TECNO Camon 18 Premier Review

Every smartphone needs that one feature that allows it to stand out in a crowd, for some it is in software, while for others, it is in the hardware. Well, when it comes to the Tecno Camon 18 Premier it combines both software and hardware to produce something you never would have imagined would be possible until now.

And in this video, we are going to breakdown every detail there is to this smartphone, and why I was personally impressed with some of its capabilities and the downsides you should know. If you are new to the channel, welcome, and if you are a returning subscriber, welcome back. Don’t forget to hit that like button so more people get to see this thorough breakdown of the Tecno Camon 18 Premier. Without further ado, let’s get into the video. I have had the Tecno Camon 18 Premier for over a month now, and this was one of those devices that ended up impressing me in some instances. Build When it comes to the build quality, I have to say that it does get a pass. Both by merely looking at it and when you hold it in hand, the Camon 18 Premier feels like a premium device all-round. The back of the phone has a gradient feel to it that is very appealing to the eye, and the material that is used for the design gives you a good grip on the phone, despite its smooth finish. The Camon 18 Premier is, in simple terms, something huge. It is 6.45 inches long and weighs 200.6 grams.  As you would expect, the phone comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack, you also get a type-C charging port, one speaker at the bottom, two mics, one at the top, and one at the bottom of the phone. The Camon 18 Premier is designed to take dual nano sim cards, and one micro SD card. Display Let’s now go over the basic display specs of the Tecno Camon 18 Premiere. Like most of the flagship devices of 2021, this display has a refresh rate of 120hz.

The 1080p AMOLED display relies on a 6.7-inch screen that has a 393 pixel per inch density. Tecno has also ensured that you get the full display experience with the 550 nits of brightness that the phone has. Moving on, watching videos on the Tecno Camon 18 Premier’s 1080p display is very impressive, especially when compared to the older devices designed by Tecno, both in the display size and the 1080p quality. At this level of quality, you get a better viewing experience when streaming 4K content on platforms like Youtube and Netflix. As long as you can secure the right internet speed, and data balance, of course, you will certainly enjoy watching High Definition videos on the Tecno Camon 18 Premier.  As for scrolling and screen usage in general, the screen on this phone does not fail either. Day-to-day uses were very decent and easy to use. Scrolling across the interface of the phone and apps, you can feel the smoothness that comes with the 120hz display. Typing is also quite comfortable with this device, however the haptics on the Tecno devices could still use a little bit of work for it to be fully appreciated. Thanks to the small hole punch selfie camera, you do not have too much on-screen intrusion, and you also have enough screen real estate to work with when you're typing, watching videos, or paying games. The Camon 18 Premier offers an 87.2% screen-to-body ratio, very tiny bezels. And that is about all there is to this display.

Storage, Processor, and Features ] In the performance department, this phone runs on the latest MediaTek Helio G96. This chipset is an updated version of what you find on the Phantom X and Camon 17 Pro. The performance on those phones was pretty impressive, and you would be right to expect even more from the Camon 18 Premier. While other performance-related features on the phone vibe well with this chipset, Tecno did not really maximize the capabilities of the processor. The MediaTek Helio G96 is designed with maximum camera support for 108 megapixels on the back, however, all you get with the Camon 18 Premier is a 64-megapixel cameral, but we’ll get into the details of that later in the video. For the other features, though, Tecno ensures that you get the best of the MediaTek Helio G96 chipset. The Tecno Camon 18 Premier is capped at 8GB of RAM and offers you up to 256GB of storage. The maximum display resolution for the G96 is 2520 by 1080, the Camon 18 Premier runs a resolution of 1080 by 2400.

The Camon 18 Premier also comes with Android 11 on HiOS 8.0, with all of these features, this phone will definitely satisfy your day-to-day performance needs. After putting the phone through a Geekbench test, the Camon 18 Premier scored 512 in the single-core, and 1772 for the multicore. These are pretty decent numbers, especially when compared to the scores of a device like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro that scored significantly lower. Now, away from the numbers to real-life usage. As usual, I put the phone to the test with Call of Duty, and the Camon 18 Premier handled the gameplay with a minimum of fuss. Despite the intense nature of the game and all the activity that goes on, I did not experience any lag as I gunned my enemies down. The Camon 18 Premier does come with its own share of bloatware though, ads running through the notifications section that could make you accidentally click what you don’t want to watch. The HiOS system may still need a few tweaks and updates to make the interface more interesting, but still, though, you will be getting a lot of notifications from the HiOS launcher and its corresponding apps. Another area of the interface that added a little flair is the notification bar and control center. With the new HiOS update on the Camon 18 Premier, scrolling from the top down on the left of the screen shows you notifications, while scrolling on the right side of the screen shows the control center. I think it is a good attempt at eliminating the “scroll twice to reveal the control center” that we have all gotten used to.

However, it may take a little while for new users to adapt to the new system. One thing that would have been great, though, is if Tecno gave users the option of selecting how they wanted to view their notifications and control center. Another thing I wish the phone has was swiping on any part of the screen for the notifications and control center. Swiping down on any area of the screen except the very top opens up the HiOS search bar instead of notifications and control center. Considering how long the phone is, it gets a little uncomfortable to have to go all the way to the top of the screen to access notifications and the control center. You can also swipe from the bottom corners to get to the Google Assistant section of things. For sound quality, you can already guess that the device is decently loud. The speakers on the phone offer loud and clear, but like most smartphone speakers, it does not offer very accurate sounds with the bass. Playing any form of audio straight out of the speakers on this phone will give you quite thin sounds. Another minor disappointment in the speaker department is that this device is built with just one speaker. A mono speaker. Wish TECNO gave us a dual speaker here but this is what we get. Now, this might be a minor issue for most people since you are not going to be constantly playing audio out loud from the speakers of your phone. Mono speaker aside, inserting the headphones that come in the box, that is, the follow-come, you get pretty decent audio quality. It might not be on the same level as high-end headphones that would cost thousands of naira, but it does a fair job. As a plus, it is also a design that you can wear comfortably for a couple of hours.

