Tecno is re-asserting its commitment to building products pushing the bar beyond global standards by launching its brand-new flagship, named Phantom X2 Pro.
Tecno is a budget smartphone brand which has strong presence in emerging markets such as India, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe.
It was founded in 2006 as a subsidiary of Transsion Group, a Chinese multinational specializing in mobile communication and consumer electronics. Starting with feature phones and basic mobile phones initially, Tecno entered into the bigger league of smartphones in 2014.
The Spark and CAMON smartphone series of the brand conquered the Sub-Saharan Africa quickly and has been ranked in the top 10 of the global smartphone market since Q4 2020. Transsion Group raised its R&D budget by 40% in Q2 2022, as a step towards producing more sophisticated products for higher-value markets.
Now, Tecno is re-asserting its commitment to building products pushing the bar beyond global standards by launching its brand-new flagship, named Phantom X2 Pro. It stands out with its original design and packaging as a competitive product.
World’s first retractable portrait-lens
The device surprised the market with its world’s first retractable portrait-lens and the widest aperture among mobile portrait lenses. The ‘3.5D Lunar Crater’ glass rear panel with two color options in Stardust Gray and Mars Orange to house its new extendable lens is another world-first for the X2 Pro.
The company’s decision to bring in Ramkin, the well-known British fashion photographer to promote the phone and its photographic capabilities is a clear indication of its plans for the premium smartphone segment.
Along with the phone, the box contains type-C cable, 45W charger, wired earphones, hard case, ejector tool and documents. The dimensions of the phone are 164.6 x 72.7 x 9 mm and it weighs 201 grams. At the first instance itself, the phone catches your eyes with its striking style. The metal frame provides a solid feel, the front is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus.
The rear side is made of recycled plastic of the Indian Ocean and there you can see a subtle ‘Phantom’ branding which gives the phone a premium feel. The plastic has a rough texture which gives the phone a unique identity too.
The power button and volume rockers are on the right side, the top has a microphone hole and the bottom side holds the type-C port, SIM card tray, and a speaker grill, but the 3.5mm jack and MicroSD slot are missing. The main highlight of the phone is the big camera unit at the back. One of the large camera lenses has a colour accent around it.
The large 6.8-inch AMOLED panel with FHD+ (2400 x 1080) resolution and 120Hz refresh, has good colors and customizability in fine-tuning the color balance. The device is powered by MediaTek’s 4nm Dimensity 9000 Octa-core processor which can manage heavy workloads with good efficiency figures.
The GPU is Mali-G710 MC10 and the 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is good enough for any type of usage. The phone has Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3, and a decent selection of 5G bands along with global 4G connectivity. The sensors feature optical under display fingerprint, accelerometer, gyro, proximity, and compass.
Phantom X2 Pro is a bold new step from Tecno
The 50MP portrait camera module can manually retract the lens. The lens switches to 2.5x mode when extended, and in the standard 1x mode it stays inside the chassis. The X2 Pro makes vibrant photos in different light conditions with good colors and little to no visible noise.
The large 5160mAh battery lasts all the day, even with heavy use and the 45W fast charging technology can power the device fully in over an hour. But the phone doesn’t support wireless charging, a notable miss. The Phantom X2 Pro is a bold new step from Tecno, into the big league of premium smartphones.