The budget smartphone segment is every brand's favourite playground, but success is not in everyone's favour. In India, there are players like Samsung, Xiaomi and others who have deep roots into the market, making it hard for new players to shake the industry. But that's not keeping yet another Chinese smartphone maker from trying its luck.
Tecno Mobile, a subsidiary of Transsion Holdings, which backs brands like itel and Infinix, is making a run for the lion's share in the budget smartphone segment in India. The company launched its new budget smartphone, Camon I, in a bid to disrupt the affordable smartphone race. The handset is aggressively priced at Rs 8,999 for a smartphone that packs a bouquet of interesting features.
Tecno Mobile is making its Canon I available through offline stores across India. This is a smart play on Tecno's behalf considering how difficult it is penetrate through the online competition. It remains to be seen how well this new budget phone is received by consumers.
If you're looking for value-for-money in Camon I, you won't be disappointed. It is probably the cheapest smartphone to offer an edge-to-edge display with 18:9 aspect ratio. Tecno Camon I packs a 5.65-inch HD+ FullView display and has a 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3 curved glass on top to eliminate any side bezels from immediate view and add durability.
Moving on, the on-paper camera configuration of Tecno Camon I is pretty impressive too. It has a 13MP rear-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF and quad LED flash. On the front, there's a similar 13MP sensor with a dedicated LED flash for selfies and video conferencing in low-light conditions.
The metal unibody design of the Tecno Camon I adds a premium touch to the phone. There are three colours to choose from, Champagne Gold, Midnight Black and City Blue.
Under the hood, Tecno Camon I is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737 processor, which is paired with 3GB RAM and 32GB expandable storage. There is a 3,050mAh battery running the show and a custom ROM called HiOS runs on top of Android 7.0 Nougat software.
While these features make up for most of the phone's price worth, Tecno Camon I features a fingerprint scanner mounted on the back panel. Other features of the phone include 4G support, dual SIM card slots, a 3.5mm audio jack, and OTG support. IBTimes India hasn't tested any of Tecno Mobiles, so it's really hard to comment on how good the phone and its specs turn out to be in reality.
