Tecno’s latest smartphone, the Camon 15, is already available for purchase in the country.
Launched globally back in February and made available for pre-order in the country last month, the Camon 15 is part of the Tecno Camon 15 series that includes two other devices: the Tecno Camon 15 Air and Tecno Camon 15 Premier.
The Camon 15 Air and Premier are set to be made available locally any time now. There are no indications that the Tecno Camon 15 Pro, the other member of the Camon 15 family, will be available in Kenya.
We have with us the Tecno Camon 15 for a little over a week now and, using it, I have been able to make a number of observations, most of which I’ll be highlighting further in an upcoming review and feature walkthroughs.
The quick observations are as follows:
- The battery lasts and lasts. The Tecno Camon 15 arrives with a 5,000mAh battery. Combining the massive unit and the software optimizations that Tecno has in place leaves the device with a very high endurance rating. Getting back home from a long day at work with still some juice left is not a worry. Now that some of us hardly leave our homes as we work from there, this translates to a lot longer before we need to juice it up.
- Even with its massive size, it doesn’t feel unwieldy, which is surprising.
- The 6.6-inch HD display looks very fine.
- With a MediaTek Helio P22 chipset and just enough memory to keep everything going as intended, the device feels – and acts – fast!
- Tecno has upgraded the software experience to version 6.0 of its in-house HiOS. This time round, it is powered by Android 10, making the devices in the Camon 15 series, like the Camon 15 in our possession, the very first Tecno devices to arrive with Android 10 right out of the box.
- That means that while everything stays familiar for those that have previously used HiOS, there are a few minor changes here and there. For me, if we are to go into the nitpicking category, one of the more visible changes is the positioning of the ticker that shows on the home screen that an app you have has some new notifications you are yet to read. The app info page has also been reworked. Hitting up the app switcher results in something that we haven’t seen before: “HiOS powered by Einstein AI Engine”.
- Of course, Tecno preloads the usual coterie of apps but, at least in my review unit, there is a curious addition that sorely stands out: YouTube Music. Given that the main YouTube Music service that we know isn’t officially available in Kenya, all that the app does is play any locally-stored audio files. Interesting.
- The one thing that you can’t miss on the Tecno Camon 15 is its very pronounced punch-hole camera which dominates the upper left side of the display. Directly above it, on the bezel area, is a very big and bright LED flash that springs into action when there are new notifications or when it is summoned as a flash for the 16-megapixel front-facing shooter.
- Talking about cameras, the quad-camera arrangement at the back of the device means that users will have to make do with some wobble when they place the Camon 15 on a flat surface like, say, a table.
- The device’s design, too, stands out with a new “Innovation Designed by Tecno” inscription at the back falling in place alongside the textured lines that run along the entire length of the device from the back’s top corner, complimenting the colourful gradient design.
The Tecno Camon 15 is going for Kshs 18,000 online through Jumia Kenya and in stores countrywide.
