TECNO Phantom A Review
The first thing one notices about the TECNO phantom A is its huge screen. It comes with a five inch 1280 by 720 screen which is a catch for those who love huge phones. The screen is sufficiently clear and sharp compared to similarly priced phones. However, on unlocking the phone, one notices considerable lagging which does not go away. Somehow after fitting this phone with a 1 GHz dual core processor and 1 GB of RAM, TECNO forgot to include a reasonable graphics processor. The phone barely manages to run android Jellybean 4.1.1. It lags in many places including navigation and launching applications. Just for comparison purposes, the galaxy S, a phone produced way back in 2010 with a 1 GHz single core processor and 512MB of RAM can comfortably run Jelly Bean, smoothly and with no lags. This means that the Phantom A lacks a good graphics processor to manage graphics intensive applications, including the OS (Jelly Bean). The next thing one notices about the phone is its size. The phone is 143.5mm long, 70.8mm wide and 9.1mm thick. At 9.1mm, it is quite a big phone considering major rivals in the field are in the 7mm range. Even so, this is not noticeable once one starts using the phone. The size difference only becomes obvious when it is held next to an iPhone 5 or a galaxy s3. Having said that, below is more information about other aspects of the phone.
This phone comes in a rather big package as compared to other phones. It has one big box which encloses two smaller boxes one for the phone and the other for the power bank (a portable battery charger). The power bank, as described on the packaging, is a 2200mAh battery capable of charging many other devices via a USB port. It also has an LED for lighting purposes.
The phone is rectangular with rounded corners. The front has three capacitative touch buttons for settings, home and back respectively. Just below the settings button is a small opening for the mouthpiece and the top has the front facing camera and the groove for the earpiece. There are no physical buttons on the front screen. The left side of the phone has the volume rocker key and a dedicated camera button. The right side has only the power button and the top of the phone has a micro USB port and a 3.5mm Audio Jack. The back of the phone has the huge camera and an led right beside it. Finally, the speaker groove is located on the lower back of the phone.
The phone has 4GB internal memory and comes with an 8GB memory card. However, out of the 4GB, only about 2GB is available to the user. The SD card slot can hold up to a maximum of 32GB which gives it a maximum storage capacity of 36GB.
It runs on a 1 GHz dual core processor with 1 GB of RAM. It also has Bluetooth 3.0 and Wireless connectivity (a,b,g,n although this is not exclusively stated)
This phone has two cameras, a front facing camera and a back facing camera. The back camera is 8 mega pixels while no information is provided about the front facing camera (I am guessing its between 1.3-1.9 Mega pixels). The 8 mega pixel camera produces decent pictures but with considerable shutter delay. The camera should be at par with similar cameras, nevertheless, as previously mentioned, lagging is a big problem. The phone takes about 3 seconds to focus on an object which in my opinion, greatly affects the quality of the pictures taken. Just to put things in perspective, the pictures on this blog were taken by the 8 Mega pixel camera.
The back camera protrudes from the back cover which exposes it to a lot of harm. When the phone is placed on its back, the back facing camera supports the entire weight of the phone. This could have been a design oversight but it greatly affects the phone. At 9mm, it would not be such a good idea to include a protective casing for the back cover as this would only serve to make the phone bulkier.
The UI looks familiar and quite simple to use. The lock screen displays the time, date, battery level and the carrier label at the bottom. On unlocking the phone, one is met with a familiar android interface. The apps area arranged in the grid with the usual swipe to reveal more apps. This should not be an issue since android has many launchers out there that can be customized to meet a user’s needs.
The phone comes with a 2100mAH battery which should be sufficient for daily usage. I have only had this phone for 12 hours so I can’t say much about daily usage stats.
The usual WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS combo is available. Apart from that, this phone is a dual SIM. This should be good news for all of you out there who have more than one SIM card.
The Tecno Phantom A is certainly a phone to consider for the price conscious buyer who wants the android experience on a huge screen. If one is looking for a phone to make calls, text and do some light web browsing, this is certainly the phone for you. On the other hand, if one wants a phone for gaming, heavy web browsing and installing a multitude of apps, it is advisable to consider other options. The major issue I encountered with the Phanton Tecno A is the lagging which I hope will be fixed in future iterations of the device. I recommend this phone to university students who are on a fixed budget but would still like to experience Android. Rating 3 out of 5 stars.
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