Over the years, the smartphones in the Phantom line-up have been classified as the company’s flagship; making effort to deliver on design, camera, and performance.
The company has recently been involved in global partnerships and premium sponsorships in order to project the brand beyond Africa which it has dominated for years. The new Phantom X is positioned to be TECNO’s ticket to global spotlight, competing with several other brands beyond the borders of Africa.
Will the company indeed have the world at its feet, eventually? Time alone will tell, but as we wait, let’s take a dive into what the Phantom X has to offer.
Design:
The Phantom X basically qualifies as a mid-range device so the word ‘flagship’ will not be the best description yet; however, it has a solid build quality of a flagship smartphone with a curved glass and aluminum frame wrapped round the entire side. This is the first time TECNO will make use of a curved glass for its display, and this gives the Phantom X a premium look and feel. The back panel is covered with a thin textured glass which, though an eye candy, easily carries smudges. TECNO includes its signature rubber case to aid grip and protection. The phone sits well inside the case such that the beauty provided by the curved glass and edges remain visible.
The right-hand side of the Phantom X has the volume rocker and power button, SIM tray at the top and the headphone jack, charging port and speakers at the bottom. There is a single speaker set up on the Phantom X which is loud enough for your multimedia experience but can get a bit distorted when volume is cranked to the highest. There is a massive camera bump housing the triple camera set up at the back that puts the phone at a slightly elevated position when placed on a table or flat surface. While this bump makes the device wobble on the table, it also gives the advantage of picking up the device easily.
Display:
The device has a curved 6.7-inch gorilla glass display with 93.13% screen-to-body ratio offering a bigger screen real estate and a better multimedia experience. The OLED panel boasts of a 90Hz refresh rate which dials down to 60Hz when switched to automatic mode to save battery life. The display is sharp, has good contrast with true black that provides extreme details, good sharpness but not very accurate colours. There is an under-display fingerprint sensor that is reasonably fast and accurate with very low fail rate.
Camera:
In addition to the design, the camera department is where TECNO Phantom X takes the shine. The triple camera set up at the back consists of a 50MP main camera, a 13MP telephoto lens and an 8MP ultra-wide lens. The selfie camera is a dual set up of 48MP sensor and 8MP ultra-wide lens. The default mode of the back camera is on AI mode and this works well as it identifies the subject when the camera is pointed at it.
Photos taken on the Phantom X come out sharp with good dynamic range, colours come out real and natural. The downside of the camera performance is that colours of the images can be inconsistent, while images sometimes appear over-sharpened and overexposed under abundant lighting conditions.
You will get a clearer and surprisingly better camera performance under low light condition. Pictures taken at night or under low light are bright, have good contrast, and colours very little noise.
Take a look at the pictures taken with the front and back cameras when taken in a room, when the lights were turned on and off.
The super night mode gives you better images and this seems to be the highlight of the Phantom X. You also have the ultra-wide mode on both front and back cameras that gives you a wider range of view, meanwhile ultra-wide mode is absent when camera is switched to night mode.
Performance:
There is the HiOS 7.6 skin layer on the Android 11, although HiOS is lighter on this device compared to previous versions, it still offers its unique custom user interface. The device is powered by MediaTek Helio G95, a CPU that provides better graphics and gaming performance.
Internal memory is also 256GB with 8GB of RAM that supports smooth and easy multitasking without lag.
Battery:
TECNO Phantom X is fitted with a 4,700mAh battery with 33Watt fast charging. A full charge in the morning is sure to carry you all day as experienced in the past one week. The fast charge also works well and it takes about an hour to charge the battery from zero to 100%.
Voice Assistant
The Phantom X also debuted TECNO’s voice assistant, Ella. Though ambitious, this feature looks like it still needs a lot of development as it is not as responsive compared to Intelligent Assistants by Google, Apple, and the likes. You however have the option to switch to Google’s native assistant from the device’s settings.
Color options
The TECNO Phantom X is available in two artistic colors; Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Monet’s Summer.
TECNO has successfully launched itself beyond Africa with the Phantom X and most importantly positioned to favorably compete with other global players like Xiaomi that are dominating the mid and upper mid-range smartphone market. While this first attempt might not be the best effort when you make direct comparisons with other mid-rangers on the basis of cost and value, the Phantom X design puts TECNO at a vantage position to launch into other markets.
