One of the most important factors to consider when buying a phone is battery life. Your phone doesn’t do you any good when it’s dead especially when you are a heavy user and are not always near a wall socket. If you don’t always have the option to charge the phone during the day then a phone’s battery life takes centre stage.
Most phone brands claim their devices will offer an “all-day” battery life but very few live up to it. Thankfully, the Infinix Hot 8 features a 5000mAh battery you never have to worry about. Battery life is excellent and complements the rest of the phone’s features.
If you are one who really taxes your smartphone and can’t take the risk of it dying before your day ends, then the Infinix Hot 8 is the phone you’d want to pick if you don’t want to keep checking that battery percentage icon.
But first, let’s get the other specifications the Infinix Hot 8 4GLTE(our review unit) packs. The phone rocks a 6.5″ 720p screen in a 20:9 aspect ratio, Android 9 piE with XOS 5, runs on MediaTek 6761, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage. For cameras, you get get a triple setup: 13MP + 2MP depth sensor + dedicated low light sensor. There’s also an 8-megapixel shooter with f/2.0 aperture 81-degree field of view, 4P lens for selfies and video calling along with a front flash.
Google prepackaged their files app that helps free up space on your phone by intelligently recommending apps, spam, and duplicate files to remove so that your phone stays in tiptop shape. Files by Google not only helps keep your device organised but also doubles as a file transfer service that requires no internet.
What you get from the 5000mAh battery
On days where my usage was pretty moderate the Infinix, Hot 8 could give me up to 16 hours of on-screen time and push up to 2 and a half days. I could either be switching between multiple social media apps trying to catch up on memes and news of the day.
This could be interspaced with me playing very light mobile games. You could catch me playing Ninja Arashi and Mayan Jump while waiting in line at the Supermarket or just wasting my time away when my social media timelines were ‘dry’
At times, I would be editing reports and documents on the go and not worry about if I should be near a wall socket to juice up my phone.
On days where I would become a phone zombie and go all-in on some of my RAM-intense games like PUBG. Game mode that comes with the Infinix Hot 8 helps with performance and PUBG offers deep customization options. With its budget specs, I went with balanced graphics settings and medium frame rate to not have any performance issues and gameplay was relatively smooth.
With an hour of gameplay, you only end up using 9% of your charge.
An hour of listening to music during my lunch break only ended up consuming 4% of charge. I was streaming from Spotify and since it isn’t a graphics-intensive task, you can listen to music even when your battery is low on charge.
On my commute home, I like to catch up on new videos from my favourite YouTube channels. After an hour I was able to just use 13% of battery. Apart from the annoying ads, you will comfortably keep up with your favourite YouTubers throughout the day on your phone without constantly checking up the percentage icon.
The standby mode on the Infinix Hot 8 is excellent too. After calling it a night with some charge left, the battery went down by 2% by the time I was waking up.
Downside
The Infinix Hot 8 comes with a Micro-USB port and a slow charging power brick. It would have been welcome if Infinix slapped a Type-C port. The 10W charger juices up the phone slowly.
Also, the aggressive memory management is annoying, you could be streaming Spotify and get a call but when you resume, the phone doesn’t get back to Spotify and you’ll have to relaunch the app to continue bopping your head to Selena Gomez’s latest track.
You’ll have to charge the phone overnight as it takes up to two and a half hours to get it from 0% to 100%. If you’re those people who charge their phones when they wake up and leave the phone to juice up as you prepare yourself for the day, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Infinix could have made things better by using power delivery with at least 18 or 25w charging but I can’t really complain based on the phone’s price.
Final Thoughts
Considering the budget pricing of the Infinix Hot 8, I came away reasonably impressed – nothing beats a smartphone that can last through a hectic day at work.
The Infinix Hot 8 makes for an easy smartphone recommendation if you’re not always near a wall socket or a place you can charge your phone. If battery life is your main priority, then get this phone.
Our final review is coming up soon. Meanwhile, watch our unboxing video here.
Pricing and Availability
The 2GB RAM version of the HOT 8 (4G) goes for Ksh 10,699 while the Hot 8 Lite(3G) goes for Ksh 9,699 on Xpark(formerly Infinix Mall). On Jumia, the Infinix Hot 8 goes for Ksh 11,999.
