Tecno Camon 16 Premier Review: Well Rounded Budget Smartphone
Tecno Camon 16 Premier is the latest offering from Tecno which aims to capture the mid-segment of the budget market. At present, the segment is dominated by the likes of Realme and Xiaomi. We at BW Businessworld tested the device at various parameters for almost two weeks and here is our opinion.
Design & Display: The rear profile of the smartphone carries a distinctive design language that is enough to amaze you with its looks. However, the design of the smartphone seems to be inspired by Infinix Zero 8. The rear panel has a soft color and the smartphone maker describes it as metallic-like, offering which offers visual cooling sense. When hits by light, the shade of the surface changes from sea green to glacier blue.
The squarish camera module is placed at the center which houses a quad-camera setup and Penta LED flash at the rear. The Camon 16 Premier comes with curved edges for a better grip and a pill-shaped punch-hole display at the front. The smartphone is on a little heavier side (210g), so you might need to shift it from one hand to another in a heavy usage scenario.
The left side of the smartphone holds the SIM tray (2SIMs+SD Card) whereas the right side of the boasts Volume rockers and a power button that doubles up as a fingerprint sensor also. The speaker grille, USB Type-C port, and 3.5mm jack are sited at the bottom side of the smartphone.
Coming to the Display, Tecno Camon 16 Premier sports the 6.85-inch IPS Full HD+ display and comes with a 90Hz refresh rate. The display is crisp, vibrant, and perfectly legitimate under direct sunlight. The refresh rate of the display can be manually adjusted and but in Auto mode, it tries to remain at a 60Hz refresh rate, maybe to save the battery. Moving ahead, the smartphone also doesn’t support Widevine L1 Certification, so you won’t be able to stream the HD content on OTT platforms.
On the flip side, the display is big and sharp and we really enjoyed streaming a couple of Web series on it. Although you don’t get the stereo audio output, the smartphone does manage to provide better sound output from a mono speaker. So, watching movies, streaming web series and playing games will be a treat for both eyes and ears.
Camera: The most fascinating thing and the soul of design is its Camera. Tecno Camon 16 Premier boasts a four-camera setup at the rear which is accompanied by Penta LED flash. Talking about the performance, the 64MP primary and 8MP ultra-wide is the only lens that you will be using most of the time as the depth and macro lens are of low resolution. The primary camera can capture very good pictures with rich details. The shots in daylight conditions produce rich colors and a very high dynamic range. Moreover, the camera has its own AI feature which automatically detects the scene and optimizes the shot according to the scene. Noticeably, there is no ‘Pro mode’ in the camera app. It simply means you do experiments with your shots. However, it gets “Super Night” mode which slightly enhances the pictures by adding so many frames in one picture.
Coming to the selfie shooter, it gets the bean-shaped dual front camera at the upper left corner of the smartphone. It sports 48MP primary lens along with 8MP ultra-wide lens. Talking about the quality, both the camera works fine, considering its price.
On the Video front, Tecno Camon 16 Premier can record 4k videos at a maximum of 30fps. Now, the video quality is something that really amazed us. It captures a good amount of light in low-light areas without leaving grain on your footage. Moreover, it also gets the bokeh effect in the video which has some scope for improvement. On the other hand, the front camera can record Full HD (1080p) videos. Notably, both the camera gets the eye autofocus which works fine and unique to the segment. Additionally, the camera app gets the short video feature which is especially dedicated to records 15-second videos with some presets and filters.
Camera Samples: (Pictures are resized for online uploading purpose)
Performance: Tecno Camon 16 Premier is powered by a Mediatek Helio G90T processor. Well, G90T is a good mid-range processor and can handle the most popular game with ease. The smartphone works flawlessly in everyday usage scenarios as well. Under the hood, it gets 8GB RAM along with 128GB of internal storage (expandable via SDcard). We played Free Fire, Call of Duty along with many other games and it didn’t disappoint at all. However, there were minor lags and glitches but that can be ignored. Switching between the apps is butter smooth until you open 20 of apps simultaneously. The smartphone runs on Android 10 with HiOS v7.0 on the top. Being one of the busiest skin, it welcomes you with a ludicrous amount of bloatware. Don’t worry, you can easily get rid of them as they can be by uninstalling them. On the flip side, there are advertisements all around, especially on the notification panel. Nothing to complain about it and, as it is abundant to the budget segment.
Moving ahead, Tecno Camon 16 Premier gets a 4500 mAh battery that supports 33W fast charging. Noteworthy, the company ships the unit with an 18W bundled charger. It takes approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes to charge fully. In our test, it survived with 15 percent at the end of the day. On the security front, the device supports a side-mounted fingerprint sensor and face unlock which works aptly.
Verdict: With Full HD+ Display with 90Hz refresh rate, design, Helio G90T processor, Tecno Camon 16 Premier offers a lot of value considering its price. The design alone is enough to allure the buyers. It checks almost all the boxes so if you are shifting from the sub-10k segment, this gets our recommendation.
