Tecno Camon iClick review: Mid-range phone with top-notch camera hardware

Chinese mobile conglomerate Transition Holdings' subsidiary Tecno Mobiles forayed into the Indian market in the second half of 2017 and within a short span, it has steadily grown in terms of brand stature in the country. It launched a feature-rich Camon i this year and has managed to surprise us with its feature-rich camera hardware. The company followed it up with similar category-based Camon iClick, which has top-end specifications.

I have been using Camon iClick for close to three weeks now and here's my take on it.

Design and display:

Tecno Camon iClick comes with a sleek design with tapering edges on the back offering a good grip. The company has done a good paint job as the antenna lines on top and at the bottom blends perfectly with the cover. My review unit comes in the gold colour shell and matching accents in the front panel. It is one of the most visually appealing phones in the market. It is light to hold the phone and the fingerprint is ergonomically placed in the middle, for easy access.

Also, I would like to appreciate the company for offering silicone shell cover for the back in addition to the screen guard as part of the smartphone package. I'm sure this gesture will help build loyalty and consumers and hope other brands follow similar initiatives.

As far as the display is concerned, it is as good as any premium mid-range phone in the market. The legibility quotient of the screen to view contents under direct sunlight is impressive and I had a delightful experience while playing games and watching high-resolution on YouTube.

Performance:

The new Camon iClick comes with 16nm class 2GHz MediaTek Helio P23 octa-core processor with ARM Mali G71 MP2 graphics engine backed by sumptuous 4GB RAM, 64GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD and runs on Android 8.1 Oreo-based HiOS.

During trials, we tried testing its speed to open apps, gaming lag-ness and switching between multiple apps, and each time, Camon iClick performed well. There is a false apprehension that devices with MediaTek are less competitive compared to the ones with Qualcomm chipset. But, they are not. In mid-range phone class, the former is on par with the latter across all aspects of performance. It scored an impressive 85,625 points on AnTuTu performance benchmark testing app.

The Camon iClick is fast to respond to app launching and also during photography sessions. It is super fast for auto-focus and processing image (under HDR mode) during low light.

Camera:

The USP of the Camon iClick is its camera hardware and it did not disappoint me a bit at all. It aced in almost all light conditions. I was particularly impressed with Tecno phone's super-fast autofocus in the low-light condition. It was quick to focus on the subject even under artificial lights in the night and even under pitch darkness. When I pressed the shutter button the LED flashes and at that moment, it automatically focuses on the subject and succeeds to get the photo with less noise.

The front camera is also one of the best in the mid-range phone segment. The beauty mode (up to eight levels for clearer and better photos), portrait mode and the super pixel mode are really good value-edition features.

Tecno Camon iClick houses 20MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture and dual LED flash. On the back, it houses feature-rich 16MP snapper with quad-LED flash.

Battery life:

This aspect is very subjective as it depends on how the owner uses the phone. For instance, if the user streams videos on Amazon Prime video with mobile data on, the device's battery drain out within six or five hours. But if he/she uses the phone mainly for communication, viewing multimedia content on social media platforms and messengers apps and also a small session of gaming, Tecno Camon iClick will give you a full day's battery life (active hours during which I tested the phone: 6 am to 10 pm).

Final thoughts:

Tecno Camon iClick is surprisingly a really good camera phone and I have to say, it is one of the best among existing phones in the market under Rs 15,000 price-range. Even the other aspects of the device such as the build quality, display, performance in terms of app loading, playing games and last but not the least, battery life are praiseworthy.

With low availability of the Redmi Note 5 Pro, you can go for the Camon iClick and you won't regret it.

Pros:

• Exceptionally good camera for a mid-range category phone
• Good design language
• 18:9 display aspect ratio
• Day-long battery life

Cons:

• It would have been great if the screen had full HD+ (2160x1080p) instead of just HD+ (1440x720p). But, it's not a deal breaker as the human eye can hardly notice any discernible difference beyond HD resolution. 

Stay tuned. Follow us @IBTimesIN_Tech on Twitter and on Google News for latest updates on Tecno Mobiles.