I’ve been using the Tecno Phantom X for almost a month now, and after thoroughly testing all of its features, I believe it’s time to give you my full review. Please keep in mind that, while Tecno is an advertiser on Gadget Pilipinas, we made sure that everything we covered in this review was objectively based on our tests.
What’s inside the box?
The box of the Tecno Phantom X caught my attention. It gives the impression that this smartphone is different from Tecno’s other devices.
The phone is the first thing you’ll see when you open the box. Lifting the divider reveals the accessories, which are individually boxed.
Build
Tecno Phantom X’s design stands out compared to other phones by the brand. In fact, it’s nothing like its other smartphones, and Tecno seems to be promoting this brand as their low midrange smartphone with premium features.
The practically bezel-less 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display draws a lot of attention and is, in my opinion, the nicest one I’ve seen from Tecno. It is also the first from Tecno to sport such a display that can go up to 90Hz refresh rate. It is somewhat obvious that Tecno is showing some balls by introducing this feature in one of the lineups despite being very new in the industry.
As expected from a Super AMOLED display, images are vivid and texts are sharp. Saturation is almost perfect as well.
Buttons and switches are located on the side of the phone. There is a microphone found at the top and bottom. The device also has 3.5mm headphone hack and USB Type C port. Speaker grills is located just beside the Type C port.
One of the striking physical features of the phone is how they designed the camera cutout. I should also put on record that its camera bump is super thick – just as thick as the one on my Galaxy Z Fold2 5G.
Hardware
The Tecno Phantom X is equipped with a Helio G95, processor, and hardware components found in most midrage smartphones like the realme 8. It is also packed with 8GB RAM and 256GB internal storage, which is usually unheard of from Tecno.
In terms of performance, this can go toe to toe with realme 8, and it can in fact perform better in certain real-life situations. The only downside is that (1) this isn’t actually locally available, and if we convert its international price of KES49,999, its local price is pricier than most products offered by both realme and Xiaomi.
It also works pretty well for gaming. I tried playing Genshin Impact, Sausage Man and Pokemon Unite with this smartphone and I never had any issues. There were no stutters or even FPS issues while playing in medium settings. I noticed a few performance hiccups while playing Genshin Impact with some miscellaneous features turned on. Turning motion blur and other aesthetic effects put the FPS to at least 27fps.
If you’re after artificial benchmarks, here’s a comparison of its performance versus realme 8 and 3 other smartphones with various installed chipsets.
Software
The latest HiOS runs on top of Android 11. There is technically nothing new in this version, and all the settings found on Tecno’s other smartphones remained consistent on Phantom X.
One of the new things that Tecno added to Phantom X is their Voice Assistant, Ella. This allows users to simply “tell” Ellan to make a call, read WhatsApp messages, play music, take photos and a lot more.
Since the new phone has relatively better sets of camera, they also added a few features on is camera software. While I’ll cover more about its photography features a bit later, I’d like to point out that Phantom X now has extra camera features such as Ultra HD and Film Mode. The former makes use of the phone’s whopping 50MP lens so you can shoot your subjects with better and bigger details. The latter, on the other hand, are simply ‘presets ‘that will allow you to shoot films with pre-applied filters and color.
Camera
Tecno Phantom X’s camera performance is something I am willing to fight for. It is ridiculously good, and it made really hoped that all of Tecno’s smartphones perform similarly.
For your reference, the phone’s rear camera has the following specifications: 50MP f/1.9 wide, 13MP f/2.4 telephoto, and an 8MP f/2.3. Front cameras are 4MP f/2.2 wide and another 8MP f/2.2. Obviously, Tecno’s cameras give it more value, and you’ll be surprised how good of a camera smartphone this is.
The phone’s strongest suit is its rear-facing camera. Color accuracy is excellent, and saturation is spot on. Taking selfies is such a delight to do with this device as well. There are also various settings to choose from when using Beauty and Portrait modes. The only downside, however, is that there is still no Pro Mode, which is disappointing for a camera smartphone of such caliber.
Here are some examples of images we captured with the phone’s rear-facing camera:
Now, here are some sample photos using the front camera:
Battery Life
The battery life of the Tecno Phantom X exceeded my expectations It outperformed my expectations in battery benchmarks, clocking in at 11 hours and 17 minutes.
Verdict
Tecno Phantom X is a testament that Tecno can be expected to do more in the industry. The device is a solid market position, combined with its extremely competitive cost, make it one of the good Tecno smartphones, if not the best smartphone they ever released.
Founded in 2009 by Gian Viterbo, Gadget Pilipinas is one of Philippines’ top sources for news, tutorials, reviews and tips about the latest trends in technology, gadgets, games, social and digital media and cyber culture.
