Tecno Camon 30

  Detailed Review of Tecno Camon 30 

        

Tecno Camon 30 Premier may not be the most powerful smartphone going around, but it has carved a unique niche for itself thanks to the presence of a 50MP quad camera setup and unique design. Tecno's Camon 30 Premier offers some high-tier features that punch above the price range. Above all, the Camon 30 Premier is marketed as a camera phone. And indeed, the specs sheet suggests the Camon 30 Premier's centre piece feature is the camera hardware. The device features a potent triple 50MP camera setup on the back, along with an AF-enabled 50MP selfie camera. The main 50MP camera uses a respectable 1/1.56-inch sensor, but the 50MP, 2.76" periscope telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom is arguably more impressive. The two cameras are complemented with another 50MP ultrawide unit, while the front offers a rare find - 50MP selfie unit with AF capability.

Specifications

Memory           512GB 12GB RAM.

Body             162.7x76.2x7.9mm, 210g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass 5), aluminium frame,                                aluminium back with silicone polymer finish (eco leather); IP54, dust and splash                                          resistant.

OS/Software     Android 14, HIOS 14.

Display         6.77" LTPO AMOLED, 1B colors, 120Hz, HDR, 1400 nits (HBM), 1264x2780px                          resolution, 19.79:9 aspect ratio, 451ppi; Always-on display.

Chipset         Mediatek Dimensity 8200 Ultimate (4 nm): Octa-core (1x3.1 GHz Cortex-A78 &                         3x3.0 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU; Mali-G610 MC6 GPU.

Front camera    50 MP, f/2.5, 24mm (wide), 1/2.8", 0.64µm, PDAF.

Rear camera       Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 50                             MP, f/2.2, 70mm, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, PDAF, 3x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle:                               50 MP, f/2.2, 14mm, 114˚, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, PDAF.

Battery                5000mAh; 70W wired, 100% in 45 min (advertised).

Video capture      Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps (HDR), 1080p@30fps; Front camera:                                                4K@30fps, 1080p.

Connectivity         5G; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 5; BT 5.3; NFC; FM radio; Infrared port.

Misc                 Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); Dolby Atmos-tuned stereo speakers.

The display department isn't overlooked either. In fact, some flagship offerings don't get LTPO OLED panels, but the Camon 30 Premier surprises with one. It has a higher resolution than usual, supports HDR and can go up to 120Hz refresh rate. The Dimensity 8200, a nice upper-mid-range solution, is tasked with driving all those pixels. The only available memory configuration is 12GB/512GB. And as for the battery, it's 5,000 mAh with fast 70W charging, which we expect to be quite competitive. The design and build deserve a brief mention too. The Camon 30 Premier may not have the highest ingress protection (just IP54) but it offers a robust design with a Gorilla Glass 5 front sheet and aluminium chassis with a touch of vegan leather. The handset comes in a standard retail box containing the usual user manuals along with the appropriate USB-A to USB-C cable and 70W-rated charger. Tecno also gifts a protective silicone case with a seemingly metallic ring around the camera island. Tecno advertises that the headphones have a cool extra feature allowing you to use them as a camera remote, a double tap snaps an image. Tecno's Camon 30 Premier is a breath of fresh air in the smartphone market, typically filled with 'flagship killer' devices focused on performance. However, the Camon 30 Premier diverges by challenging existing flagships in the camera department, boasting quadruple 50MP sensors and a dedicated Sony imaging chip. But as history has taught us, megapixels and specifications don't always translate into great real-world performance. Let's find out that how it fares in day-to-day usage and find if it is truly the next camera champion to watch out for in the premium mid-range segment.

Unboxing and Design

The Camon 30 Premier is aiming for a high-end feel and build and we think Tecno has nailed it with this one. Inside the box, you get the Tecno Camon 30 Premier, some paperwork, a good quality plastic case, a Type A to Type C cable, a 70W adapter, a SIM ejector tool, some paperwork and a tempered glass. This is the best quality case you would ever see coming with a smartphone, and the addition of a tempered glass only makes it a wholesome unboxing experience. Camon 30 Premier is available in Lava Black colour variant and also a Snowy Silver colour option which could be more appealing to a wide variety of users. The Camon 30 Premier stands out from the competition with its unique vegan leather and aluminium back design. While there is a familiar watch-like large camera module, the presence of a vertical camera flash and a red-coloured ‘alert dot’ provides the phone with a more nuanced touch. The frame of Camon 30 Premier is made out of aluminium and lends the phone a very premium finish. It comes with an IR blaster, a USB 2.0 port, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, NFC, in-display fingerprint scanner and an IP54 rating for dust and splash resistance, meaning it can handle some dust and rain drops but not full submersion under water. The handset is graded with just IP54 ingress protection and the Gorilla Glass 5 sheet on the front isn't the latest, but the overall build and materials are pretty solid. The side frame, along with a small portion of the back, is made of aluminium, while the rest of the back panel is vegan leather. But the eco leather feels different than usual. It has a fine, soft-touch texture, which feels exceptionally nice but isn't very grippy. Despite the handset's understandably higher weight, it doesn't feel hefty in hand. It's also somewhat thinner than expected - 7.9mm without the camera bulge. The flat side frame is slightly curved toward the edges and creates a seamless transition with the back and front panels. We also liked the buttons and their placement. In contrast to most Android smartphones, the Camon 30 Premier has its volume keys on the left and the power key on the right. All buttons are conveniently placed. Good thing the button itself is relatively big and easy to distinguish. The same cannot be said about the under-display fingerprint reader. It works well, snappy, responsive and accurate, but it's placed a bit too close to the bottom edge, which isn't ideal. In any case, the design is memorable and the overall build feels extra nice to the touch.

