Gadgets

Infinix HOT11S NFC - budget gaming smartphone


Infinix started sales this weekits new budget gaming smartphone from the HOT line, model HOT 11S NFC. The smartphone has received many improvements compared to the previous version of the HOT 10S, while maintaining its price orientation. In this review, we will try to tell you in detail about all the pros and cons of a smartphone.

Specifications:
• Processor: Mediatek Helio G88, 8 cores, up to 2 GHz.
• Screen: 6.78 '' IPS LCD, FullHD + with a refresh rate of 90Hz
• Triple camera with 50MP main module and f / 1.6 aperture.
• Front camera: 8MP + flash
• Operating system: Android 11 + XOS 7.6
• Memory: 4 GB RAM + 64 GB built-in + separate microSD slot
• Battery: 5000 Li-pol with Power Marathon technology
• Networks: 2G + 3G + 4G (Band: 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,20,28,38,40,41)
• WiFi: b / g / n / ac 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz
• Sensors: gyroscope, compass, accelerometer, proximity sensor, light sensor, fingerprint scanner, GPS, Glonass, NFC (in the Russian version of the smartphone).
• Other: FM-radio, 3.5-jack for headphones, USB-C, stereo sound
• Dimensions: 168.9 X 77 X 8.82 mm


Completion, appearance
The smartphone is bundled as standard for the companyInfinix everything you need except for headphones. The kit always contains a charger, in this case 18 W with a USB-C connector, a protective film already glued to the screen, a high-quality transparent silicone case, a clip for the SIM card tray and various kinds of waste paper.

The tray in all the latest models of Infinix smartphones is triple and allows you to simultaneously place 2 SIM cards of the nano-SIM format and a MicroSD / XC memory card.


Hardware buttons are located on the right sidesmartphone. The on / off button also serves as a fingerprint scanner and, which is especially convenient, is located exactly in the middle. Anyone can definitely reach her.


On the bottom there is a USB-C connector for charging and connecting various gadgets (OTG), a microphone, one of the speakers and a 3.5mm jack for connecting headphones.

The second (stereo) speaker is combined with the spoken onespeaker. The previous model, unfortunately, did not have stereo sound. Both speakers are loud enough and not bad in quality. The only thing they lack is low frequencies.


Also at the top of the screen right in the frameproximity sensors, illumination and LED flash are located. Oddly enough, this flash can work half-heartedly and glows when the smartphone is charging, as well as work as a notification of incoming calls and messages / calls in WhatsApp. Why they did not make the possibility of notifications for all other applications is not clear. Hopefully, someday such a feature will be implemented.


The body of the smartphone is made using laser lithography technology, which gives an unusual visual effect to the device.

Screen / Cameras
Compared to the previous HOT model10S, which was released earlier this year, the screen lost very slightly in diagonal, but received a higher resolution - FHD + 1080 * 2460 pixels at 6.78 inches. The maximum brightness that a smartphone is capable of delivering is 500 nits. 60/90 Hz modes are supported. There are no complaints about color rendition, contrast and gamut - all the details of the picture are clearly visible on the screen.

Despite the diagonal, which tends to 7inches, the smartphone is very comfortable to hold in the hand and does not feel like a huge smartphone. Everything can be reached with one hand, but there is also a special function "One-hand mode", which makes this task even easier.

There is a cutout at the top center of the screen for8 megapixel camera. For such a price of a smartphone, you don't expect a miracle and, unfortunately, it does not happen - the camera is, as usual, with a fixed focus. In general, the photos are clear and good, but you must remember that you should always take pictures only with an outstretched hand.

The front LED can act as a flash for photos and a backlight for recording video or video calls.


At the back of the smartphone there is a block of three cameras - the main one with 50 megapixels and two modules of 2 megapixels each, as well as a quadruple LED flash.




The detail and quality of a photo for a smartphone isthe price category is rather excellent. In any case, when it comes to shooting indoors and outdoors with sufficient lighting, and in the evening the photos are of average quality, there is no need to wait for a miracle, although the software option "night photo" squeezes out everything possible from the camera.


Rich camera settings are available to allowautomatically retouch / enhance the picture, apply various animations (AR shooting), bokeh mode (for photos and videos), video effects for short videos, HDR.

By default, all cameras work in the proprietary AI mode, which automatically detects the scene and selects the optimal camera settings, but you can also set manual settings.

Performance
A fairly fresh chip has become the heart of the smartphone,which was announced this summer - MediaTek Helio G88. This is an 8-core processor built on a 12nm process technology. The maximum core frequency reaches 2 GHz. The graphics subsystem includes an ARM Mali-G52 MP2 Bifrost accelerator with a frequency of 1000 MHz. The platform provides support for wireless communication Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11ac, as well as satellite navigation systems GPS, GLONASS, Beidou and Galileo. There is a built-in LTE Cat.7 modem (download) and Cat.13 (download), LPDDR4x-1800 memory controller and eMMC 5.1 drive support.


