Tecno Mobile is the latest entrant in the Middle Eastern smartphone scene. The company announced the launch of its first devices – the Phantom 6 and the Phantom 6 Plus – at a gala event a month ago. The Phantom 6 we are reviewing in here is the company’s first smartphone with a dual camera system.
Priced at a very affordable AED 899, the Phantom 6 comes packed in an ultra slim body. The overall design and build quality is good. The Phantom 6 features a body that is a mix of plastic, metal and glass – hence, it looks premium with an elegant design.
The Phantom 6 comes with a 5.5-inch AMOLED display which is bright and sharp. Colours just pop out on the screen. On the top of the display is where you will find the 8-megapixel front facing camera for all your selfie requirements. There are no hardware buttons on the front. On the left edge of the phone you will find a dual SIM slot and a separate slot for inserting a micro SD card.
On the right edge, you will find the volume rockers and the power button. The bottom edge meanwhile includes a USB Type-C port in the center, along with speaker grilles on both the sides. On the top edge you will find a 3.5mm audio jack along with a microphone.
Turn the phone around and that is where all the magic happens. Here is where the dual camera module is built-in. One of the cameras is a 13-megapixel autofocus and the other is a 5-megapixel refocus camera.
Under the hood, the Phantom 6 features 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal memory. This can be further expanded to up to 128GB using a micro SD card. The Phantom 6 runs on Android Marshmallow operating system with Tecno’s very own HiOS overlay on top of it. The processor on the Phantom 6 is a MediaTek octacore processor clocked at 2GHz.
The phone also comes with a bunch of accessories such as earphones, a USB cable, a charging adapter with multiple plugs, and even a screen protector. The included earphones are pretty good when it comes to the audio quality they can deliver.
Let’s speak about the smartphone’s camera functionality, which is of course the stand out feature on the Phantom 6. Camera performance under good lighting conditions were good. We were surprised that the Phantom 6 could shoot some very good images even under low light conditions.
The much-touted Refocus feature, which essentially is the depth-of-field option on the Phantom 6, as you can see from the sample below, was average though. We in fact expected more from the Phantom 6. Front camera gives you a decent quality when under artificial light or natural light.
The Phantom 6’s battery is a small 2700 mAh and we were able to get only 8 hours of battery life on a single charge, before the Phantom 6 gave up its ghost. Having said that however, the Phantom 6 comes with a “Light Speed” power adapter that charges the phone quite fast.
The overall performance of the Phantom 6 is good, but not path breaking, for a flagship. At a very affordable price tag of AED 899, the Phantom 6 can make for a very good second phone.
Price: AED 899