Speaking of headphones, TECNO also makes their wireless buds called the TECNO Buds, we’ll also be giving away one TECNO buds to a subscriber so make sure you Like this video, Subscribe and do share it. Winners will be selected a week from when this video is published. [ Gaming + Battery ] Earlier in the video, I mentioned that this phone runs on a new G96 processor. With this phone, gaming was enjoyable. The performance features on this phone combine very well to give you a seamless gaming experience overall. Unsurprisingly, my regular call of duty sessions went smoothly on here. The phone does a decent job handling the graphics for games like Call of Duty and Asphalt 9, both of which require a lot of graphic power for the full experience. While the Camon 18 Premier might not be a graphic beast with these games, I personally had a good time gaming on this device. With regards to the battery life though, the battery life went from 42% to 28% after about an hour of playing call of duty. Based on this 14-percent loss after an hour of gaming, we can say that the phone would offer you roughly 6 hours of gaming with a full battery. For the numbers on the battery and charger of this phone, you get a 4750 mAh and a whopping 33W fast charger that is advertised to take the phone from 0 to 64 percent in 30 minutes. When I ran a charging speed test with the 33-watt charger that comes in the box, I was impressed by just how fast this device charges up.

The Camon 18 Premier went from 15% to 94% within 45 minutes of charging. It then took another 7 minutes to get to 100%. That is about 52 minutes to get an 85% charge on the phone. I consider this a pretty impressive battery performance altogether. As for how long the battery can last, my daily usage of this phone was pretty fair, and it was able to hold its own. Unless you are a very heavy user, you should be fine for an entire day on a full charge. And even when the battery gets drained, you do not have to worry about waiting too long for it to charge up. [ Fingerprint & Face Unlock ] Now, when it comes to unlocking this phone, you get both face unlock and a fingerprint reader on the power button. The face unlock was pretty easy to set up. Once you have it set up, it is pretty responsive in terms of speed. In decent lighting, it does a good job. As you get into darker conditions, the feature starts to struggle to pick up my face. In pitch darkness, the face unlock feature on the Camon 18 Premier will not be useful to you at all. As for the fingerprint scanner on the Camon 18 Premier, It’s right on the power button which anyone who uses their phone will definitely tap on multiple times, still, though, this fingerprint scanner is faster than most of the older devices. I know I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I think every phone manufacturer should have the fingerprint reader on their power buttons.

[ Cameras ] The first and most noticeable thing about the camera section on the Camon 18 Premier is that it comes with a very big bump. As a result of the size of this bump, the phone is unable to lie flat on a table, hence, it will wobble a little when you place it down. Adding the phone case that comes in the box helps to slightly reduce the effect of the bump, nonetheless, it still remains. Bump aside, the biggest and most impressive feature of the camera system on the Camon 18 Premier is that it comes with a feature that they call “Ultra Steady” which we’ll test in a few minutes. In video mode also, the 18 Premier has a feature that allows the camera to blur the background when the subject is relatively close to the camera.

 For the specifications, we’ve got a 32MP wide front facing camera, it’s got a dual led flash, it’s capable of HDR and it records in 1080p at 30 frames per second. The cameras on the back, the triple cameras are a set containing a 64MP wide, 8MP telephoto camera and a 12MP ultra wide camera. This ultra wide camera is what’s the “gimbal” camera with OIS. The back is capable of 4K at 30 frames at its highest. Alright, to the pictures now. When it comes to the front facing cameras’ photos, the selfie is fair and in a very bright environment, you can expect slight desaturation or somewhat of an over exposed image. This front facing camera is also capable of capturing in portrait mode and you should expect even more exposure levels. You might need to adjust a bit to take a nice photo, again, especially if light or sunlight is too bright. The back camera’s shot of people might also need quite a fair amount of adjustments to get a shot that prioritises both foreground and background. This could take time and most people would simply want the best camera out of their device. This is thrown out when you go right into portrait mode as the background becomes over exposed and this is of course to show more of the foreground or the subject of the image. I noticed some struggle when I tried to focus on both foreground and background and get the best HDR quality from the Camon 18 Premier.

It might blur or prioritise either your face or the background and when the face is prioritized, expect an over exposed background and when the background is prioritised, you might see images that have blur faces. However, portrait mode can also be decent on the Camon 18 Premier. When it comes to scenery, it does capture in a sharp and good contrast detail. I didn’t notice the power of HDR in the sky but on more of the foreground elements. The camera is also capable of a 60X zoom which, if you want to see a re-enactment of what it can do, watch this video right up here in the card. The ultra wide is softer when it comes to pictures since it’s small but 12MP is not bad at all. The photos are indeed usable. The main camera is higher at 64MP or 16 if you’re not using it’s high quality mode and you do get decent zooms at 5x. When it comes to video, you can pretty much expect similar attributes to its photos regarding over exposure and the contrast. In an area with somewhat constant light, the auto exposure keeps changing very frequently depending on the amount of light coming in. What the main selling point is though is that steady shot, is it really that good. Well for comparison’ sake, here’s a video with the higher quality camera without the steady shot and here’s it being used with the ultrawide camera. The difference is really clear and I think it’s a cool selling point. That’s pretty much it for this video, do let me know if you still have any questions or comments about the Camon 18 Premier and I’ll be sure to answer them in the comment