Infinix Hot 60 5G+ review: performance & AI on a budget

Infinix has become synonymous with releasing feature-packed smartphones in the budget and mid-range space. The company’s primary focus has been on offering high-level performance, which it continues to deliver through the release of the Infinix Hot 60 5G+. Launched at a starting price of Rs 10,499 a couple of weeks ago, the handset comes equipped with the MediaTek Dimensity 7020 chipset and LPDDR5X RAM, aimed at providing smooth multitasking, a dedicated side button for triggering various actions, a 120Hz refresh rate supported display, and a suite of AI features.

To understand how well these features, along with other aspects of the phone, such as cameras, battery, design, and software, work, I daily drove the Infinix Note 60 5G+ for around one week to come up with a comprehensive review, which you can find below.

Verdict

The Infinix Hot 60 5G+ impresses with its display, performance, battery life and software, which is customisable to a good extent and packs several nifty AI features. However, when it comes to juicing up the battery, the device takes longer to charge than its competitors. Similarly, the single-speaker and camera night shots could’ve been improved.

Slim yet solid design

Infinix places a large emphasis on the sleekness of the Hot 60 in its marketing materials. The handset comes with a thickness of 7.8mm and is slightly slimmer than its rivals, such as the OPPO K13x, which measures 7.9mm. However, the OPPO handset is packed with a larger 6,000mAh battery, while the Infinix Hot 60 gets a 5,200mAh battery. As for the build, it’s completely constructed using polycarbonate and comes in four colours: Shadow Blue, Tundra Green, Caramel Glow, and Sleek Black.

We received the review unit of the Infinix Hot 60 in the Tundra Green shade. All the colour variants of the device come with a reflective matte gradient rear panel, while the vertical camera deco has a touch of orange placed around the width of the module. Although the deco appears to include three lenses, the handset actually ships with a dual camera setup. The third lens is an IR blaster to control home appliances.

The flat side frame is paired with rounded edges that help in holding the phone comfortably for extended periods. The device weighs 193g, and its weight distribution appears to be well-balanced. The volume and power buttons offer a tactile feel with sufficient spacing to prevent accidental presses of the wrong one. Then there’s an orange coloured ‘One-Tap’ button for summoning Folax AI (more on this later) with a distinct texture just below the power button.

Since the Infinix Hot 60 doesn’t carry an in-display fingerprint scanner, the power button integrates a scanner, which unlocks the device in an instant when placing the enrolled finger. The other authentication methods for unlocking the phone or locked apps include face unlock, pattern, numeric, and alphanumeric passwords.

Tall, colourful display

The Infinix Hot 60’s display measures 6.7 inches and features a 720 x 1600 pixel resolution (HD+). Just like other smartphones in its price class, the handset settles for an IPS LCD panel that can refresh at up to 120Hz in certain apps and scenarios. As for the display’s visual experience, it produces vibrant enough tones in the homescreen, images, and videos to the point you may not feel like you’re missing out on the punchiness of the colours.

Having previously reviewed the Moto G96 (review), which had a 1080p panel, I didn’t find the 720p display of the Infinix Hot 60 to be detailed. But then that is the case with most sub-Rs 12,000 phones on the market. Coming back to the refresh rate, although the phone does have 120Hz support, it’s limited to just three system apps: Settings, Phone, and Messages.

I confirmed this by enabling the “Show refresh rate” option from Developer Options, and the indicator never went above 90Hz anywhere in the software except in the apps mentioned above. On the other hand, competing phones like the OPPO K13x allowed me to run most system and third-party apps at 120Hz – also verified through the Show refresh rate setting. There’s no denying that a 120Hz refresh rate gives a better sense of smoothness when operating the display.

One aspect I liked about Infinix Hot 60’s display, in particular, is the addition of Always On Display (AOD). Although it’s not always on, staying on for only a brief period, you can briefly see the time, battery, and pending notifications by slightly moving or picking up the phone.

The Always On Display has its dedicated section within Settings, in which you can choose and customise your preferred AOD from tons of in-built options. All of them are well-designed and have a distinct neon style. Then there’s ‘Landscape Display’, which mimics Apple’s StandBy feature to display clock and widgets when the phone is charging and in landscape orientation.

Sitting right above the display panel is the earpiece speaker, along with a front LED flashlight. The call quality on the Infinix Hot 60 was acceptable, and so was the mic quality. Callers were loud, clear, and audible. With 700 nits of High Brightness value, the screen may not be legible in bright sunny days; however, it gets the job done indoors.

Dependable cameras

When it comes to optics, the Infinix Hot 60 sports a 50MP primary camera with an aperture of f/1.6 and a 77.3-degree field of view. Just like many smartphones in its price class, the handset lacks OIS. Upfront, there’s an 8MP selfie shooter with a f/2.0 aperture. Sitting right beside the earpiece speaker is an LED flashlight for capturing clear selfies in extremely low light conditions.

