Infinix has made a name for itself in the Indian market in the last one year with the smartphones such as Infinix Hot S3 and Infinix Zero 5. Earlier this year, it launched the Hot S3 smartphone with a 20MP selfie camera at Rs 8,999, and now, the company has come up with the Infinix Hot 6 Pro, which is an entry-level smartphone with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC on board. There isn't a single smartphone on the market under Rs 8,000, which offers a massive screen with good brightness levels, decent loudspeakers and of course, a big battery. The Hot 6 Pro, according to Infinix will solve these issues as it boasts a 5.99-inch display with 500nits of brightness and a massive 4000mAh battery backs it.
We have the Xiaomi Redmi 5 at Rs 7,999 with a 3300mAh battery and a much powerful Snapdragon 450 SoC, and the MOP of the Hot 6 Pro is also the same Rs 7,999. Infinix is calling the Hot 6 Pro as the 'The Video Pro,' because of the features mentioned above. Other key features on the smartphone include dual rear cameras, Android 8.0 Oreo and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner. I have been using the handset for four days now and here's what I think about the smartphone.
Firstly, the design of the Hot 6 Pro is in-line with various other budget smartphones releasing these days. It has an 18:9 display on the front, that doesn't mean to not have bezels on the front. The phone has a noticeable chin and the bezel above the display sports earpiece, front-facing camera and a proximity sensor. The phone is constructed out of the plastic, which again is an expected thing in the price range. On the rear side, we have the dual rear cameras, followed by a dual-tone LED flash. The back panel has a matte finish to it, which adds to a decent in-hand feel. However, it attracts smudges too. On the whole, the Hot 6 Pro isn't a head-turner in terms of design, but it's on par with other 18:9 display smartphones in this price range. The Hot 6 Pro will be made available in four colour options- Sandstone Back, Magic Gold, City Blue and Bordeaux Red. It measures 8.6mm in thickness and weighs 158 grams.
Moving onto the display part, Infinix is touting a lot about the massive 5.99-inch HD+ (720*1440 resolution) screen on the Hot 6 Pro because we haven't seen many devices with such screen size in this price range. The screen has a maximum brightness level of 500nits, and it has 1000:1 contrast ratio. In real life, the display looked alright with nice viewing angles and thanks to the new aspect ratio; we get a much better screen real estate. According to Infinix, the Hot 6 Pro has an 83.4% screen-to-body ratio. Infinix has also added an Eye Care mode to the software, which reduces colour, optimises brightness and blue light during night times.
Performance wise, the Infinix Hot 6 Pro is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 SoC, paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. There's a dedicated microSD card slot as well for storage expansion up to 128GB. The phone offers connectivity options such as 4G LTE, VoLTE, ViLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS and a micro USB port. The performance on the handset was acceptable and it's equal to other devices such as the Xiaomi Redmi 5A and the Tenor D, which are also powered by the same Snapdragon 425 SoC. The loudspeaker on the Hot 6 Pro is capable of producing sound output at 83dB. In real life, the sound output from the bottom-firing speaker is excellent and possibly the best one in the price range.
The device boots Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box with Infinix's custom skin XOS 3.2 on top. As we saw on the Infinix Hot S3, the XOS 3.2 skin is a heavily customised skin with numerous features such as Freezer mode, Theme Engine, Dual apps support and more. With the Hot 6 Pro, Infinix is rolling out some new features as well. Users can now transfer apps which are not being used regularly to a Freezer folder, and it helps in preventing apps from running in the background. The Gallery app now has functionalities such as beautify face, apply different filters and share directly to social media. The XTheme engine has a lot of themes including an Android P style theme too.
The phone offers Face Unlock functionality, which in my usage didn't work well, but it can be improved with a software update. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner gets the job done, but it's slow in unlocking the device when compared to the likes of the Redmi 5. The fingerprint scanner can also be mapped to performs actions such as click a photo, accept a voice call, start or stop call recording or dismiss the alarm.
As mentioned at the beginning, the Infinix Hot 6 Pro rocks dual cameras on the rear- a 13MP primary shooter with f/2.0 aperture works in tandem with a 2MP depth sensor. The phone has other functionalities such as PDAF, dual LED flash. The inbuilt camera app also comes with a Professional mode- an added advantage in this price range. Up front, Infinix has added a 5MP shooter which also has support for an LED flash. Both the front and rear cameras have features such as Portrait mode and beautify mode. We will talk more about the cameras on the Hot 6 Pro in our full review of the product.
Lastly, we have the battery. The Infinix Hot 6 Pro comes with a beefy 4000mAh battery, and during my four days of usage, the phone performed very well. I charged the device just twice during the four days, and the device had apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media apps. However, the standby time isn't up to the mark on the handset, which can be fixed with a software update. The phone lacks fast charging support, and the bundled charger gives an output of 5V 1.2A.
Overall, Infinix is aiming at the users looking for a big display & battery smartphone under Rs 8,000. The MOP of the handset is Rs 7,999, and at that price, it goes against the Xiaomi Redmi 5, which is very powerful than the Hot 6 Pro. Stay tuned for our full review of the product which will be up later this week.
