TECH BREAK: Infinix Hot S3 takes photography, selfies to another level

In this competitive selfie market, Infinix, a brand from China-based Transsion Holdings, has launched the Hot S3 device that spots a massive 20-megapixel front camera.

If you like taking selfies, then the new Hot S3 is all you need. The 20 MP front camera has a dual LED flash and a 5.65-inch HD+ 18:9 display.

The phone, which was recently launched in Kenya, uses on-screen buttons and there is a small bezel below the display which has a metal-like finish. There is a 13-megapixel camera on the back with dual LED flash and a fingerprint sensor below it.

It has a 4000mAh built-in battery and it measures 153 x 72.85 x 8.4 mm and weighs 150 grammes. Even though it doesn’t have a metal body, the build quality is good. The phone doesn’t slip out of your hands easily, but it is recommended to use the clear case that comes in the box.

The camera interface is easy to use with toggles for flash and HDR on the left side along with different filters (Mono, Sepia and Aqua). On the right side it has the option to capture images in auto mode by default, beauty, video; and different modes such as panorama, night, time lapse and professional to adjust metering, exposure, shutter speed, ISO, white balance and focus.

Coming to the image quality. Daylight shots were decent and HDR shots were better. Macro shots were good and focus is fast. Low-light shots with flash produces decent images. The 20-megapixel front camera is pretty good and captures details. There is also a portrait mode that blurs the background using software, but the edges look weird.

The phone records videos at a maximum resolution of 1080p resolution at 30 fps (frames per second). Video quality is decent.

Even though it comes with time-lapse, it doesn’t have slow motion video recording.

OPTIONS

The phone runs on Android 8.0 (Oreo) with custom XOS Hummingbird V3.0 UI on top. XOS Launcher version has a customisable quick settings toggle, custom home screen that lets you adjust icon size, desktop grid and more.

There are also a lot of gestures and smart motion options such as tap to wake; quick start to start the device by making gestures with your finger over the screen; wave to unlock the phone; and turn the phone to put a call on silent.

Out of 3GB of RAM you get 2.85GB RAM, out of which 1.4GB RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. Out of 32GB of storage you get about 23GB of usable storage.

It has a custom music player app and also has FM Radio with recording and FM Alarm option. Loudspeaker output is good and clear even in full volume. Since the loudspeaker is present on the bottom part of the phone, audio doesn’t get muffled when you are placing the phone on a flat surface.

It has 4G support with support and has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and USB OTG support.

The phone is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 430 Mobile Platform with four ARM Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.2 GHz per core and other four at 1.5GHz per core. The performance is good without any lags and does not heat. Since the phone has a HD display, the SoC coupled with up to 4GB is more than enough to power the phone.

It comes with an impressive 4000mAh built-in battery that offers good battery life. On full charge, it can last you the whole day even with heavy use. With average use it easily lasts for two days.

You can enable standby intelligent power saving mode to extend the battery life when the battery is low. To save power, you can also free apps that are not used for long time.

The phone is currently retailing at Sh18,999.