Display 

The Camon 30 Premier comes with a 6.77 inch 1.5K LTPO AMOLED display with up to 120Hz refresh rate and 1400 nits of peak brightness. This is a higher-than-average resolution for the price range and a rare LTPO panel, allowing granular refresh rate control. And we also liked the rather thin bezels all around. They give the phone a more modern look and feel. The screen supports HDR and support for Widevine L1, which allows you to stream high-quality videos on platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. In manual mode, the screen can go up to 579 nits, while in auto mode, with high-brightness mode turned on, the OLED peaked at 696 nits. Still, 700 nits isn't all that bad and should provide a comfortable viewing experience in most scenarios. It is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 and comes with wet finger touchscreen operation, which helps in improving usage while using the phone with damp fingers or when there's a bit of water on it. This is a flat panel with minimal bezels and a punch-hole style notch at the top. It delivers vibrant colours and deep contrasts, making the smartphone ideal for long streaming sessions. The dual stereo speakers on the Camon 30 Premier are fairly loud and do not distort the sound even at full volume. The Tecno Camon 30 Premier punches above its weight class with its display. 

Performance

On the performance front, the Camon 30 Premier runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 8200 Ultimate processor, the same processor which we have previously seen on the Infinix GT 20 Pro (Review). While this isn't a near-flagship chipset like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 on the OnePlus 12R (Review) or the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 on Poco F6 (Review), the phone can still hold its own for day-to-day tasks and even casual gaming sessions. This isn't a gaming-centered smartphone, and it does have a tendency to get slightly warm during longer gaming sessions" The Dimensity 8200 Ultimate SoC is based on the 4nm manufacturing process. However, the Ultimate part remains a mystery as the specs of the Tecno-marketed Dimensity 8200 Ultimate are identical to the initially announced Dimensity 8200. Anyway, the SoC is supposed to be a direct successor to the Dimensity 8100, but the specs sheet suggests it's an entirely new chip. Instead of a 4+4 core configuration, the 8200 adopts a more modern 1+3+4 combo. The main core clocked at 3.1 GHz is still Cortex-A78, though, while the second cluster of 3x Cortex-A78 cores is clocked at 3.0 GHz. The energy-efficient cluster of 4x Cortex-A55 cores is ticking at 2.0 GHz. The GPU remains unchanged from the previous generation, though, as it's still the Mali-G610 MC6. The Dimensity 8200 is a competitive chipset in the price bracket, falling short only to the Snapdragon 8- Gen 1, mostly in combined and GPU-heavy benchmarks. CPU-wise, the Dimensity 8200-powered Camon gives the Nothing Phone (2) and Galaxy S23 FE (both affordable flagships) a run for their money. The Dimensity 8200 sure is a demanding chip, and the device handled it relatively well. During heavy loads, the CPU maintained 73% of its performance, which is better than some Dimensity 8200-equipped rivals. Interestingly, Tecno offers just one memory option - 12GB/512GB. We must admit, though, it's a generous one. It's likely a fast UFS 2.2 or a slower UFS 3.1. Tecno doesn't disclose the exact specs, so we are left in the dark here. In general, the system felt snappy and responsive, so no complaints when it comes to performance. 

Refresh rate

The system offers four refresh rate modes, 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and Auto-switch. The names of these modes are pretty self-explanatory. Since this is an LTPO panel, it supports granular refresh rate control, which we observed in various cases. For instance, leaving the display idle will lower the refresh rate down to 10Hz and interacting with it will boost that to 120Hz in most of the apps. When it comes to video playback in YouTube, for example, the system will opt for the appropriate refresh rate, 60fps videos will play at 60Hz, 30fps videos run at 30Hz, but 24fps videos play at 60Hz.

