The TECNO Phantom 5 that was launched last year pioneered TECNO’s foray into the premium segment of mobile phone market, boasting of 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
But this year TECNO Phantom 6 Plus is a fantastic phone that melds excellent performance with its powerful deca-core processors. The phone was unveiled at a glamorous event tagged #ThePhantom6launch, in Dubai. It ticks above every other Tecno phantom series in the market now. The design is awesome, screen is great, as is the battery and the same goes for the camera.
Full body metallic design
In terms of design, the TECNO Phantom 6 Plus epitomizes beauty and sophistication. The body is made of quality metallic material which is solid in the hands. The front of the screen is a beautifully looking 6.0-inch full HD display. At the top of the screen there is a sensor, mouthpiece for calls followed by the 8MP front camera and the standard front flash. The branding of PHANTOM below the screen makes it very visible.
When it comes to the back of the device, great attention is paid to the design implementation. TECNO claimed that the camera bump is insulated with a sapphire glass—preventing the camera lense from sustaining scratches which is something commendable. Unlike other smartphones where such camera bump usually means they will wobble from left to right when placed on flat surfaces and in the process they get scratched. This is not the case with TECNO Phantom 6 Plus. Just below the camera are the dual led flash and the fingerprint scanner—the back of the phone is the natural place where the fingerprint scanner should sit. When a phone is in use, usually the index finger is placed at the back of the phone. If you are reading this on a phone, check the placement of your index finger. Aha.
Also there are two antenna bands; one at the top and the second at the bottom which is similar to what is on HTC 10 and some top rated devices.
The TECNO Phantom 6 Plus gives you an option to use either a Nano SIM and a Micro SIM or an SD card and a Micro SIM on the metallic tray at the left side of the device. This may not be an issue since the device comes with 64GB of internal storage.
Worthy of note is the USB type C port at the bottom, which is being flanked by the microphone and the speaker grills. This is the first time TECNO is putting the USB Type C on any of their devices and it’s said to be the standard for the future. The other device from TECNO spotting a USB Type C is the Beauty, the TECNO Phantom 6.
Despite being a full body metallic 6.0 -inch device with huge battery capacity, it’s surprisingly light and a joy to hold in the hands. Many people who saw the device in my hands commended the sturdy feel and the premium unibody design.
Crystal clear full HD LTPS display
The display is an awesome full High Definition which has a 6.0-inch screen made from LTPS materials. Makes it super easy for you to uuse your phone under direct sunlight. It’s the best display ever from TECNO. LTPS stands for “Low temperature poly-silicon”. It’s a type of active matrix LED with the highest mobility and as such it provides very high resolution display with very little power consumption. This means low power consumption when the phone is used at very bright display.
I enjoyed reading my eBooks and watching videos on the Phantom 6 Plus lovely screen, it’s highly immersive with wide gamut colour rendering. I could also read text comfortably outdoor on the device-meaning the outdoor visibility is very good.
Performance: deca-core processors with 4GB RAM
A friend just unwrapped his new Acer laptop and I asked him, what’s the RAM size, he said 2 GB of RAM. That’s a latop. A device speed is determined by the amount of Random Access Memory (RAM), optimization and the processor inside. Unlike that Acer laptop with 2 GB RAM, the TECNO Phantom 6 Plus boasts of the first deca-core processor in Africa and at 4 GB of RAM.
It’s a Mediatek Helio X20 which is a 10 -core processor clocks at 2.1GHz. The Mediatek Helio X20 uses a Mali-T880 as GPU.
I was surprised when I saw the specs of the device on paper but after using it for weeks, I understand better why it’s called a BEAST. The internal storage is 64GB and can be extended to 128GB. I have most of my files stored on the device and there is plenty of space unutilized after I slot in my 64GB SD card.
It runs flawlessly most of the tasks I threw at it without any sign of lag and the nice part of the device is the multitasking, which is excellent. I spent my weeks multitasking lots, playing games like Hearthstone, Asphalt 8, Republique, WWE Immortal, FIFA 16 and generally doing my best to make the device stutter or slow down. I succeeded, but only rarely and never for long. The TECNO Phantom 6 Plus always got me covered.
The device has impressive performance on most benchmark apps I run on it. On Antutu benchmark it scores over 86k while on quadrant and Geekbench4 it ranks among the very best android devices within its price range.
Intuitive HiOS on top of Android 6.0 marshmallow
The device runs a dark theme version of HiOS on top of android 6.0 marshmallow which is bright and colorful. TECNO finally adopted the finest user interface on any of its devices. I love this. I know UI and themes might appeal to users differently. If you are not comfortable with the HiOS, you can download NOVA launcher, but the HiOS on this device matches it colour and that of the icons, I never bother installing NOVA launcher on the TECNO Phantom 6 Plus because it’s snappier and fluid.
SONY Camera sensors: 21megapixel rear and 8 megapixel front
Going for 21megapixel SONY camera sensor could be described as an audacious move from TECNO. But the importance of a high mega pixel camera is that its outputs can be edited to larger degree compare to the one with low resolution. I took the device out on a sunny afternoon in Lagos to take some pictures while taking into consideration the different camera modes on the phone.
This is a picture taken with the auto mode setting
The same picture was zoomed in to test how good the 4 X Zoom mode is. The output came out surprisingly well, the focus was on the adidas Logo
The super-pixel mode shoots in higher resolution (12288*6912) of up to 12MB and outputs are more detailed than other modes. It’s very good for large format printing.
If you like colourful images you might want to try the watermark mode. The watermark mode bring down the resolution (2560*1920) of the 21MP camera but the images are still very good. You can see how lovely the blue sky came out, the camera does an excellent job here.
The camera user interphase is simple and easy to use and under the settings there are different modes like HDR, super pixel, watermark, Night scene, slow motion, panorama, 4X, and the normal mode. Among all these modes, I found the HDR, Super pixel, watermark and the 4X modes extremely useful during my photography adventure. The front camera is an 8MP selfie shooter that performs decently under natural light. The pictures have good detail and colour rendering in the 8MP resolution is good. