Tecno Camon 18 Review – Is it a Perfect Budget Phone?

The year 2021 presented numerous hurdles for all smartphone makers, including Tecno. With new devices entering the market one after the other, it was expected that this company would also have something exciting to offer. As a result, India welcomed the Tecno Camon 18 in December. It sports a modern appearance with no extravagant design elements. Nonetheless, it appears to be stylish and appropriate for your individual style.

Tecno Camon 18 is a budget smartphone that comes with a couple of sacrifices, but it also offers many advantages. A stunning screen, a quick fingerprint scanner, a great set of cameras, and impressive autonomous performance are just a few of them. In this review, I’ll talk about my personal experiences with it. The Camon 18 competes with some other worthy smartphones from other brands at its pricing point, so knowing what it has to offer before making a final selection is important.

Checkout: Recycle Your Old Phone Now! Get Rewarded.

Tecno Camon 18 starts at Rs. 14,999 in India. You can buy it on major eCommerce platforms like amazon. The only variant of the Tecno Camon 18 comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB internal storage. It is available in two colour options: Dusk Grey and Iris Purple.

Planning to upgrade? Sell Your Old Phone in 60 Seconds From Home

The all-new Tecno Camon 18 comes with the following items packed inside the box:

• Tecno Camon 18
• 18W Power adaptor
• USB Type C Cable
• TPU Cover
• Sim Ejector Tool
• User Guide

Before we talk in detail about the Tecno Camon 18, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.8-inches IPS LCD
• Chipset: MediaTek Helio G85
• RAM & ROM: 4GB RAM 128GB Storage
• Software: Android v11
• Rear camera: 48MP + 2MP + AI Lens
• Selfie camera: 48MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 203 grams
• Dimensions: 168.8 x 76.6 x 8.9 mm

I’ll begin by discussing the Tecno Camon18’s design and build quality. The Camon 18 appears to be well-made and well-priced. It does seem to be modern, and it is a significant upgrade over previous Camon devices. Although the back is made of plastic, it does not have a cheap feel to it. The triple camera arrangement is placed in a big rectangular module in the top left corner of this back cover, which has a glossy surface. The volume rockers and the power button, which also houses the fingerprint scanner, are located on the right side of the phone.

The phone’s dual SIM card slot is located on the left side, while the USB C port, speaker grille, and headphone jack are located on the bottom.

The phone’s weight balance is quite nice, and the overall design is quite good.

Check Out: OnePlus Nord 2 x Pac-Man Edition Review – The Retro Flagship Smartphone

The display of the Tecno Camon 18 is 6.8-inches and has a resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels. This display is quite nice, with brilliant colours and great contrast. The touch response is also better when compared to previous Tecno devices, and I’ve had no problems with it during the review time.

For smooth scrolling animations, this display has a refresh rate of 90Hz. You can drop the refresh rate to 60Hz in the settings menu if you don’t want the high refresh rate which will drain your battery. For me, the best choice was to set the refresh rate to automatically adjust between 60 and 90Hz depending on what I was doing.

The display is large enough for those who like to work on the go, and it is even great for all the gamers out there. Although the refresh rate isn’t the fastest, it still provided a good gaming experience in most cases. You’ll enjoy using the display of Tecno Camon 18 because of its colour accuracy and reproduction.

The display is bright enough to use in direct sunlight, and the auto-brightness feature does a decent job of adjusting to ambient light.

Aside from its looks, how does the TECNO Camon 18 perform? Before we judge its performance, here’s what you’ll get: TECNO Camon 18 is equipped with an Helio G85 processor and Mali G52 GPU, as well as 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.

I had no problems with the Camon 18’s performance during my review time. When it comes to easy tasks or even intensive tasks and games, the processor seems to be capable to handle it all. It performs well, as one would expect from a phone in this price range.

The 4GB of RAM was also sufficient, as multitasking was not a problem. I was able to switch between apps without any issue.

You can do gaming on this device, but for graphics-intensive titles like PUBG and Call of Duty Mobile, you’ll need to stick to medium graphics settings for a good and long-lasting experience. You may play these games with high graphics, but you will get frame drops from time to time — not frequently enough to be irritating, but I don’t like it while I’m on a winning streak.

Other titles, such as Asphalt 9, Dead Trigger, SubwaySurfers, Critical Ops, Final Fantasy, Shadow Fight, Odyssey, and NFS No Limits, perform quite well, and I’m impressed, especially because I’m trying to play new mobile games to keep myself from binge-watching the endless series on Netflix.