In general, although the chip has become fresher thanwith the previous generation of the smartphone, but in the numbers of synthetic tests, the performance has remained practically unchanged. On the other hand, there is a screen with a higher resolution, which, most likely, all the forces and go away.


In the Antutu benchmark, the Infinix HOT 11S smartphonegains almost 200,000 points. This is not a lot and at the same time it is not important at all, because in applications the lack of power is not felt, and games, surprisingly, he knows how to pull well. As paradoxical as it may sound, even Genshin Impact can be played normally without severe frame drops.

I tried to record video from the smartphone screen while playing Genshin Impact, and only when video recording is turned on, frame drops and slowdowns begin.


Infinix installs on all its smartphonesspecialized software "Dar-Link", which allows you to give all the resources of the smartphone to the game, as well as many useful functions - like filtering notifications so that they do not pop up on top of the game and interfere with the game process, or, for example, blocking accidental clicks of the navigation buttons. There is also a useful option - restricting access to games for more than a certain time limit so that dependencies do not arise.

Or restricting access to games at a certain level of battery charge, in case the child's smartphone is not completely discharged and you can always get through to him.

In addition, you can, without stopping from the game, open a small pop-up window over, for example, with a browser, and there you can find a walkthrough or some other useful information.

Battery and autonomy
No matter how much battery you put in, there will always be little. Not to say that this smartphone has a weak autonomy, but it will be greatly influenced by the brightness level of the display.


Thus, the built-in 5000 mAh battery when using 100% screen brightness is able to provide autonomy to a smartphone in the form of 8 hours and 23 minutes.


And if you set the brightness to 50%, then the autonomy will be 13 hours 39 minutes.
On the other hand, there is Power Marathon, which allows, at the last 5% of the charge, to automatically send the smartphone to extreme economy mode, and stretch them for another couple of hours of use.

From the 18-watt complete charger, the smartphone is charged from 0 to 100% in 1 hour 58 minutes.

Operating system and software content
Infinix HOT 11S NFC runs on Android 11 andproprietary shell XOS 7.6. The functionality of the shell has not changed and has everything the same as in the previous generation - HOT 10S. The only thing I didn’t like was that the smartphone didn’t even ask me what I wanted to install from the additional software, but immediately started installing the entire “standard” set for Russia - “Gosulugi, MirPay, Maruya, Mail.ru, ICQ, Yandex browser, etc. , a total of 15 applications. " Almost all third-party or unnecessary software can be removed or frozen.

More screenshots of the interface


The XOS shell itself is very flexible and pleasant, with a huge number of subtle settings, gestures and additional smart panels.

The zero screen is made in the same way as on mostfamous smartphones - with widgets, news blocks, weather forecast and other information. If you don't need it, you can easily turn it off. There is already a built-in ability to turn on the flash with an incoming call and automatically record conversations from the line! You can choose both a static background and a video screen saver. There is even an option to automatically record WhatsApp calls and various video effects (beautifiers). You can generally close access to the network for all applications except WhatsApp.

Lock screens are also customized - on themseveral wallpapers with interesting quotes that are in rotation and seem to be updated, but in my memory for 2 years of owning a smartphone of this brand, I have never seen an update of these wallpapers.

There is a whole store with themes,which even change application icons to suit their style. They can be selected and downloaded from a huge number of those presented in the corporate service xTheme, and this section is very actively and daily filled.

The gallery has xHide services that allow you to reliablyhide photos and videos that will only be available to the owner, as well as the ability to create a collage or compress photos! Compresses perfectly, without changing the image resolution and without visual quality loss (the differences can be found only if you compare in detail the original with what happened after compression). As a result, frames of only 300-500 kb are obtained from 4-5 megabytes. A great way to free up space on your built-in storage.

From the nuances of the operating system, it is worth noting strong integration with the applications "Marathon Endurance", Phone Cloner, Carlcare and PhoneMaster.

If Phone Cloner and Carlcare are needed only 1 time,to transfer data from an old smartphone to a new one and to create an electronic warranty card to a smartphone, then the other 2 applications will have to look often. The "Marathon Endurance" application has moved the "battery" menu and, accordingly, all the autonomy settings, viewing the charge consumption of applications and modules. Phone Master already manages the free space of the smartphone, removes garbage and makes sure that applications are not launched without demand, or, on the contrary, are not unloaded from memory if they are added to the whitelist.

The icon became a great idea from the manufacturer."Freezer", dragging any of its applications onto it - it freezes without deleting data. A very convenient option that allows literally in 1 click to send into deep sleep little-used applications or applications that are a pity to delete, but there is no need for them at the moment.


findings
The result is a very attractive smartphone.with good cameras, a good screen, decent battery life and performance that allows you to play games comfortably. They did not forget about NFC, which for Russian users is almost the most important function in a smartphone.