The rear and front cameras are capable of recording videos with up to 2K resolution at 30FPS, while 1080p recordings can be captured at 60FPS. The camera app offers numerous features that many users may find appealing, including dual video, vlog mode, pro mode, a sky shop for adding clouds, documents mode, and AIGC portrait, which enhances a pre-existing portrait with a person’s facial features.

As for the actual camera experience and output, the Infinix Hot 60 sometimes struggles in controlling the lighting and exposure in outdoor scenes. That said, the images have satisfactory details for the price. Similarly, the colours of outdoor shots adequately pop out, making them ideal for instant social media posts. 

Moving on, in low light, the primary camera doesn’t handle the flares well. However, the shots are usable unless they’re shot in an extremely dimly lit situation. Also, without using the ‘night mode’, the colours in the shots don’t appear realistic. In portraits, the handset creates a tasteful bokeh and has detailed edge detection, while the subject’s colour tends to appear dull in 1x portrait mode. Coming to selfies, the images turn out detailed in good lighting conditions, and the skin tones are rendered naturally.

Now, let’s check out how the Infinix Hot 60 fares in different scenarios compared to the OPPO K13x, which also retails for under Rs 12,000 in India.

Daylight

Initiating the comparison with a daylight shot, the OPPO K13x appears to have better details of the plants, trees, and the ground. The Infinix Hot 60, on the other hand, excels with superior dynamic range and exposure levels. As for colour accuracy and contrast levels, both handsets are equally matched. These smartphones produced shots that closely depict the actual scene.

Portrait

Coming to the portrait mode, both smartphones go for a different approach. The Infinix Hot 60 adds blueish tones to the sky, while the OPPO K13x is almost devoid of blue hues in the sky. If one is to be picked for rendering better skin tone and tone, it’d be OPPO. Similarly, the OPPO K13x’s shot produced likeable details, while the edge detection is impressive on the Infinix Hot 60.

Selfie

Right off the bat, the colour of the background appears to be better maintained on Infinix Hot 60’s image, and so is the dynamic range. The OPPO K13x excels in producing a detailed shot.

Low-light

In low light, although the OPPO K13x doesn’t offer a good balance of exposure in all parts of the image, it yields realistic colours and matches the actual scene. The handset also edges out the Infinix Hot 60 with superior exposure levels. Similarly, the OPPO K13x provides higher detail in the given low-light scene.

Night mode

With night mode enabled, the Infinix Hot 60’s shot leans more towards realism, but still fails to output the natural tones found on OPPO K13x’s image. Once again, the OPPO K13x delivers higher details and has lower overall exposure levels than the Infinix Hot 60.

Reliable day-to-day performance

The Infinix Hot 60 is powered by the 6nm-based MediaTek Dimensity 7020 octa-core processor, combined with LPDDR5X RAM. The handset comes in a single RAM and storage variant: 6GB + 128GB. The storage is user-expandable up to 2TB using the hybrid SIM card slot. The processor delivers a maximum clock speed of 2.2GHz and features the IMG BXM-8-256 GPU. It also supports 5G connectivity to gain fast internet speeds. Compared to its rivals, such as the OPPO K13x and iQOO Z10 Lite, both get the Dimensity 6300 chipset.

In terms of benchmarks, the MediaTek Dimensity 7020 SoC present on the Infinix Hot 60 consistently delivers higher scores in AnTuTu, Geekbench single-core, and Geekbench multi-core tests compared to the OPPO K13x. Higher benchmark numbers indicate a better raw performance, which results in faster day-to-day operations when opening apps, multitasking, and loading heavy games.

In real-world usage, the Infinix Hot 60 didn’t show any significant signs of slowdowns or stutters. From opening and closing multiple apps at a time, multitasking, or using the phone while playing music via Bluetooth, this sub-Rs 11,000 phone fared well. The LPDDR5X RAM, along with the optimisations made in XOS 15, seems to be doing the trick.

As covered in the display section, the display mostly refreshes at 90Hz, which doesn’t make the operations as smooth as the OPPO K13x with a 120Hz panel. Similarly, the Lava Storm Play, which I reviewed earlier, was also able to run most first and third-party apps at a 120Hz refresh rate. However, if you’re not into drawing comparisons, the Infinix Hot 60 performance won’t bother you much.

We evaluated the gaming performance of the Infinix Hot 60 by running several popular titles, including Real Racing 3, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI). The company claims the handset can run games at 90FPS; however, we could only run Real Racing 3 and Brawl Stars at 90FPS in our testing. Battle royale games such as BGMI and CODM were playable only at 40FPS and 60FPS, respectively.

Be that as it may, after playing Real Racing 3, CODM, and BGMI for 30 minutes each, the Infinix Hot 60 didn’t show any signs of overheating, indicating a high level of thermal efficiency. The handset’s thermals were well below 35 degrees Celsius during our gaming sessions. Also, in every game, the phone loses 10 percent of its battery life at max.

