Infinix is beginning to gain its much needed grounds in the Nigerian and African mobile phone markets recently; before now,things were pretty Topsy-Turvy for new phone brands trying to break into the market,but then, this is not to stay like that for long,surely, its a very robust market and everyone is allowed to play however they deem fair. This device has given Infinix that presence it much craves as a mobile phone company in Nigerian phone marketplace, this is because Infinix Hot 3 is aimed at the lower range market sector which constitutes the bulk of the whole market, but ,Does Infinix Hot 3 stand true to its proclaimed reputation?

Rating: 3/5

For: great battery life,more interactive camera app,large display,font options

Against:lack of notification LEDs,laggy processor

Overview:
     At that moment of unboxing the Hot 3,one can't but feel the air of luxury around the device. Picking it up takes the feeling further,it feels so sleek and lightweight in hand yet doesn't look and feel as large as it really is. Having a dimension of 151×75×8 mm,it really is sleek and lightweight. It comes in a choice of colours;Grey,Gold, Silver, Pink and Blue, my review unit is Grey in colour. The device has a plastic and polycarbonate chassis, the polycarbonate part runs all the way around the sides of the device while it has a plastic removable cover at the back. Speaking of the back, there sits a removable 3000mAh battery with two micro-SIM slots and a memory card slot for expanding device storage right under the back cover, the back houses an 8MP camera module, a flash light, a microphone, the engraved phone's  brand, a speaker grille and the word “HOT". By the right hand side of the device, the volume rocker and the power button are rightly placed, for a right handed phone user like me, using those buttons would be pretty easy, but for left handers, you might need to awkwardly shift the device in your hands in order to appraise those buttons. Pressing those buttons doesn't feel premium, it has that “cheap click" to each strike, but, going by the fact that the device has low-range pricing, one is less inclined to complain. At the front of the device, there lies a 5.5 inch 720*1280 HD screen, above the screen accomodates an earpiece grille, a 2MP camera sensor, proximity sensor and a front-facing flash. One would find below the screen a familiar set of capacitive buttons, I've become used to seeing on-screen buttons on phones these days so this feels a little retro in 2016. Everything was fitted in the front in a very tidy way;the bezels are very minimal and proportionate, which is a plus for whatever premium reputation the phone possesses. With 5*5 inches screen size, the phone sits comfortably in the phablet zone,nevertheless, it feels comfortable holding it in one hand ; although, if you've got small fingers, two-handed phone use is a must. Everyday use of the phone is great,Infinix Hot 3 runs on Android 5.1 lollipop skinned with XUI, which means you can get the best of what Google has to offer and also have a customisable user interface. Video playback and Web browsing feels good thanks to the HD screen resolution, the options to change text fonts is also highly welcome and it's one of those things that I love about the phone. The subsequent sections of this review would reveal what Hot 3 is all about in details.

Essentials:
     A modern smartphone has to carry out some basic things before one can even think of buying it. Making calls, sending texts, browsing the Web, taking pictures are the basic requirements of  smartphones of this day; one might be tempted to think there can never be a smartphone that can't do all these things, wait until you see several substandard phones turning up in phone emporiums. Fortunately enough, Infinix Hot 3 is no substandard device. Call quality on the device is OK, whenever I place a call, the receiver had no problems hearing me, neither did I have difficulties hearing him. Text messaging is also fine, there's the option to change the messaging app to another suitable one (WhatsApp is not an  option, sadly), just so long you have those other options installed. Web browsing is with mixed feelings, Infinix Hot 3 comes with 2G and 3G connectivity, no 4G. Don't expect an “insanely fast" Internet connectivity, but, loading times for Web pages is okay although I experienced a few glitches when opening multiple tabs. Multitasking on Infinix Hot 3 is a little unsatisfactory, the phone acts up whenever two or more heavy apps are being multitasked, it's even worse with the 1GB variant (which was my review unit). Gaming is a little fair, the device has the Mali 400-MP2 Graphics card, even with all those tech babbles, I still experienced a drop in frame rate when playing titles like Subway Surfers and City Racing;these are just midweight titles. At such a low-range price (between 32000-40000 naira), I feel less inclined to complain about it, with the cost of production, some components just have to go. Camera would be discussed later in this review.

