The Tecno Camon 15 Premier. If I were to purchase this phone for one reason and one reason only it would be the colour that the Nairobi office was kind enough to pick for me. Ice Jadeite. Other than being really beautiful and appealing to all the girl in me, I can only describe this colour as peaceful. So yes, this is a review of a gadget that peaceful to start with. Maybe it also helps that I saw a line on google that said “if your soul feels like it needs a little healing, you should reach for some jade”. They were not talking about the phone, but the precious stone that the colour is named after. A stone that calms turbulent energy. Yes I want that.
Anyway, colour is not all that is good with this device. It is a powerful phone that packs so many superior features that when I heard that the price is Ksh.26,999/-, I thought I had miss heard or miss read. The last time I used a device this premium looking from Tecno was one in the Phantom series and those are usually at a higher price range.
Design
There is no denying that the phone stands out. Whether you get the device in the two colours that it comes in – ice jadeite or opal white – it has textural lines that give the impression of being baked into the back cover as opposed to being painted. These give the phone a rich texture.
The phone is rather heavy at first touch given that I’ve been using the Camon 12 but as long as I’m not hauling about a half kilo in the name of a phone, weight is not something that really bothers me about a phone. After all I’m mostly seated in an office set up or in traffic, so I do not have a whole lot of carrying around to do. I would however understand if a user’s line of work is one that requires them to move around a lot and move a lot of things around while the phone is on their person. I’m not sure how the size and weight of the phone would auger with this kind of lifestyle.
Not that the phone is delicate though. The back is made of some quite tough plastic, and it comes with an additional and optional custom – made plastic cover for added safety.
It is some sort of fingerprint magnet but with all the gadgets I review, imagine me I stopped talking about that. I keep my hair short and my fingers are always on my phone or in my hair gathering oils and moisturizers so a phone full of fingerprints is something I’ve since come to accept.
Camera
The one thing that first hit me about the device was that it has a pop-up selfie camera and this is actually the highlight of the device. I must admit that before I interacted with the device, I was a bit skeptical about this because I’m generally skeptical about moving parts on a phone. I get the fear of tiny pieces of cabling breaking up on the inside with time and rendering the gadget or the feature useless.
It turned out that my fears were unfounded. One, the pop-up camera is quite short. Not ineffective. Short. Then, it moves in a very soft glide as opposed to a quick movement so there is really no danger of it breaking down as far as I can see. Standing at 32MP, it also has a really good resolution for a front.
Selfie camera aside, the back cameras is where its at. Disclaimer: I’m using the factory camera image because I however much I tried to take my own photos of this, I couldn’t seem to do it enough justice.
The phone has a 64MP main camera supported by an additional 5MP for extreme distortion free close ups, an Artificial Intelligence Ultra Night camera and a 2MP Bokeh camera to enable users to zero in on a particular part of an image and blur out the rest. These are features whose settings you can then play around with within the camera app which has all those plus beauty mode, short video mode, normal video mode, AR mode for all you goofs out there, wide selfie and panorama.
Add to all this that it is a Sony camera and with Sony being a household name in high quality imaging, I really don’t think anyone should have a doubt about the quality of photos and videos.
Storage
This is a phone that just calls me to keep taking photos. And especially bringing out the inner child in me to keep popping out the selfie camera which by the way pops in and out in a short animated light dance :-D.
At 6.6” full screen with a resolution of 1080×2340, it also has quite an enjoyable screen to use and on any given day, I’m usually watching series and other videos which I store in the phone. The 6GB of RAM and 128GB ROM gives me the joy of knowing that I’m not running out of space any time soon, and I’m dealing with a speedy device that does not keep hanging on me.
I’m not a gamer but I can see how effective these features would be for ardent gamers.
Battery
With all these features, you must be wondering what the battery is like. The Tecno Camon 15 Premier is powered by a 4000mAh non removable battery. Well given a chance I’d opt for infinite battery power but hey! There are cells and lithium and heating and cooling to worry about so as much as I’m a very heavy phone user and I drain my battery fast, I believe everyone’s lifestyle dictates the life of their phone battery to a good extent.
Conclusion:
There is so so much to this phone than can be captured in a single article me thinks. For 26,000/- go for it. It is worth it.
