The Tecno Camon 15 is the newest handset in the Camon series, succeeding the Camon 12. And although it doesn’t pack more in upgrades as we might have anticipated, the phone still stands out and is worth buying. The phone falls in the mid-range smartphones but if the company had tweaked it more, it then would have qualified as a high-end smartphones. And honestly speaking, Camon series is one of the Tecno best line of phones that deserve the high-end tag.
Recap, TECNO Mobile partnered with MTN Uganda to unveil three Camon 15’s ; the Camon 15, Camon 15 Air, and Camon 15 Premier – priced at RRP of UGX688,000, UGX625,000 and UGX1,025,000 respectively. PC Tech Magazine we acquired the TECNO Camon 15 for hands-on and review and for the past two and half weeks, we admit the phone is good.
If you’re one those consumers that love bigger displays, good-performance cameras, long lasting battery and bigger storage then the Camon 15 would definitely be a recommendation. It is available for purchase at all Tecno and MTN outlets countrywide and can be delivered to you as well, and amidst this coronavirus, delivery would be a good option.
Design and Display
The build of the Camon 15 is impressive on sight with a gradient back designed in poly-carbonate plastic, has plastic frames and a glass front giving it a premium look/finish. It comes with a 6.6-Inch IPS LCD display with a screen resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels and an aspect ratio of 20:9. This is all good for the phablet as it gives consumers a wider screen for more content, and has nice color contrast.
The display cuts off more bezels from the Camon 12 to create more space and has a punch-hole on the top left that houses the front camera. The notch is software based, and can be hidden for consumers that aren’t fans of it but for this case we recommend not to because it does look better with the notch on. And one might not notice it has the notch at all till it’s turned off.
Meanwhile finishing on the design, the SIM & MicroSD card tray still appear on the left, the volume and power buttons appear on the right – nothing changed. At the bottom, a single speaker grill, USB port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Our final say, the design and display are just perfect even though we opted for more. It is just like its predecessors and the change is mostly the notch, camera, bezels and display. The weight is light, weighs 196g which is perfect and finally when grasped it is perfect too but mostly for consumers with large hands.
Performance, Storage, and Battery Life
In overall, the performance is average. Perhaps on the Camon 15 Premier the performance is good. Scrolling through, the phone is smooth, we only countered a few staggerings mostly on multi-tasking when we had a heavy app running in the background. Having installed Need for Speed and FIFA, we noticed on opening the application, some frames we skipped and took about a minute to launch the full play.
The performance of the handset is backed on a 12 nm Mediatek MT6762 Helio P22 chipset, Octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53 processor that powers the performance paly—coupled with 4GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. The internal storage is expandable with a microSD card of up-to 128GB. Tecno indeed tried to optimize the RAM to manage the memory management efficiently.
On the battery, the phone has a non-removable 5,000mAh Li-Ion battery and since it is capped at 720p display, its combination with the battery mean you at least get two day usage of the smartphone on a single charge. It is good enough for a day and a half on a single charge.
Software
The Camon 15 comes with Android 10 which is topped on with the company’s HiOS skin v.6.0. The HiOS looks clean and good as Tecno indeed improved the skin to look more flat with light colors which are balanced.
Cameras Performance
Everyone’s desire. The camera has become the most important feature after the memory on any smartphone. Smartphone manufacturing including TECNO are investing a lot of resources and time to produce better camera for better performance. Tecno for every of its handset claims to improve the camera, and the company does try to deliver.
The quad rear camera at 48MP + 2MP + 2MP and a QVGA supported with a quad-LED light for low light settings. The front camera is punched in a hole and has a sensor of 16MP supported with a dual-LED light for low light settings. Both cameras on the video part, can shoot up to 1080p at 30fps. The cameras come with AI-powered operational features like AI Bokeh effect, AI HDR, and AI automatic scene detection.
With all this, it gives nice looking photos worth sharing. They look perfect at least some how better than its predecessors.
Last verdict
Good looks with the premium glossy finish, average performance, good cameras and one & half day battery on a single charge – the Camon 15 stands out in its family (Camon series) as well as in the mid-range smartphone category. We had opted for more but it’s still good enough for consumers to have.
