04/26/2023
During the past couple of years, mobile gaming has taken for itself a large chunk in the gaming space as it became the preferred platform for a lot of users. There are different brands catering to this need and one of them is Infinix with its HOT 20S midrange phone that promises capable performance and a lengthy battery life.
Does it live up to these promises? We find out.
Design
While most gaming phones are on the bulky and hefty side, Infinix was able to make the HOT 20S lean a bit more towards the sleek side which is not really surprising as we’ve seen on the Infinix Zero X Pro and Infinix HOT 10S that we previously reviewed.
Related: Infinix Zero X Pro review: Premium specs for less!
The back panel has a glossy finish (hello smudges) but has this textured patterns underneath the outer layer. It does provide a nice look when light reflects off it and gives it that semi-premium look.
Its edges are cornered which could be easily felt when holding the device. The right side of the solidly built chassis houses the power/lock button in addition to the volume rocker and are both easy to reach in portrait usage.
This power/lock button also doubles as a fingerprint scanner which has been reliable to use and easily gives us access to the device with no fuss.
On the left side, it only features the SIM slot sitting alone at the upper edge of the device. Down below we have a USB-C port for charging and transferring files as well as a 3.5mm audio jack for wired connectivity of accessories and a speaker grille on the right-most part.
The phone is available in four color options: black, purple, white, and blue. Overall, the device isn’t too heavy but not too light either. It has a decent heft to it that makes it sit on the hands comfortably without the fear of accidentally slipping off from your grasp.
Having cornered edges also helped in securing the phone in your palms but if you’re a fan of smooth, curved edges, this might take some getting used to.
Display and multimedia
The Infinix Hot 20S comes with a large 6.78-inch IPS-TFT LCD display with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels. It features a 120Hz refresh rate which means scrolling and animations appear smoother.
It’s proven to be great for gaming as having a comfortable screen real estate does affect how one enjoys gameplay.
When talking about being immersive, the screen-to-body ratio of the phone is 90.5% — giving it a modern look and while bezels are somewhat noticeable, the entire display can still pull you into the game effectively. Colors are vibrant enough without going overboard and the allowable brightness is just right even while viewing content outdoors.
It only comes with a single down-firing speaker, though, which could leave you wanting more in the sound department when streaming videos or playing games. Thankfully, you can easily connect a pair of headphones via its audio jack.
Cameras
The Infinix Hot 20S has a triple-camera setup on the rear, consisting of a 50-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth camera.
Its main camera can take high-quality photos with good detail and accurate colors. There’s no ultra-wide camera here, only a macro sensor that could be useful for taking close-up shots of small objects, but has limited use, of course.
The depth camera helps to capture bokeh or portrait shots with a blurred background effect. But as with most depth sensors in this range, successfully cutting out subjects from the background could be hit-and-miss.
On the flip side, it comes with an 8-megapixel front camera that can take satisfactory selfies with beautification filters and can also be used decently for video calls.
Performance
The HOT 20S is powered by a 12nm MediaTek Helio G96 4G chipset and Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. If you’re not familiar, Helio G96 is a powerful and efficient processor that can handle most tasks with ease.
It’s also accompanied by 8GB RAM that can get up to 5GB additional memory and 128GB of storage — a generous amount of memory and storage for a midrange phone.
Running today’s popular games like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty, and Genshin Impact, the phone handled them all without disturbing lags as long as you settle for decent gaming settings, especially for Genshin Impact.
For Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, the phone’s high refresh rate comes into play and easily makes the gaming experience more enjoyable than running on standard 30fps.
Running Call of Duty: Mobile was also immersive on the HOT 20S, with decently precise input for effectively getting those headshots!
Being a gaming-focused smartphone, it has access to settings to improve gameplay and avoid distractions at the height of each match. From its Dar-link Ultimate Game Booster platform, you can tweak your settings depending on the demands of the game titles you’re playing.
The phone runs on XOS 12, which is based on Android 12. XOS 12 comes with a range of features and customization options, but it can be a bit heavy and may affect the phone’s performance in the long run. Of course, you can opt to keep customizations and widgets to a minimum so they don’t affect the device’s performance that much.
Battery
The Infinix Hot 20S has a large 5,000mAh battery that can easily last for a full day of usage. Even with long periods of gaming, its battery was still able to last, and rarely did we need to charge before the day ended.
The phone supports 18-watt USB-C charging, which is convenient considering the capacity of this smartphone. Although at 18W, topping up the device still lasted more than two hours of being plugged in.
If you’re looking for additional features like wireless charging, that’s not present here. But with its price, it’s not really something I would personally expect.
Price in the Philippines and final thoughts
Overall, the Infinix Hot 20S is a decent midrange smartphone with some impressive features. It has a large and immersive display, a powerful processor, and a generous amount of memory at up to 13GB and storage at 128GB.
The camera setup is good, but the macro camera is not very useful. Although in the battery department, we are simply satisfied when it comes to performance and its fast charging feature is a welcome addition considering its 5000mAh capacity.
If you are looking for a midrange phone with a large display, internals that do capable work, and a lasting battery setup, the Infinix Hot 20S is definitely worth considering its PhP 8,499 price tag.
