Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: When Design Meets Photography

108-megapixel Ultrawide sensor: This is the first time we have seen a phone with that sensor, and Tecno is the brand that has turned this into reality. The brand is making headlines because of its latest smartphone, the Camon 20 Premier 5G. At Rs 29,999, the phone flaunts a geometric design, a 108-megapixel ultrawide angle sensor, sensor-shift stabilisation with RGBW Pro, Mediatek Dimensity 8050 chipset and much more.

But is it all just on the papers, or does Camon 20 Premier 5G deliver? We have been using the device for more than two weeks, and here’s what we think about the phone.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: Design & Build

• The Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G features a geometrical design.

• It weighs around 202.5 grams.

The Tecno Camon series is widely popular because of its design. Last year’s Camon 19 Pro Mondrian Edition was India’s first multi-colour changing smartphone. This time, they take a different approach with a leather-fused back panel that features geometric cuts — making it look like a jigsaw puzzle.

The leather back gives the phone a premium look and feel. Fingerprint smudges or uninvited scratches on the back panel should not be an issue for the phone. But, if you are a bit paranoid about spilling the tea on the phone, a good-quality case can be found inside the box.

The camera island is fairly big and takes over half of the phone’s width, so we would like to call it “camera continent” instead (pun intended). An LED light ring surrounds the triple camera setup at the back.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G frames are made of plastic but feature a glossy finish — which invites all kinds of smudges. The physical buttons and SIM tray blend in properly with this glossy finish, suggesting Tecno focused on the design element of the phone massively.

We received the Dark Welkin (Black) variant from the brand, but if vibrant colours are your pick, you can check out the Serenity Blue variant.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G tips the scales at 202.5 grams, which is not lightweight. However, the premium finish and solid build quality justify it to an extent. The phone comes with IP53 dust and water resistance.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: Display and Audio

• The Camon 20 Premier features a 6.67-inch AMOLED display.

• It comes with a Widevine L1 certification.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G has a visually rich display that feels pleasing to the eye. It’s a 6.67-inch AMOLED 10-bit display with Full HD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. Thanks to its hardware decoding capabilities, the phone can handle HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG content. The display is Widevine L1 certified so you can watch your favourite shows on OTT platforms in the highest resolution possible.

The bezels surrounding the display are fairly thin, with a hole-punch cutout at the top, which houses the selfie camera.

The display produces close-to-natural colours with crisp details. You can switch to the bright-coloured mode if you prefer a vibrant output. We watched ‘My Happy Marriage’, and a few anime on Netflix, and all of them were pleasurable to watch on the Camon 20 Premier 5G.

The 120Hz refresh rate display is smooth and fast. It allows you to switch to a lower refresh rate to help save battery. While Tecno hasn’t revealed details about the peak brightness, we were able to use the phone under direct sunlight without any issues.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G has a stereo speaker setup, which sounds average. Ideally, we would have preferred a louder and crisper output. When set at higher levels, distortion from the speakers kicks in.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier Review: Battery Life & Charging

• The Camon 20 Premier 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery inside.

• It provides a screen time of a maximum of 6.5 hours.

The Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G packs a 5,000mAh battery that can last you a day or more, depending on your usage. On average, the phone provided us with a screen time of six hours, which was decent. Our usage included scrolling through social media apps, watching web series and playing a couple of rounds on BGMI.

The Camon 20 Premier supports 45W charging, less than what the other brands offer in this price segment. For example, the iQOO Neo 7 supports 120W fast charging, whereas POCO F5 supports 80W charging.

It takes the phone an hour and 35 minutes to charge from the dead fully.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: Performance and Software

• A MediaTek Dimensity 8050 chipset powers the Camon 20 Premier 5G
• It scored 6,13,782 in AnTuTu v10 tests

The Camon 20 Premier 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 8050 chipset, which has a performance output similar to that of the Dimensity 1300 found in the OnePlus Nord 2T. The Camon 20 Premier 5G takes a step forward in the storage department — and how. It packs 512GB of internal storage, which is unlike other smartphones in this price range. You can find gimmicks such as virtual RAM here, too.

