One of the most cherished things today in a smartphone is it’s camera. Not just the main shooter at the back but the front camera as well. Over time smartphone manufacturers have tried to improve on the quality of these cameras even more so the front facing camera as more users gain interest in taking selfies. Tecno has a smartphone line just for that and it’s called Camon. The main focus on the Camon is the camera. I mean, their main flagship phones ‘Phantom’ can have the highest latest specs but the Camon that comes after that will always have a superior camera regardless of the rest of the lesser internal specifications.
Tecno created a lot of hype for this new Camon and unlike the previous ones like Camon C8 or C9, this has no number preceding the ‘C’ but a letter. It the Camon CX.
Tecno later launched the Camon CX along with the Camon CX Air in Kenya. As of publishing this article, Tecno hasn’t officially launched them in Uganda where I live but has put a few display units of the Camon CX in their shops. I went to check if the phone is worth the hype, and indeed Tecno has really delivered on this handset.
What caught my eye first was the full metal metal body and fingerprint scanner at the back before quickly diving right into what was inside. It sure looks premium. And the front facing camera being the main attraction on this device you can tell by huge lens that sits right on the top front of the phone and again unlike previous Tecno Camon phones that had a single front facing flash, Tecno took it further by putting a dual-tone flash on the Camon CX that is essentially supposed to balance the amount of light while taking a photo for a more natural look than having a single tone of light in photos. This is the same flash light configuration you find on the latest smartphones, only at the back next to the main camera. And to accentuate detail in photos, Tecno gave it a massive 16 megapixel sensor right on the front, took another slightly modified 16 megapixel sensor on the back and put a ring flash light on the back as well. Basically, shooting using the front facing camera or back camera on this phone will produce almost similar impressive results but thumps up to Tecno for stepping the front facing camera way up to this level.
A few other specifications worth mentioning are; The display, a 5.5 inch FHD IPS display with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 at 400ppi wrapped in Corning Gorilla glass. It runs the latest Tecno’s HiOS on top of Android 7.0 Nougat. Hopefully a 7.1 Nougat update will be pushed. It uses an Octa-core Mediatek chipset as CPU clocked at 1.5GHz with 2GB of RAM and 16GB on-board storage with expansion via micro SD up to 128GB. The phone has 3400mAh with ‘light speed charge’ as Tecno calls it. Simply means it charges faster normal phones. The phone is also 4G capable up to 150Mbps.
You may be wondering what the difference is between the Camon CX and CX Air. Well, it’s the camera. The CX spots a 16 megapixel front and back camera where as the Camon CX Air has a 13 megapixel front and rare camera.
The Camon CX is report to sell for 670,000 Ugandan Shillings (About 186 US Dollar). If good camera is what you need in a smartphone for a relatively low price, this could be the safest bet.
