Infinix Hot 20 Play Review – Doesn’t Make Sense, Why?

Infinix has just launched its latest budget smartphone in India by the name Infinix Hot 20 Play. The phone offers good specs at a low price to entice the budget buyers. For starters, there’s a big 90Hz LCD display which is fueled by a massive 6000mAh battery to keep you going for days.

A MediaTek Helio G37 SoC powers the phone and handles day-to-day tasks decently. It packs a dual camera setup which delivers just okay-ish images. The phone supports 18W fast charging but provides only a 10W charger in the box, which is a bit disappointing.

So, is the Infinix Hot 20 Play worth the 9K price tag? Or are there better options in the market that you should go for? I’ll answer that and many more of your questions in this Infinix Hot 20 Play review.

The Infinix Hot 20 Play comes at a price of Rs. 8,999 in India. The phone is available in only one storage variant of 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage.

It comes in multiple colour options: Aurora Green, Luna Blue, Fantasy Purple and Racing Black. You can buy the phone online from Flipkart.

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The Infinix Hot 20 Play packs the following items inside the box:

• Handset
• Adaptor
• USB Type-C Cable
• TPU Case
• SIM Ejector Pin
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Card
• Xclub Card

Before we talk in detail about the Infinix Hot 20 Play, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.82 inches IPS LCD
• Chipset: MediaTek Helio G37
• RAM & ROM: 4GB RAM 64GB Storage
• Software: Android v12
• Rear camera: 13MP + AI lens
• Selfie camera: 8 MP
• Battery: 6000 mAh
• Weight: 209.6 grams
• Dimensions: 171 x 78 x 8.8 mm

The Infinix Hot 20 Play comes in a racing design back for the black colour variant I have. It’s available in three more colour options: Aurora Green, Luna Blue and Fantasy Purple. It has a plastic back, as expected in this price range, with a textured finish. This also means there are less scratches and no fingerprints. To be honest, it looks fairly decent for its price.

It’s a big phone, no doubt and a heavy one, weighing about 210 grams. A big reason behind this weight is the beefy battery packed inside the phone. However, I have to say that the weight distribution is done really well.

Coming to the back panel, you will see a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and a big rectangular camera island with a subtle Infinix branding on the bottom. One thing I would call out here is that the fingerprint scanner is placed somewhat on a little higher side. It takes a bit more effort to reach it.

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On the front, you see a punch hole cutout which is rare to see at this price as most of the phones in this price range come with a water-drop notch design. The in-hand feel of the phone is similar to what you would expect from an under 10K phone. Overall, Infinix Hot 20 Play looks cool and trendy for its price and offers decent build quality.

Talking about ports and button placement, the right side has the power button along with volume rockers. The left side just has the SIM card tray, while the top side is clean. The bottom side has the speaker grille, type-C port, primary mic and 3.5mm audio jack.

Infinix Hot 20 Play features a dual camera setup on the back. This includes a 13MP main camera and an AI Lens. On the front, you see an 8MP selfie camera housed inside the punch-hole cutout. So, how well do they perform?

The main camera takes good shots in proper lighting conditions. I took some shots in daylight and they came out to be decently sharp and detailed. The dynamic range was not wide and the colours were a bit faded.

The portrait mode was more of a hit or miss. Some shots were fine while some were not good at all. The edge detection was not done properly and sometimes it blurred around my hair and ears.

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Things get worse as the light drops. Low-light performance was straight away bad. The images turned out to be grainy and dull. The details and clarity were gone. There is no sort of dedicated night mode or any other mode to take better pictures at night.

Coming over to the front, the 8MP selfie camera took some nice shots in outdoor lighting. There was decent detailing and the colours were also looking fine. Low-light selfies were just bad, like the main camera. However, the front flash helps to throw in some light at night time to make the selfies usable.

Talking about video recording, the Infinix Hot 20 Play can record 1080p videos at 30fps from both the main and front cameras. Overall, the camera performance could have been. I would suggest you not to use the camera for taking shots in low light.