Talking about benchmarks, it recorded a score of 6,13,782 on AnTuTu v10, which is less than last year’s Dimensity 1300-powered OnePlus Nord 2T. Despite rerunning the test, the company’s claim of a seven-lakh score in the same test wasn’t achieved on our unit. In Geekbench 6 tests, the phone returned 1104 and 3124 single-core and multi-core scores, respectively.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G benchmark scores are lower than its competition in the same segment, such as iQOO Neo 7 and POCO F5 — performance-oriented smartphones.

However, these benchmark scores do not reflect real-life usage. The device performs well under heavy load, but the thermal situation could have been slightly better when dealing with multi-tasking or more intensive tasks.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G can run BGMI on HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate. For a smoother experience, you can switch to Smooth and Extreme. The gaming experience was good, without any hiccups. Adding to the thermal situation, we noticed the rear panel warming up after about 20 minutes of continuous gaming.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G runs its custom HiOS skin based on Android 13. The device is confirmed to receive Android 14 Beta later this year, but there is no confirmation about further updates from the brand. The UI experience feels more polished this time, with a few visual changes in certain places.

Sadly, you’ll still find many bloatware apps on the phone, although the number has drastically reduced. What hasn’t been reduced is the spammy notifications.

Like Infinix Note 30 5G’s Folax, Tecno has an in-house voice assistant called Ella. For most of the queries, it just redirects you to Google. Meh!

The device features face, and in-display fingerprint unlock for biometrics, which performs well.

We feel that positioning the fingerprint scanner slightly upwards would have made it more accessible.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: Camera

• The main highlight of the Camon 20 Premier 5G is its 108-megapixel ultrawide camera.

• The primary sensor has support for Sensor-shift stabilisation,

The Camon 20 Premier 5G uses a 50-megapixel primary sensor with sensor-shift stabilisation, a feature available only on iPhones in India. While that is surely a great feature, the star of the show is the 108-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera. Furthermore, you get a 2-megapixel depth sensor. On the front, it uses a 32-megapixel selfie shooter along with a dual flashlight.

The camera app is simple and easy to navigate. Some unique modes available are Sky Shop, AR short, Pro and Dual video.

Starting with the ultra-wide angle, the colours produced in daylight were neutral, with good contrast levels. The dynamic range in the pictures was also neatly maintained. At times, we found the 108-megapixel camera could produce better colours than the primary camera. However, the edges lacked decent details. To curb this, we used the 108MP mode, which returned better results, as expected.

The 50-megapixel primary camera gave us mixed results. In most of the shots, it managed to retain details and produce close-to-natural colours. However, it had poor dynamic range control in some shots, resulting in overexposed shots.

In low-light conditions, the primary and ultra-wide angle cameras capture decent photos with fewer details. Switching to the Super Night mode can help extract relatively more details. However, it has the tendency to make the images look artificial with a slight hint of oversharpening.

Irrespective of lighting conditions, the Camon 20 Premier 5G captures some of the best selfies in this segment. The skin tone is natural, and the colours are maintained well. The portraits were also good, making the images Instagram-ready.

The Camon 20 Premier 5G can shoot up to 4K videos at 30fps. The sensor-shift stabilisation feature is limited to 1080p videos. The stabilisation technology works well and keeps the video less shaky.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier 5G Review: Verdict

The Camon 20 Premier 5G is a value-for-money phone. The 108-megapixel ultrawide sensor truly stands up to its claim, and after OPPO Reno 10 Pro (review), this design has impressed us. Although the primary camera sensor is just okayish, the videos captured were stable and satisfactory. However, we still feel that the performance is satisfactory but nothing mind-blowing, and the device heats up even in slight usage.

If you are sceptical about investing your bucks in a Tecno phone, here is something you should know. Whether it’s the Phantom X2 series (review), Phantom V Fold (first impressions) or any other smartphone, Tecno has been bullish on the Indian smartphone market since late 2022. It also unveiled a Nothing Phone (2) inspired POVA 5 Pro with LED lights on the back.

All of this works, as the latest IDC report states that Tecno witnessed a 44.1 per cent year-on-year growth in the second quarter of 2023.

But if you are still looking for alternatives, you may consider checking out the iQOO Neo 7 (review) and POCO F5 (review) for their beast performance, fast charging, good display and camera.