TECNO CAMON 16

64MP camera, big screen, battery, what more you can ask for?

After launching a lot of smartphones under its Camon series, Chinese smartphone brand Tecno, a subsidiary of Transsion Holding, has launched a new smartphone that may change the game the brand. The company has finally unveiled Tecno Camon 16 for the Indian market and it seems the phone has a lot of things to offer. There are few features equipped in the smartphone, which isn’t just new in the series but also in this price range that may redefine the mid-budget smartphone segment.

Priced at Rs 10,999,

Tecno Camon 16 arrives as the successor to the Camon 15, which was launched earlier this year in February. The latest launch is the most affordable smartphone in the country offering a 64MP camera and a punch-hole display. The device is a watered-down variant of the Tecno Camon 16 Premier which was recently introduced globally (but not in India).

The phone comes in a single 4GB RAM + 64GB storage configuration and was first available during Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale last month. It comes in two colour variants -Cloud White and Purist Blue.

The key highlights of the smartphone include quad rear camera setup, punch hole design, 5,000mah battery and more.

We reviewed the Cloud

White variant and here’s how it performed.

In the box

You will find a plastic phone case, which didn’t seem to be of cheap quality, along with a user manual and warranty document. There’s also a charger, a micro-usb cable and a Tecno Camon 16 smartphone.

Design

Tecno Camon 16 weighs around 207 grams and isn’t a very heavy phone irrespective of its screen size. If we talk about the placement of a mic, 3.5 mm jack, a micro-usb port and a speaker grill, they all are placed at the bottom edge. The placement of the SIM tray is on the top side of the phone and the company has added extra slot within the SIM tray for microsd card which I think is quite an impressive move. While the dual SIM tray is placed on the right edge, a power button along with volume toggles on the left edge. The top edge is blank, however a secondary microphone there wouldn’t have hurt. The back panel consists of a quad rear camera setup in a square box, which is slight bumpy along with a fingerprint sensor, which looks placed at the perfect place. And the back panel is made of polycarbonate. So, it will be good to protect it with a cover. If we talk about its front panel, you will find a punch-hole display, which looks amazingly beautiful. No doubt the phone is huge but it looks beautiful, perfectly designed and it can easily be handled singlehandedly.

Display

The phone comes with a 6.80inch HD+ Dot in display with 20.5:9 screen aspect ratio that offers wide viewing angles.

The touch works fine while performing any task. However, I find it to be a little slow but seeing the price point I believe that it can be ignored as it won’t make much difference. The screen appears to be perfect in case you are looking for a tablet to watch videos and movies. You will appreciate its large screen size. Talking about the brightness, it has 480 nits brightness, which is okay, as I found it a little difficulty in using the smartphone under direct sunlight. The screen wasn’t comfortably visible under direct sunlight. However, it’s not a big issue, as you will experience this in almost all affordable smartphones. The colour production on the screen is of top-notch quality and the screen offers immersive viewing experience.

Performance

Coming to its performance, Tecno Camon is powered by the Mediatek Helio G70

SOC processor, which is ideal for mainstream smartphone users and elite mobile gamers. The G70 incorporates a pair of powerful Arm Cortex-a75 CPUS operating up to 2GHZ, plus six Cortex-a55 CPUS in a single, octa-core cluster. It is a Hyper Engine Fast AI performer that is great for gaming and daily robust usage. We used the device for at least a week and played minimal games and found that the smartphone is good for browsing, watching videos and playing light games, and okay for high-end games and multitasking because of its entry-level processor. You can easily play non-graphicintensive games like Tetris, Subway Surfer, etc. We too didn’t find much lag while using the device. So, we can say the performance of the device is definitely more than decent overall. The Chipset is coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. You get an extra slot for micro-sd card but I feel, the company could have given at least 128GB internal storage, seeing the current competition. However,

that’s not really a big deal but it could have been more appealing for the consumers.

The CAMON 16 runs on HIOS 7.0 based on Android 10, which is loaded with new features like Video Caller ringtone, Smart Scanner, Auto Ear Pickup, Gesture Flashlight and Photo Compressor, altogether providing for a seamless, premium smartphone experience. The Ui of the phone is as usual. And one thing that you may dislike is that there is a lot of bloatware in the device but the good part is that you can delete those.

Other connectivity options on the Tecno Camon 16 include Wi-fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, GPS, and Bluetooth v5.00. Sensors on the phone include an ambient light sensor, compass/ magnetometer, proximity sensor and fingerprint sensor, which worked perfectly fine.

Cameras

In terms of rear cameras, the phone consists of a quadcamera setup with a 64MP primary lens, 2MP blurred depth of field lens, 2MP macro lens and an AI lens with Penta flash. And this is one of the very strong pros of this device as is it the most affordable 64MP camera till date. And pictures clicked from the primary camera came out really nice in daylight conditions with a good amount of detail in them. However, the rest of the cameras did an average job. The pictures clicked in the low-lit places were average too.

The camera has an Eye Auto Focus feature that allows the camera to automatically focus on the eyes of a subject. This feature is generally found on high-end smartphones as well as DSLR cameras and enables one to stabilize focus around the eyes and makes the portraits sharp. It also comes with a lot of modes such as Night Portrait, Macro, Body-shaping, 10x Zoom, etc or shoots perfect Slow-motion, video Bokeh or 2K QHD videos. It is also equipped with the world’s exclusive trademark TAIVOS (TECNO AI Vision Optimization Solution) technology that filters image noise and better optimizes photo and video output quality.

One thing that I really missed in this camera department is an ultra-wide sensor as many people love to take ultra-wide shots.

Talking about the front camera, it has a 16MP AI Selfie Camera with built-in Eye Autofocus technique and you will dual get dual flashlight here. There’s a Super Night Shot feature that lets you click beautiful pictures at night and professional video modes. We found the selfie camera pretty decent as the pictures came out from the selfie sensor were good. The Super Night Shot is definitely a catch as I too found it a feature that will surely enhance pictures clicked in the low lit places.

Battery

The CAMON 16 houses a 5,000mah battery and the company claim that it provides a standby time of 29 days, 34 hours of calling time, 16 hours web browsing, 22 hours video playback, 15 hours game playing and 180 hours music playback. On our usage, which included light games, web, video browsing, calling, 4G connectivity, it lasted very easily for a day and that is quite appreciable. But, what we didn’t like is that it doesn’t have a USB Type-c port, instead, it has a micro-usb port. The phone also comes with an 18W Fast Charging support enabling the device to charge the device fast. The company claims that it can get fully charged in approximately 2 hours. However, we found that it takes a little more time than that.

Conclusion

At this price point, the device has surely a lot of things to offer, be it 64MP camera, big screen, battery. However, there are a few things such as polycarbonate back, RAM options but that can be ignored keeping the price point in mind. The Tecno Camon 16 will compete against the likes of Realme and Redmi Note 9 in the sub-rs 12k price segment. And it can surely give a tough fight to them being the most affordable 64MP camera smartphone.n

vivek@mymobile.co.in