The TECNO Camon 12 recently launched in Uganda and we have had our time with it, that we first delivered our first impressions, promised you a review and here we are! The Camon 12 has seen a big push not only from TECNO itself but MTN Uganda too and we can only hope the reception has been nothing but good. The two partnered to deliver the phone bundled with giveaways with the most interesting one being data.
To some, the Camon 12 will look familiar as it shares somewhat a lot of similarities with other phones that have launched from the TECNO stable recently. With it comes features we have seen TECNO front like the Tripple AI camera that brings across wide-angle and macro-photography, the waterdrop notch, the chin bezel among others.
However, the Camon 12 stands out in its own right and gives us what we have always expected from the Camon series, decent photography especially selfies at a pretty affordable price of UGX 569,000 for the model that we were able to review.
Build & Design
As said earlier, the Camon 12 shares an almost similar design language with other TECNO phones we reviewed earlier like the Phantom 9, but this doesn’t mean they’re similar in every aspect as we never came across an in-display fingerprint scanner, the Camon’s was found to be the good old back fingerprint scanner, no AMOLED display with the Camon shipping with a large 6.52’ LCD display panel with a large footprint than its predecessor.
The build is mostly plastic with a unibody design that houses the volume rockers and power buttons on the right plus the two Nano-SIM card slots on the left as well as the vertically aligned triple AI cameras at the back. Not forgetting a micro-USB charging port at the bottom and speaker grills.
The Camon 12 even with its large footprint felt light in the hands but you might need more than one hand to use it.
The Software
The Camon 12 ships with Android 9.0 Pie with heavy skinning from TECNO’s own HiOS operating system. Apart from the occasional intrusive HiOS ads, the software ran pretty smooth with no hiccups though be sure to expect an update the moment you boot up the phone.
As is the case, HiOS comes with a lot of customizations across fonts, themes and the like and the Camon 12 didn’t miss out on the magic. It even has its own store from which you can download most of the aforementioned items.
The AI Camera(s)
Yes, the Camera! The Camon 12 has a rear Tripple AI camera of 16MP + 2MP + 8MP. The 16MP for AI-based photography and HDR, 8MP for 120° wide-angle shots and 2cm micro photography shots and the 2MP camera brings in the AI bokeh effect. The main selfie shooter is 16MP as well but generally, I preferred it to the rear shooter. Photos from both cameras were decent, to say the least, the selfies were particularly brighter but the cameras struggled with night photography, dim-lit indoor shots, and video.
The camera interface is infused with AI-powered features like Google Lens, AR Stickers emojis. The Camera also doubled as a phone unlocker with the face unlock embedded features which worked pretty fine.
Plus Performance
The Camon 12 is powered by a MediaTek Helio P22 paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. It held up against most tasks thrown at it and performed particularly well in day-to-day phone activities that include a tremendous amount of notifications, browsing, emails, social networking, calls, light gaming among others.
Battery
It boasts of a 4000mAh battery, strong enough to withstand the aforementioned activities for a day without charge. And on days with less activity, the Camon 12 could extend its battery juice into a second day before the red sign of danger could show up. Overall, the battery is good!
Network
4G is here and a host of other network configurations that extend all the way to the good old 2G. So expect faster download speeds across the board and in instances where 4G reception is dismal, 3G speeds can right away kick in. Much as TECNO partnered with MTN to launch the Camon 12, our review model worked fine across other networks like Airtel but be sure the dual SIM card option can always sort you out.
Where To Buy From
TECNO’s partnership with MTN affords the Camon 12 to be found in most MTN outlets across the country bundled with giveaways like data but also at TECNO’s own retail footprint spread across the country at a recommended retail price of UGX 569,000.