One thing worth mentioning is that the Infinix Hot 60 comes with a single bottom-firing speaker. As for its quality and experience of listening to music and playing games, it’s average at best. The speaker lacks bass and depth, producing a high-pitched sound that hampers the experience of listening to audio with prominent vocals.

Feature-loaded software

The smartphone comes pre-loaded with Android 15-based XOS 15, which is Infinix’s custom Android skin. Having used previous iterations of XOS, the new version felt more refined, polished, and structured. While the inspiration for the software design is reminiscent of other skins, the end product is something I enjoyed using during my time with the Infinix Hot 60.

XOS 15 strikes a good balance of features and customisation options, with AI features being the cherry on top. For starters, the software gets most of the basic features one would expect from a custom skin, such as App Lock, Smart Panel (sidebar), Floating Windows, Game Mode with bypass charging support, Screen Recorder which is limited to 720p, tons of screen off gestures, and Dynamic Bar – Infinix’s version of Dynamic Island.

The Dynamic Bar is triggered in various scenarios and apps, such as music apps, stopwatches, timers, screen recorders, charging, and even Google Maps. The bar enables better multitasking and allows for quick access to key information at a glance, eliminating the need to open the app. For customisation, XOS 15 bundles accent colour theming, homescreen app icon resizing, and a decent level of lockscreen customisation to change the clock style.

Furthermore, some tasteful additions in the software include built-in call recording (without any announcements) through the stock Phone app, DTS Sound integration with custom equaliser support, and FM Radio for jamming to your favourite radio stations. As for bloatware, the phone comes with Palm Store, which occasionally sends app recommendation notifications. Thankfully, the notifications can be turned off.

One-Tap Button and Infinix AI

The Infinix Hot 60 is backed by a suite of Infinix AI features, with the dedicated One-Tap Button on the right frame playing a major role. Long-pressing the side button summons Folax AI, an AI assistant that can answer complex queries, generate text, control phone settings by typing or speaking, come up with images & wallpapers, and much more.

I used Folax AI to generate images and initiate system-level actions such as starting a timer, and it did a pretty good job. The photos were detailed and on par with the prompt. You can also assign the One-Tap Button to open apps or trigger certain functions upon a double press. This feature made turning on the Flashlight much easier than turning on the display and selecting the toggle from the quick settings panel.

Now, coming to the AI package on offer, the Infinix Hot 60 integrates AI functionalities across many system apps. This includes Call Assistant for summarising calls, real-time translation, document summarisation, a writing assistant for rewriting, proofreading, and text generation, as well as features in third-party apps such as Keep Notes, AI Subtitles, and voice recording summaries. The smartphone also features the handy Circle to Search, which allows for quick access to information about on-screen content.

Good battery endurance, but slow charging

The Infinix Hot 60 comes with a modest 5,200mAh battery with 18W charging support. The charging adapter comes bundled in the phone’s box and is relatively compact. In our lab testing, the smartphone was left running various tasks in a consecutive order, such as scrolling through documents, editing videos, opening apps, and more, through PCMark. In this test, the Infinix Hot 60 lasted 12 hours and 33 minutes when draining its battery from 100 to 20 percent.

When it comes to day-to-day usage, the phone offered me screen-on time of 3 hours and 26 minutes with 53 percent battery left in the tank from a full charge. This usage included extensive Google Maps and GPS usage, web browsing, and clicking several pictures. As for the charging speeds, it’s a bit of a hassle. The Infinix Hot 60 took more than 2 hours for a full charge using the in-box 18W adapter, which is significantly higher than its competitors, like OPPO K13x. The OPPO smartphone comes with a larger 6,000mAh battery and also gets 45W charging support.

Interestingly, when charging the Infinix Hot 60 with the screen disabled, the front LED flashlight dimly glows and turns off on its own when the device is fully charged. This allows the user to know that the handset has completed charging.

Final Verdict

The Infinix Hot 60 5G+ has a few drawbacks. Notably, the single speaker lacks bass and can sound shrill, the charging speed is slower than many rivals at over two hours for a full top-up, and while the display supports 120Hz, many apps are limited to 90Hz. The primary camera can also struggle in night mode, though daylight shots and selfies are more than acceptable for the price.

That said, at Rs 10,499, the Hot 60 5G+ delivers a large and vibrant display, dependable performance, feature-rich software with plenty of AI tools and customisation options, and battery life that comfortably lasts a full day even with heavy use. For budget buyers who value these strengths, it stands out as a compelling choice in its segment.

Editor’s rating: 7.8/10

Reasons to buy:

• A tall LCD display that produces colourful tones suitable for a great multimedia experience on a budget.
• Reliable performance for day-to-day usage and playing popular gaming titles at standard graphics settings.
• Great battery endurance even with heavy usage involving GPS navigation.
• Software that is packed with nifty features, customisation options, and tons of AI functionalities.

Reasons not to buy:

• Significantly slower charging speeds compared to other phones in the segment.
• Single bottom-firing speaker lacks bass and compromises vocals.
• Night shots need improvement to produce images that are closer to reality.