Infinix HOT 10 PLAY Unboxing and Hands-on Review

The Hong Kong-based smartphone company, Infinix Mobile recently launched its upgraded version of the Infinix HOT 10 PLAY in the Philippines, it's now equipped with MediaTek Helio G35 chipset and increased 4GB RAM and 64GB of storage capacity.

We got our hands-on with the new upgraded version of Infinix HOT 10 PLAY and here's our unboxing and review.

Unboxing
It comes in a standard smartphone box with green and orange color at the front is Infinix branding with the model number and it also indicates the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage, at the back are the usual tech specs of the phone.

Inside the box are the usual contents that include the HOT 10 PLAY device, Type-C cable, 5V charging brick, hard plastic case, SIM pin, and paper materials.

There is also an XGold paper currently that can be used to join the Xclub and get a chance to win some prices, not really sure if this is applicable in the Philippines.

Design and Built
This phone looks really tall, it has a plastic body with a glossy surface that is smudge and fingerprint magnet, but can be easily wiped by a clean cloth. It has a textured design that moves when struck by light giving it a stylish look.

It comes in four colorways Aegean Blue, Morandi Green, Obsidian Black, and 7° purple. The one we got is the Obsidian Black. There are also dual rear cameras that can be easily mistaken as quad-camera since the 4th lens has the AI on it without the lens and the LED light occupies the 3rd lens, not really a good camera layout but it's rather practical. It also has a fingerprint sensor at the back.

On the right side are the power button and the volume rocker that has a nice tactile feel and is responsive so it looks good. While at the left side is the SIM slot at supports two nano-SIM with 4G mobile data connections and one microSD card slot for additional storage needs.

Going to the bottom are the standard connection which is the 3.5mm audio jack, micro-USB port (a bit disappointed on this since a Type-C is a much better choice), and a microphone, no loudspeaker here, I will get to that later.

Display and Audio
Upfront the HOT 10 PLAY boast a large 6.82-inch HD+ IPS display with 720 x 1640px resolution and 263ppi. pixel density. It has a 90.66% screen-to-body ratio which is not bad for its size, with a 20.5:9 aspect ratio which is great for landscape viewing.

At the notch is the selfie camera and the loudspeaker, that's right this device has a front-facing speaker which makes it a bit louder. In terms of audio quality, it's not stereo but good enough for listening, for a better audio experience it's better to use wired earphones or wireless ones for a better experience.

In terms of bezels, it has very minimal bezels around the screen except at the bottom where it's a bit thick but not intrusive. The screen produces nice color but nothing special, it does feature Adaptive brightness, and Eye Care, and it also supports dark mode system-wide.

With its massive display and 20.5:9 aspect ratio, it's a great device for consuming videos, especially if you love watching cat videos on YouTube. It's also great for playing games since you get to have more views with its large screen.

Performance
This new HOT 10 PLAY is now powered by MediaTek Helio G35 Octa-core chipset with peak speeds of 2.3GHz. Its GPU, an IMG PowerVR GE8320, operates up to a speedy 680MHz. It also comes with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage capacity and packs a massive 5,000mAh battery.

The MediaTek Helio G35 enables gaming smartphones with the benefits of HyperEngine technology, providing smooth performance, enhanced power efficiency, and reliable, low-latency connections. With this hardware combination, the HOT 10 PLAY is a good mobile gaming device.

Infinix HOT 10 PLAY performance on benchmark apps

AnTuTu: 106,264
GFXBench : 14fps (ES 3.1 onscreen)
Geekbench 3: 569 Single-core / 1419 Multi-core

In terms of gaming performance, casual games will run great but graphics-intensive games will run on low settings. Just like Call of Duty Mobile, it can only run on Low graphics quality but it can handle a high frame rate. The gameplay is good not smooth but still enjoyable. Mario Kart Tour game runs well with nice gameplay, while Alpahalt 9 seems to suffer frame drops and some lag during actions.

The HOT 10 PLAY is still a good mobile gaming device, but with its limited RAM and GPU it can only handle some popular games, but still, CODM runs well and we're happy with its performance.

It also supports face-unlock using the front-facing camera, it can unlock the phone quickly just as fast as using the fingerprint scanner.

XOS 7.0
Out of the box it runs on Android 10 with an XOS 7.0 system customized by Infinix. The IU is simple and it has a default square type of icons, it also supports an app drawer by default.

Some of the features of XOS 7.0 are Split Screen, Image Compressor, Power Boost, and Social Turbo. It also comes with some pre-installed apps such as Facebook, and other OSX apps and tools.

It's not smooth when flipping between windows but it is responsive, also launching apps is quick, and it's capable of multitasking but it seems it's limited to only up to 9 apps running in the background.

Cameras
For the cameras, it sports a dual-camera sensor at the back with a 13-megapixel main sensor with an AI lens. While at the front it comes with an 8-megapixel selfie camera.

The camera app supports different shooting modes such as Slow-motion, video, AI cam (photo), beauty, bokeh, and AR Shot that offer a lot of cool AR animations which is great when taking a selfie.

In terms of picture quality, when used during daylight it can capture nice images with good details and sharpness and is Instagram-worthy. But pictures taken in low-light places suffer from blur to pixelated quality, so it's best to use the LED flash to get a better image.

The AI Portrait does a good job of blurring the background and enhances the focus of every picture in the best way possible.

For videos, the main and front cameras are capable of recording 1080p videos. This is good enough since it also has limited internal storage capacity.

Battery Life
With a large display, it also comes with a large battery, this phone is packed with a 6,000mAh battery massive battery. Infinix claims it can have 55.7 days of standby, 155Hrs music playback, 53.4Hrs calling, and 13.8Hrs playing games using data straight from Infinix laboratory.

On a full charge, the HOT 10 PLAY can last for almost 2 days of use now that's a lot of screen time considering it has a large screen. Sadly charging the battery takes a long time, since it only comes with a 10W charger.

Infinix Hot 10 Play Specs

Android 10, XOS 7.0
6.82-inch HD+ IPS display, 1640 x 720 resolution, at 262ppi
2.0GHz MediaTek Helio G25 octa-core processor
Mali-G52 MC2 GPU
4GB RAM / 64GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD
13MP + AI lens rear cameras, LED flash
8MP selfie camera
Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, Face unlock
Headphone jack
Dual SIM, dual standby
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
Bluetooth
GPS
FM Radio
micro-USB
6,000mAh battery, 10W charging
Colors: Morandy Green, Aegean Blue, Obsidian Black, 7° Purple

Pros
Huge display
Sleek & stylish design
Nice selfie camera
Capable Chipset
Massive battery

Cons
HD+ only resolution
XOS 7.0 looks dull
Uses micro-USB port
No Fast Charge support
Rear camera can be improved

Verdict
For its price of ₱4,990 the Infinix HOT 10 PLAY, is already a good buy if you are looking for a smartphone under the ₱5K price-point. Its large display is great for multimedia and playing games. The cameras are also good for taking pictures in daylight with recording 1080p video recording and with overall good performance.

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