Check Out: Motorola Moto E40 Review – A Stock Phone For Budget Geeks

Tecno Camon 18 also handles the basic tasks pretty well. It was good to switch between apps without having to reload them, which is exactly what you want when you’re a hardcore multitasker. Swiping back and forth between replying to an email, forming a discussion on a Twitter storm, trying to catch up on Insta Stories, and capturing a short video or photo. Camon 18 gives a reliable performance in a wide range of scenarios.

Tecno Camon 18 is powered by Android 11 and HiOS 8. HiOS 8 has been redesigned and has new features. We now have bigger fast settings toggles and a redesigned notification shade – neither of which can be accessed with a single swipe down. The fast settings are accessed by swiping down from the right side of the screen, while the notification shade is accessed by swiping down from the left side.

You’ll also notice minor design changes in the motion, shapes, and colours of HiOS elements.

The combination of Cosmic Blue with HiOS 8 delivers highly designed icons, vibrant backgrounds, and engaging interactions.
There’s a new privacy dashboard that gives you fine-grained control over app permissions so you can manage which apps have access to your data.

HiOS 8 on Tecno Camon 18 also includes a new AI gallery, which includes features such as Visha Player, Pic Film, and Video Editor.

Pre-installed apps on HiOS 8 continue to deliver unwanted notifications, so I advise uninstalling or disabling them. In addition, the Camon 18 will get the Android 12 and HiOS 8.5 update when the series receives the update.

Check Out: Nokia 5.4 Review – Style Packed With Stock Android

One of the main aspects that Tecno highlights with the Camon series is the camera. The TECNO Camon 18 sports three cameras on the back: a 48MP main camera, a 2MP depth camera, and a 2MP macro lens. A 48MP front-facing camera is situated in the centre punch-hole cutout for selfies. Still photography was the area where I was most impressed with the results.

The cameras are far more capable than they were previously. You’ll get some truly stunning images with fine details, rich colours, and a good dynamic range. Even in low-light situations, the Camon 18’s night mode allows you to capture images with sufficient detail. This impressed me a lot because the images I took came out to be much better than I expected.

During the day, the selfie camera captures good pictures as well. It struggles a little at night, with the images appearing grainy.

You can experiment with a variety of photo and video modes, including Super Night Mode, video bokeh mode, wide selfie, portrait, and short video, among others. You can record video at a resolution of 2K, which is also great for timelapse. Video bokeh mode, similar to video beauty mode, is capped at 720p, so you’ll have to stick with the normal video shooting mode.

Check Out: What is Gcam? How to install Gcam on any Android smartphone?

The film mode is an intriguing mode with customised video themes varying from party, performance, vintage, beats, travel, sport, street, family, and more to choose from, as well as an inbuilt range of transitions, camera movements, and music.

They’re ideal for shooting short videos to upload on Youtube and Facebook. I’d like to see them add more vertical modes suitable for uploading on Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts, or Reels.

The battery life of the TECNO Camon 18 was excellent, similar to its overall performance. The TECNO Camon 18 is powered by a 5000mAh battery. That massive battery has a lot of juice — depending on my day-to-day activities, I got my screen time ranging between 8 and 9 hours.

With light use, I’m pretty confident you can get a day and a half out of it. The phone is charged quickly with the 18W fast Type-C charging. In less than 40 minutes, you can charge your phone from 1 to 90 per cent capacity. However, the fast charging limit may have been increased to 33W, as seen in the Tecno Camon 18P.

Read More: Top 10 Tips To Keep Your Smartphone Battery Healthy

The bottom-facing speaker and the earpiece on the top bezel provide a stereo sound effect. The sound quality is quite nice compared to other smartphones in the same price range.

Tecno Camon 18 features Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, USB OTG, FM radio, 3G, and 4G (with support for Band 40 used by some LTE networks in India) connectivity options. An accelerometer, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, and fingerprint sensor are among the sensors on the phone. The fingerprint scanner is integrated into the power button which is located on the side of the device. It unlocks the phone quickly and impresses me with its precision and responsiveness.

Pros

• Improved display and pleasing design
• Large 5000mAh battery
• Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• 90Hz refresh rate

Cons

• Limited RAM and Storage
• No AMOLED display
• No screen protection
• No support for 5G