This Infinix Hot 20 Play review would be incomplete without talking about the main highlight of the phone – its battery. The phone packs a huge 6000mAh battery. It goes without saying that the battery backup of the phone is just great.

A casual user like me can easily get two days of battery life with this phone. Even if you are a heavy user or someone who sticks to your phone all day, you will still get one or even one and a half days of battery backup.

I got more than seven hours of screen on time, which is great. My usage involved some Instagram scrolling, playing games, taking pictures and watching YouTube. I am very impressed with the battery life of the Infinix Hot 20 Play.

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Then comes the charging part, which fails to impress me. Even though the phone supports 18W of fast charging, the phone comes with a 10W charger in the box. I understand that Infinix had to do some cost-cutting to keep the price low but still, a fast charger in the box would have been highly appreciated.

The standard 10W charger takes about three hours to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent. Three hours is a lot, but considering that the phone can run for two days straight, it might not be a deal breaker.

The Infinix Hot 20 Play features an HD+ 6.82 inches IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720 x 1640 pixels. The panel offers a refresh rate of 90Hz and a peak brightness of 500 nits. Talking about specs, it looks like a decent display for its price.

Starting with the brightness level, you will not face any issues while using the phone indoors. However, things change when you step outdoors. I struggled to use the phone under direct sunlight. It was hard to read and reply to texts on sunny days.

The display quality is just okay-ish. It’s a 720p display, so you don’t get that much level of detailing and crispness as you see on an FHD+ display. Nonetheless, it’s not bad. The colours were vibrant and the viewing angles were fine as well.

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I watched a couple of videos on YouTube and my experience was decent. The bezels are thin on all sides except the bottom chin, which is a bit wide. Do not forget the 90Hz refresh rate. It is supposed to offer a smooth display user experience; however the whole UI is laggy (more on that later) and you can’t seem to really take advantage of that 90Hz refresh rate.

Overall, it’s a decent display but definitely not the best display in this price range. I wish Infinix should have offered an FHD+ resolution instead of going for a high refresh rate. If you are buying a phone for multimedia usage, you can skip this phone without thinking much.

The Infinix Hot 20 Play is powered by the MediaTek Helio G37 chipset which is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It also comes with a Virtual Memory Expansion feature which is named as MemFusion. This feature will add another 3GB of RAM using the internal storage.

All this extra RAM is just a gimmick, so don’t go on that. The day to day performance of this phone is NOT smooth. Even scrolling through the UI feels laggy and sluggish. The app takes forever to open up and just forget about multitasking.

Even after having 4GB RAM, the phone struggles to keep a few apps running in the background. I don’t know why Infinix added a 90Hz display when the UI is so laggy to even give an experience of 60Hz.

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If we talk about gaming, Infinix Hot 20 Play is not the phone you would want to play games on. By saying this, I don’t mean it cannot run any games. I mean that you won’t be able to enjoy heavy games like CoD Mobile and Asphalt 9, even at low settings.

Yes, you can do casual gaming on it, like playing Subway Surfers, Candy Crush and similar games. Overall, Infinix Hot 20 Play is far from being a well optimised phone. The phone lags every now and then and even day to day tasks get challenging. However, the majority of it can be fixed by a software update. So, I am hoping that Infinix will push an update soon and fixes all the UI lags.

The Infinix Hot 20 Play runs on XOS which is based on Android 12. The UI is simple to use and has a bunch of useful features like X Clone and Smart Panel. On the other hand, the phone comes packed with a bunch of pre-installed bloatware.

The Infinix Hot 20 Play comes with a single bottom-firing speaker. The audio quality is just fine, nothing great. It’s clear and loud but distorts at higher volume levels. Not to worry, you get a 3.5mm audio jack on the bottom. Just plug in your earphones and you are good to go.

Sadly, it’s a 4G phone and does not support 5G connectivity. Other connectivity options include: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

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Coming over to biometrics, the phone comes with a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. The scanner is quick and responsive. It’s not the fastest sensor I have used but it does the job. I just wish the placement of the fingerprint scanner was a bit lower for easier reach.