Tecno Camon i review: The smartphone is high on performance with a good battery life

Price: Rs 8,990

Rating: ****

Specifications
1.3Ghz Mediatek MT6735 quad core, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage (expandable up to 128GB, dedicated micro SD slot), 5.65-inch 18:9 IPS LCD (1440 x 720 pixels, 320dpi), 13MP f2.0 rear camera, 13MP f2.0 front camera, 3,050mAh battery, 134 grams.

Pros
Excellent and lightweight build, high-quality 720p 18:9 screen with slim bezels, dual SIM + dedicated memory expansion, good battery life, excellent camera with good low light abilities.

Cons
Slow fingerprint scanner, video recording capped at 720p, camera needs more modes (esp. for a camera focused device).

Hong Kong-based Transsion Holdings has big plans for India. Traditionally, they’ve been big in Africa. Here, they’re simultaneously going after different segments using sub-brands. After iTel, they’ve chosen to target offline and online separately: Tecno is the company’s premium offline-only brand while Infinix products are only sold online. The approach side-steps the issues of online sales eating into the sales of brick & mortar stores (and vice versa).

The Camon series is camera focused and the ‘i’ in the name stands for India. The company has a lofty aim of breaking into the top 5 smartphone brands in India by the end of 2018. The plan is to launch key products every two months and offer disruptive pricing and high value. One of the ways that Transsion is building confidence in this new brand is the ‘111’ promise. Anyone who buys a Tecno gets a 100-day replacement policy (in case of any major manufacturing defect), 1-time free screen replacement (in case of accidental breakage) and 1-month extra warranty (so a total of 13 months).

The phone itself feels great in the hand because of the slim (7.75mm) curved body and lightweight design. It almost looks like a metal unibody and even has faux antenna lines — but it in, in fact, polycarbonate. Thanks to the Full View screen, it has slim side bezels and on-screen buttons. The 720p screen itself is bright and offers good contrast and colour. Phone operation is fast and there is minimal bloatware. Tecno has HiOS running atop Android 7.0 but it doesn’t feel sluggish. It has FM, file manager, voice recorder, themes, blocklist, freezer (move seldom used apps here) and app management. A few apps are pre-installed ( Facebook, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram) but they can be uninstalled. Overall HiOS is good but we would have also liked to see call recording and more screen off gestures.

Let’s talk about the camera in the Camon i because that is a main feature and the promise is that it will create ‘magic in any light’. It has a 13MP f2.0 rear camera with PDAF and quad LED flash. Up front is also a 13MP f2.0 camera with 80-degree field of view, screen flash and LED flash. The camera app is quick to start, quick to capture and focuses fast though you don’t have too many modes — just basic exposure, photo, video, beauty and panorama (left + right). You can apply a few filters and change photo resolution, but that’s it. The results hit well above this price bracket for sure. Get close enough to your subject and the wide f2.0 aperture will create some nice bokeh too — we weren’t expecting that for Rs 9k! The front camera offers a wide-angle selfie mode which works well. With a steady hand, you can also get some great results indoors.

Finally, the battery life is full day (8am to 10pm) and performance is good for basic use and multimedia. So, key promises fulfilled, the Camon i now needs to win some hearts, especially since the brand isn’t too well known. It’s the right device at a good price — bringing more premium features (the company’s first 18:9 display, better cameras, slim design and good battery) to lower price points. The only other device with an 18:9 screen that we would recommend is InFocus Vision 3. While the Vision 3 is cheaper (`6,999), has dual rear camera and fingerprint scanner, it has half the RAM and storage (2GB/16GB).