Friends+Design
- Striking, sleek design, with rounded edges and a gradient color back - one of the better looking budget phones around
- Offers a good grip, and is relatively light-weight for the size
- Both fingerprint reader and face unlock work accurately and quickly
- With a large 6.5-inch screen, the phone is a little too big for one-hand usage
Display
- Nice display - packs a 6.52-inch HD+ (720x1600 pixels) screen with a 20:9 aspect ratio and 90.3 percent screen-to-body ratio - color output is decent, and sunlight legibility is good too - overall, this is one of the better displays you will see in this price segment
Software
- XOS UI is a decent Android skin, is smooth to use, and has a few useful features - like the dedicated smart panel (to the left of the home-screen for widgets and shortcuts), and Intelligence voice broadcast (can read out a lot of things for the user, like cricket scores, news and SMSes, as well as personal texts from various messaging apps)
- It does pack a lot of bloatware, though (and spammy notifications)
Performance
- Decent performance for day-to-day use with a Helio P22 SoC - similar to Snapdragon 625 (though gaming performance is pretty ordinary, as expected)
- In terms of overall performance though, the likes of Redmi 7 and Realme 3i fare better (even the lesser RAM variants) because of their faster processors
Camera
- Decent triple camera setup for the price (13MP primary + 2MP depth + Low Light Camera)
- The primary camera gives reasonably good shots in daylight - sharpness and details are decent - though consistency is an issue
- Selfies come out nicely too (but the beauty mode can make the pics look unreal, so it's best turned off)
Battery
- Excellent battery life with a 5000mAh battery - you should get a comfortable 2 days of use
- Decent charging speed (it's not 'fast charge' though)
Verdict
- The Hot 8 is an another reliable budget choice from Infinix offering a good specs/price ratio, allowing it to stand up to tough competition from Xiaomi and Realme - as long as performance is not a major concern, and you are not into gaming, it's worth considering
