This bright orange phone has a pop-out camera unlike anything I’ve seen before - Digital Trends

1 year ago 47

The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro is simply a confusing phone. It has this clever, unusual, and really precise susceptible pop-out camera that makes you privation to cognize more. Simply put, it’s an enticing package.

But then, erstwhile you bash explore, the remainder of the camera and the telephone itself tin beryllium rather disappointing. There’s a batch to unpack astir this unusual phone, truthful let’s get started.

Who is Tecno, and what is the Phantom X2 Pro?

The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro held successful a person's hand.

Tecno Mobile sells smartphones successful 70 antithetic countries, but you won’t find them successful the U.S., and you astir apt won’t admit immoderate of the brand’s erstwhile smartphone models either, adjacent if you’re a die-hard mobile fan. You whitethorn person heard of Infinix, though, and some it and Tecno are owned by the aforesaid company, Transsion.

What made america wage attraction to the Phantom X2 Pro? It has a pop-out camera connected the back. Motorized cameras aren’t truly thing new, but we’ve not seen 1 rather similar this before. The 50-megapixel camera extends retired a abbreviated region from the assemblage of the telephone and promises to instrumentality representation photos with a beardown extent of tract for that desirable blurred inheritance look. The 65mm focal magnitude and f/1.49 aperture surely marque it technically impressive. It’s joined by different 50MP main camera and a 13MP wide-angle camera.

The recycled integrative rear sheet connected the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro.

The remainder of the telephone is made up of a 6.8-inch AMOLED surface with a 120Hz refresh rate, a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor, 12GB of RAM, 5G connectivity, and a 5,160mAh battery. It comes successful either a grey colour oregon the antithetic Mars Orange seen successful our photos. The rear sheet is made from recycled integrative and has a textured, astir fibrous finish. It feels much similar fluffy cardboard than integrative and is dissimilar thing I’ve seen earlier connected a phone. I truly similar it.

In your hand, the Phantom X2 Pro feels similar galore Huawei and Oppo phones from astir 2019, with a mildly curved surface gathering the chassis. It’s reasonably slim astatine 8.9mm and averagely weighted astatine 212 grams, but the camera module connected the backmost is not beauteous astatine all. In black, it has obscurity to fell against the agleam orangish rear sheet and draws adjacent much attraction to itself with the orangish ringing astir the extendable camera. It’s not hideous, but it’s surely not pretty, either.

What’s peculiar astir the camera

The broadside of the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro with the camera extended.

The camera module whitethorn not drawback attraction owed to its design, but the kid successful maine loves to spot cameras popping retired the backmost of phones — and the Phantom X2 Pro satisfies that need, but does it really marque immoderate quality to the photos you take? The camera extends erstwhile you pat the 2.5x enactment successful the viewfinder, and a gloriously earthy extent of tract is added to your photos. This isn’t similar a representation mode with artificial blur, it looks much similar a DSLR. Take a look astatine the assemblage beneath to spot what I mean.

The changeable of the Porsche emblem is my favorite. The camera focused precisely wherever I wanted it to, and kept the h2o droplets successful absorption on with the emblem, past added a beardown inheritance blur — giving the photograph extent and ocular interest. The photograph of the flowering works shows however you tin play astir with the absorption too. Remember, this isn’t digitally manipulated blur, it’s earthy blur added by the camera lens. I similar however sharply focused the flowers are, and however isolated they are successful the photo.

You request to experimentation with the Phantom X2 Pro’s camera to get the close look, though, and not each photograph taken with the extended camera looks good, thing we volition travel connected to next. However, it’s precisely the benignant of diagnostic I like, arsenic it prompts you to messiness astir with it, and I cognize it tin instrumentality immoderate astonishing photos successful the close circumstances. It’s different, fun, and makes maine privation to spell retired and instrumentality photos — conscionable to spot what it tin do.

Tecno besides says the camera is bully astatine taking photos of enactment scenes successful which an object, similar a car, is moving quickly. I haven’t had overmuch of a accidental to effort this out, but successful the photos I’ve taken, it’s hard to spot immoderate quality implicit other almighty smartphone cameras.

This weird camera hits … and misses

After the occurrence of the pop-out camera, the Phantom X2 Pro gets confusing. Not each photograph you instrumentality is simply a winner, and it goes to amusement conscionable however important bundle tuning is to supply a accordant look to your photos, positive however a precise absorbing hardware diagnostic needs large bundle to truly bring retired its best. It’s not that the Phantom X2 Pro’s camera is each bad, it’s the inconsistency that truly annoys me.

In the assemblage above, instrumentality peculiar enactment of the 2 sunset photos. The archetypal is alternatively nice, with the pleasing code of the aureate sun, the increasing crushed mist successful the distance, and the chilliness of the aerial each captured precise effectively. The adjacent photograph is the aforesaid country taken with the wide-angle camera, and it’s bad. From the sound connected the partition to the mediocre absorption and deficiency of detail, it’s a genuinely mediocre photo.

This was successful challenging lighting conditions, truthful what astir a daylight comparison? The different sets of photos successful the assemblage amusement however the main camera tin instrumentality a beauteous photograph with a beauteous atmosphere, and past however the wide-angle camera ruins it with borderline distortion, mediocre focus, and each kinds of unusual artifacts and errors. The main camera doesn’t flight inconsistency either, and it tin severely misjudge colors. The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro’s camera is all implicit the place.

What astir the remainder of the phone?

This was the archetypal clip I’d utilized a Tecno phone, truthful it was besides an instauration to the brand’s HiOS mentation of Android 12. Compared to operating systems similar Samsung’s OneUI and Android connected a Pixel phone, it’s dense and overly complicated, with aggregate swipe-down and slide-in panels each providing “features” of dubious usefulness. There are a batch of pre-installed apps, galore of them duplicating Google apps, positive astatine slightest 1 further app store too. The screen’s responsiveness is inconsistent arsenic well.

Performance is adequate, but wide the optimization isn’t precise good. The camera app, successful particular, tin beryllium dilatory to respond, and you regularly person to prod and poke the 2.5x fastener aggregate times to get the extendable camera to popular out. The strategy lacks polish, but I person been utilizing the telephone up of release, truthful bundle updates whitethorn cure the dilatory effect successful the future. I haven’t been inspired to usage it arsenic my main phone, though.

This is simply a shame, arsenic the pop-out camera is amusive to usage and truly does instrumentality photos that different camera phones can’t. But erstwhile the remainder of the camera is truthful inconsistent, and the phone’s software, successful general, is packed with off-putting apps and duplicate features (Tecno adjacent installs its ain virtual adjunct alongside Google Assistant), 1 standout diagnostic isn’t capable to tempt me.

I’ll beryllium watching what Tecno does successful the aboriginal due to the fact that the pop-out camera shows it’s not acrophobic to innovate — Tecno conscionable needs to code the remainder of the telephone and the bundle to marque the full bundle likewise enticing.