Tecno Camon C9 full review: Photography enthusiasts where are you at?

Launched a couple of weeks ago, the Tecno Camon C9 is a smartphone any photography enthusiast would wish to have. The device, which Tecno described as the best camera phone in Africa is the successor of the Tecno Camon C8 and an addition to the Tecno Camon family.

We did the unboxing for you already and as we had promised the final review is finally here. Being a camera phone, my focus was mostly based on the 13MP front and back camera. The Camon C9 is a complete upgrade from the Camon C8 5MP front camera to 13MP on the C9. Tecno mobile also made some massive enhancements to the C9. This together with other upgrades is what we will be looking at in this review.

Design and Display

The main selling point for the Tecno Camon C9 is the camera. This means Tecno mobile had to play around with screen size and design to make users feel comfortable when taking photos. The device features a 5.5-inch screen size, just the perfect size. It also has a full HD 1920 x 1080 screen and this makes sure the pictures you take come out pretty nice and also great for watching your videos.  

When it comes to the design, there a few changes Tecno mobile made to the Camon C9. For example, unlike the C8, don’t expect the return and home menu to be on the screen. They are now located just below the screen.  Surrounded by an aluminium frame, the Camon C9 has four buttons on the right side: two volume buttons, a power button, and a dedicated camera button which really comes in handy when taking selfies.

The back is slightly curved which honestly is one of the design features I liked about the device.  The phone speaker is also located at the back just below the Camon logo and they are quite loud and good. For a camera dedicated phone, that was a plus from Tecno Mobile. Remember the company already has its Tecno Boom J range of smartphones which are purely music smartphones and their speakers are just amazing.

Users also have a number of colors to choose from, including champagne gold, elegant blue and sandstone black (which we got for review).

Software and performance

The Tecno Camon C9 runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and is powered by 2GB of RAM , an upgrade from the 1GB Camon C8 RAM.  It also has a 16GB internal memory considering one might be taking many photos with it there is room to increase this memory. The device also features the HiOS user interface and this gives Android Marshmallow a completely different feel. One thing Tecno mobile added to the HiOS is a data traffic manager and what it basically does is enable users to plan their data usage based on their subscription.

At the top of the screen, there is also a speed indicator and with and it helps you to tell if your internet is fast and if it is working.

The Camon C9 is powered by a 64-bit octa core processor clocking at a frequency of 1.3GHz. The CPU sports the MediaTek chipset MT6753 which features MediaTeks’s CorePilot.  You can also play games very well with no lags on the Camon C9 thanks to its ARM’s Mali-T720 graphics processing unit.

The device also comes with an Eyeprint verification feature. I, however, had a lot of problems using it. The feature is supposed to be used as an alternative for unlocking your phone. So instead of using your password or pattern to do this, the eye print verification will unlock the phone by simply scanning your eyes.  The feature, however, takes very long to scan your eyes, and you what happens when you stare at a bright screen for long.  All in all, as a security feature, Tecno really did well with this.

Overall, the Camon C9 performance is great with no lags, the apps and games open fast.  Multitasking with the Camon is a bit hard though as you will have problems switching apps.

Camera: Best part about the Camon C9

Here is the thing, the Camon C9 is camera phone and I think Tecno is right when it describes it as the best camera phone in Africa. Both the selfie and rear camera are 13MP with flash and perform really well in good lighting conditions. The two cameras are a major upgrade from its predecessor the Tecno Camon C8. They are also optimized for low light photography and take some pretty good pictures in the dark thanks to its F/2.0 lens, which allows it to have faster shutter speeds.

Below are some of the photos I took with the Camon C9. The quality is superb.

The 13MP front camera also adds an amazing impressive 83-degree capturing angle allowing more people to feature in a selfie.  Any photography enthusiast should love this.

The dedicated camera button located at the bottom right-hand side greatly improves the camera experience on the Camon C9. It is also important to note that the camera comes with a number of editing tools giving you the ability to edit photos. Trust me I was able to train myself to become an amateur makeup artist thanks to this editing features.

The video quality which can be recorded in either 720 or 1080p  is also as impressive as the image qualities.

Something else, you should not be worried when you accidentally delete your favourite photos with the Camon C9. There is a ‘’Deleted recently’’ folder in the gallery which acts as your recycle bin in your computer. Images here are stored for 30 days and you have an option of permanently deleting them or  restore them.

Generally, the Camon C9 camera performance is quite something as you can tell from the above pictures.

Camon C9 Battery

The Camon C9 comes loaded with a non-removable 3,000mAh battery enough to last you for an entire day on average use. The battery was able to take me continuously from 80% down to 10 percent for straight 7 hours connected to Wi-Fi, taking a couple of pictures and tweeting. The HiOS battery management tool also helps a great deal to keep power up all day.

Other battery saving features include the Power Save Management that includes the power ultra lower mode that allows you to shut down all the apps that consume a lot of power.

General Specifications

• 5.5″ FHD IPS Touchscreen (1920*1080)
• 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 128GB with microSD
• Octa-core MediaTek MT6735P 64-bit processor with Mali-T720 GPU
• Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) with HIOS
• Dual Micro SIM
• 13MP rear camera with LED Flash , AF
• 13MP selfie camera with flash
• Dimensions: 153*76.4*10.35mm; Weight: 146g
• Biometric Iris Recognition sensor
• 4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
• 3000mAh battery

Verdict

I love taking photographs. I remember while in media school one of the best units I enjoyed was photography.  Even now if you visit our instagram page one thing you will notice is that there is a bunch of photos I have taken trying out different phone cameras. Why am I saying all this? Well, most people now use their smartphones to take photos. Infact, 80 percent of people who read reviews on our blog are always looking out for a phone with a good camera.

The Tecno Camon C9 is a device I would recommend to anyone looking for a good camera phone. Apart from the enhanced camera features consumers are treated with a bunch of other interesting features that make the phone’s performance quite impressive.

For Kshs. 17,899 you can get yours from Jumia and other offline shops. I however feel that despite all the cool features the device is overpriced. Comparing it with other devices like the Infinix Zero 3 which has a higher camera megapixels and better perfomances, Tecno Mobile should have considered selling the Camon C9 at a slightly lower price.

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