Battery life

The smartphone comes with a 5,000 mAh battery with support for 70W fast charging. It takes around 50-60 minutes to take the Camon 30 Premier from 0 to 100 %. The handset lasted for a handsome 13:29h Active Use Score, which is more than what you could expect from most devices in the same price range. The Camon 30 Premier uses a 5,000 mAh battery, which is tasked to power a large 6.77-inch OLED display and a Dimensity 8200 SoC. Interestingly, the OLED is of the LTPO kind, which probably saves some power, and the Dimensity 8200 takes it easy on the battery as well. The handset is competitive in all aspects and posts one of the best gaming runtimes in this comparison. Solid endurance, for sure.

Charging speed

The Camon 30 Premier offers a competitive 70-watt charging solution with its bundled brick and appropriate USB-A to USB-C cable. In any case, the Camon is particularly fast in the first 15 minutes, while a 30-minute charge would most probably give a full charge if you aren't doing a full cycle.

Speakers

The Camon 30 Premier has a standard hybrid speaker setup, the bottom-firing speaker being the main one and the other doubles as an earpiece. As usual, the bottom speaker is slightly louder, but not by much in this particular case. The loudness is impressive and probably it's one of the loudest smartphones available around.  The bass is okay and gives music tracks with much-needed fullness.

Software 

The Camon 30 Premier runs on the company's proprietary HiOS 14 custom skin based on Android 14. This version of HiOS 14 is exactly the same one we saw on the Tecno Pova 6 Pro and the Tecno Spark 20 Pro+. It's very similar to HiOS 13 but has a better implementation of the so-called Dynamic Port 2.0 - Tecno's own version of Apple's Dynamic Island. It gives contextual info as well as quick and easy ways to interact with certain system apps. Tecno has promised 2 years of Android updates and 3 years of security patches with this devices. The smartphone comes with very few pre-installed apps and there were no ads to report so far. The software experience is one of the highlights of this device, thanks to new AI features and other neat functionalities added by Tecno. For instance, the in-built dialler app comes with a dedicated WhatsApp icon, allowing users to send direct messages on WhatsApp even without saving the other person's phone number. Another feature is the social assistant that pops up while making WhatsApp calls. With this menu, one can record a WhatsApp call, switch voices from a number of pre-sets, fill light in your video, change video background, open dual camera and even add emoji while a video call is in progress. While almost all smartphone makers are rushing to add generative AI features to their devices, the implementation here by Tecno is pretty unique. The phone also comes with Ella GPT AI assistant pre-installed, which can be used to replace Google Assistant as the default chatbot. However, Ella GPT isn't on the level of new-age AI assistants yet; it seemed incapable of handling nuanced instructions and even continuing long conversations. Moreover, HiOS still requires some routine changes before being comfortable relying on it for day-to-day usage. 

 Camera

Cameras are the star of the show here with Tecno packing 4 50MP shooters on the Camon 30 Premier. This includes a 50MP Sony IMX890 sensor with OIS, a 50MP ultra-wide angle lens, a 50MP 3x periscope telephoto camera and a 50MP selfie shooter. The Tecno Camon 30 Premier is obviously a camera-centric smartphone in the upper mid-range class and the hardware suggests so too. The device features a triple 50MP camera setup with a relatively big main sensor along with a large 50MP sensor for the telephoto camera sitting behind a periscope setup. The latter allows smartphone makers to fit bigger sensors in constrained space. The rear and front camera are both capable of shooting a maximum of 4K videos 60fps videos but a more stable output is only available for 1080p 30fps. Camera app allows you to take pictures in 3 different modes: Standard, Bright and Camon, which different slightly in the way image is processed. Moreover, there is a new option called AIGC portrait which uses AI to add the user's face in a pre-set template. The results aren't the most impressive yet, this does seem like a feature which could be carved out further in the future. In daylight conditions, the 50MP primary camera captures detailed and sharp images with vibrant colours and excellent dynamic range. Even during low light conditions, the Camon 30 Premier manages to hold its own for the most part but it does have a tendency to over boost the colours in some shots. When switching to the ultra-wide angle lens, there is very minimal colour shift and almost no noticeable loss in detail, a feat very few smartphones in this price range can boast of. Meanwhile, the 50MP telephoto lens also takes decent shots, capturing images with close to natural skin colours. While Tecno allows for up to 60x digital zoom, images beyond 10x zoom will be of much use. The selfie camera also does a pretty decent job, producing clear images with closer to natural face colours. 

