That the Tecno Camon 16s lives in the shadow of the Tecno Camon 16 Premier is not in doubt.
However, the device, which is going for Kshs 17,700, like its superior sibling, does have its sparks. Lots of them.
In my interaction with the device, this is what stood out for me:
Design
I’ll be upfront with you: there is nothing impeccable about the Tecno Camon 16s’ design. It’s like a lot of other devices we have seen before from Tecno and that, there, is what makes the design of interest to me.
Where we lauded the Chinese brand for its bold approach to the design of the Camon 16 Premier, maybe out of the need to keep costs down or whatever other reason they had, they went back to the tried and tested design for the Camon 16s.
As highlighted in our first impressions of the device, the design changes also result in the fingerprint sensor and cameras switching places. Both moves have impact on experiences like handling the device, for instance, The Camon 16s being a little smaller makes it much more at home with such use cases even though it could use as little wobbling when placed on a flat surface as the Premier did.
Camera
One design change we intentionally left out above is the switch to a single sensor on the front of the device, down from two on the Premier. As far as I can tell, that comes with some minute but noticeable changes in the image quality for selfies.
The differences are even more glaring when it comes to the back cameras but, at least, their performance in low-light isn’t that far off. Sure, it is nothing compared to the Premier but it does manage to hold on its own and, as far as the competition is concerned, makes a strong case for itself. Here, check out some of the samples:
Endurance
The battery life is excellent!
Over a period of about a day and a half, I still had 16% juice left which the device estimated to translate to about 7 more hours of usage which we know can be a slightly exaggerated estimate since it only takes into account what one is doing at that time. Still, what’s not to like about 8 hours of screen-on time over a period of nearly 2 days?
