a few software tweaks can solve this as an app can refuse to respond for like 5 seconds and then pick up automatically.

But for $78 this is seriously good especially when compared to its predecessor the Hot 2 which apart from its nice design had a lot of issues with performance and camera.

Cameras:

The cameras are good. No I didn’t expect them to be good and I am happy they are.

The front camera is 2MP with LED Flash. It captures good wide angle photos. The colours may appear a bit of on the phone’s display but when you view the pictures from a comp or another phone you appreciate the work done to make the camera that good.

The back camera is 8MP and I feel confident saying this camera beats the Wiko Slide 2’s 13MP camera. We are all sure it beats the Cubot Note S’ 8MP camera. It takes good photos. Seriously.

Here are some samples:

One:

Infinix Hot 3 Camera Sample 1

Two:

Infinix Hot 3 Camera sample 2

Three:

Infinix Hot 3 camera sample

It also shoots relatively good videos. I have a sample video you can check out on YouTube.

Battery:

A 3000mAh battery is big. It might sound too big for people who buy unnecessarily expensive phones. But to people who are used to Infinix phones, it might sound like a drawback. Were you expecting a 4000mAh battery?

Infinix has 3 main phone series:

  1. The HOT series – Always below Ksh. 8000 ($80)
  2. The NOTE series – Between 10k and 14k
  3. The ZERO series – Above Ksh. 18000 upto Ksh. 23,000

This is the first time the HOT series is getting a battery this big. And it lasts!

Yesterday from 62% to 17% I enjoyed 3hrs 5 minutes screen on time. And to kill it from 15% to 5% was a struggle. Then I looped a 15 minute video, switched on the flash light, put it on full brightness and it took 37 minutes to go off.

The battery is good.

User Interface:

A good user interface ideally should be self explanatory. XUI wins. It is simple, easy and fully customisable. One can change themes, fonts plus there’s a ton of wallpaper to choose from.

XUI Home Screen

There’s double tap to wake and double tap to switch off. The other gestures to wake certain apps also exist.

There’s also battery saving and ultra battery saving that gives you up to over 5hrs battery if you have 2% battery remaining.


There you go. I think this can sum up as a full review too, can it? I just wanted to highlight some things that are good about the device. I will keep using the device and do a comprehensive review in a few days time. This post is meant for everyone who wants to buy the phone soonest.

If you have anything you want to know about the phone, feel free to ask via Facebook, Twitter or e-mail.

The phone is exclusively available on Kilimall.co.ke.

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Phone Rating

A really decent phone at its price. Plus the cameras beat most of the phones between 10 and 18k.

User Rating: Be the first one !

12 Comments

      1. Lol. No it isn’t. I ordered for it anyway and i can’t wait for it to arrive. Longest 3 weeks of my life loading. ??

        My Huawei Honor 6 crashed 2 days ago after flashing Marshmallow beta ?

  1. nice first impressions review. the pricing is worth it the only problem is the 1gb ram which becomes an issue after using a phone for several weeks or months. worth my money if infinix launch the 2gb ram version in Kenya unlike the hot 2 2gb version that did not land on our shores. how does the screen quality compare to that of the infinix hot note and the zero 3 more so in terms of brightness and sunlight legibility?

    1. The Screen is not bad. It cannot however be compared to the Zero 3’s display which is superb! Get’s super bright and super dim too. You can use it outdoors even without having to put it at full brightness. One problem though is colours are sometimes a bit off. I don’t know why but the necessary saturation of colours isn’t there. It makes stuff dull at times and white can appear cream in certain lighting conditions.

      1. Hot3 of course, and not just for the camera but also for the XUI breakthrough. It’s proving pretty stable, available updates for taking care of the bugs. Not a bad thing

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