Wide (main)        50 MP Sony IMX 890, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, f/1.9, 23mm, PDAF, OIS;                                                  2160p@60fps

Ultrawide           50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.2, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 14mm, PDAF;                                         2160p@30fps

Telephoto           50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.15, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 70mm (periscope                                 telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; 2160p@60fps

Front camera     50 MP Hynix Hi5022Q f/2.45, 24mm, 1/2.8", 0.64µm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps

Interestingly, the telephoto camera is the same one used in the Xiaomi 14. The only difference is the latter's setup doesn't use a periscope, and the zoom reach is 3.2x instead of 3x. The selfie camera is also attractive, it's 50MP with support for autofocus. A rare find not only in this price range, but in the smartphone world as a whole. In addition to the already impressive camera hardware, the Tecno Camon 30 Premier is marketed as the first smartphone with Sony's dedicated CXD5622GG imaging chip. It helps with computing for camera processing, but we doubt that it fully replaces the MediaTek 8200 own ISP. Overall, the camera hardware looks promising on paper, so let's see what it can do in the real world.

Main camera

The handset delivers nice daylight photos with plenty of detail, sharpness, wide dynamic range and somewhat conservative colour reproduction. Foliage can sometimes be smeared away, but it's hard to pinpoint the reason. Noise is kept at bay even in more challenging indoor conditions. Tecno's additional processing adds a bit of sharpness, and you can notice some sharpening halos around the edges of buildings and in trees and foliage. It's not something you could notice right away, but we believe it's actually a nice rendering. Shadows could be a bit on the dark side sometimes, but this is also a very minor issue. Focus hunting was a problem in some cases too. Interestingly, the camera app offers upscaled 100MP photos instead of full-res 50MP, but they look awful anyway. The 3x zoom periscope camera produces excellent images with a rendition that's very close to the main camera's. Colors are a tad more saturated, but the overall look is the same. The stills are clean, sharp, detailed, and have a wide enough dynamic range. Going indoors produces slightly softer photos, but not by much. Additionally, the camera supports focusing from as close as 25cm, which allows for great close-up shots.

Ultra wide camera

We were pleasantly surprised by the ultrawide camera as well. We must admit that we didn't have the highest expectations, but the ultrawide unit showed exceptional performance in various scenarios. Dynamic range is a bit limited compared to the main and telephoto units, but the pictures are sharp, detailed and lack noise even in more challenging scenarios.  On the flip side, there's minimal barrel distortion.

Video recording

The handset supports 2160p@60fps video recording with all its cameras, including the selfie unit. The software also offers an Ultimate video enhancement mode, which is supposed to improve video quality in various ways, but more on that later. We believe the Ultra steady mode is just an EIS mode, because when turned OFF, the stabilization looks like pure OIS. This is just us speculating, but since there's no resolution limitation, we suggest leaving that option ON. Even then, we've seen better EIS implementations. The main camera's 4K footage looks great and leaves no room for complaints. Everything looks clean, sharp, detailed and colours are lively. Exposure seems to be a bit on the high end, but nothing too major. Turning on the Ultimate enhancement mode adds artificial sharpness and boosts brightness. We liked the non-enhanced video better. The telephoto camera also produces nice 4K videos with plenty of sharpness, detail and excellent contrast. It's definitely a reliable camera for video shooting. We were once again surprised by the ultrawide's performance. It delivers a video that's close to the main camera's quality, which is hard to come by. Despite the ultrawide lense, the video looks sharp, detailed and with impressive dynamic range. The two low-light videos are surprisingly good. 

Colours

The available colours are Alps Snowy Silver and Hawaii Lava Black. 

Advantages

Thin, light, standout design with premium feel.

Energy-efficient 120Hz LTPO OLED.

Exceptional camera performance all-around, including selfies and videos.

Solid battery life and fast charging.

One of the loudest speakers around

Potent chipset.

12GB/512GB memory by default, IR blaster.

Disadvantages

Small issues with focusing on the main and telephoto cameras.

Display could be brighter.

Conclusion

The Tecno Camon 30 Premier is an excellent upper-mid-range all-rounder. Yes, that's a mouthful, but it's indeed a phone that punches above the standard mid-range class and covers all bases in terms of performance, battery life, display, charging speed and, most certainly, camera quality. The Tecno Camon 30 Premier has a lot of things going for it, a unique back design,6.77-inch LTPO AMOLED display, 50MP quad camera setup, interesting AI features and good battery performance. However, the presence of Dimensity 8200 Ultimate chipset makes it amongst the lesser powerful smartphones in this price bracket. While the performance enthusiasts are likely to drift towards more powerful options like Oneplus 12R, iQOO Neo 9 Pro and Realme GT 6. More camera-focused users may find it hard to look past the Camon 30 Premier. In conclusion, while the Tecno Camon 30 Premier may not go on to dethrone the iPhone 15 or the Galaxy S24 anytime soon, it is still a very compelling device, especially in a segment dominated by performance-centred smartphones. Camon 30 Premier gives many of its competitors a run for their money. Aside from some nuanced issues, the Camon 30 Premier is a good example of a "jack of all trades".  All in all, the Camon 30 Premier gets our approval and the small shortcomings are not enough to ruin the excellent position we gave. The value package speaks for itself.