Battery life:
     Infinix Hot 3 comes with a 3000mAh battery pack, and according to the makers, this gives 230 hours on standby;some 9 odds days. In real everyday use, it's never going to stay that long without charging, there's no one who's going to buy this device for the sake of keeping it in a cool, dark room for 9 days. When fully charged by 8 am, I used to have 14% charge left by 12 midnight, most times;this is to say that, even with such hefty battery pack, it still needs charge by the end of everyday. We all have different phone use habits, which means the battery would fare depending on how often you use the phone. Everyday during the review, I used Whatsapp most of the time, had a go at my favorite game titles for a couple of hours, made calls and received mails occasionally;I was then left with 14% by midnight. Surprisingly, when I played my HD videos with all my push notifications coming in throughout the day, I had 25% charge left. When I leave the fully charged phone overnight, upon waking up, it must have eaten 18% of its battery life, even more surprising, the battery indicator readings are sometimes inaccurate. Charging this phone is a little slow, 15 minutes charge gives less than 4% battery life. Thankfully, Infinix Hot 3 comes with a Battery Saver and Ultra Power Saver, Battery Saver essentially closes all background apps and stops all sync, it also reduces interface animations. Ultra Power Saver saves battery even further, it reduces phone activities to the barest basics (Infinix Hot 2 doesn't have it, which is a plus for Hot 3), both work pretty well and they've saved me considerable amount of battery life.
  
Camera:
     Infinix Hot 3 comes fitted with an 8.3MP rear facing camera complete with flash, it’s capable of taking pictures with resolutions of up to 3840*2160 pixels and videos with resolutions of up to 1080*1920 pixels. It also has a front facing camera of 2.1MP which also complete with a flash, it’s capable of shooting 1920*1080 pixel photos and also capture QVGA videos. The front facing camera is great for video calls and also to take selfies even in the dark, thanks to the front facing flash. There is a dedicated camera app on the device which would help you use these camera sensors, the app itself is intuitive, clean and packed with functions. In the app, there is the option to change modes from photo mode to night mode, panorama, face beautification mode and video mode, there’s also an option to tweak the ISO settings, picture aspect ratio and many more. Pictures taken in the camera app are vibrant in color but, I dare say, can’t be compared to pictures taken with high-end cameras, pictures begin to lose details as soon as they are zoomed in, although, things looked a little better after installing Google Camera. The auto-focus capability is pretty OK, I never had problems focusing on my subjects. There’s the option to take pictures using gestures(which I do not know how to use) , geo-tagging, face and smile detection and a few others which would make anyone spend more time taking good pictures.

Verdict:
    Infinix Hot 3 is a great phone which sits pretty proud in the entry-level Nigerian mobile marketspace, it puts up a fair fight against its Android competitors. It's got a better camera app than its previous iteration, the Infinix Hot 2, which is one of the key factors favoring it, a bigger screen is also very welcome, people with large digits would agree with me. The font options are also great! Fonts can now be customized to personal taste. But then, Infinix Hot 3 is not all that premium quality it wants you to believe, screen size has been jacked up to 5.5 inches from 5 inches but screen resolution is still the same 720*1280 pixels, which is disappointing, even a 1080*1920 HD resolution on a 5*5 inch screen these days is a little retrospect. Infinix Hot 3 omitted the notification LED, and it's sorely missed by me, my Infinix Hot 2 had it and that's one of the reasons I became emotionally attached to it. In conclusion, Infinix Hot 3 is an entry-level device disguised as premium, if anything, it's going to do well, only in the entry-level.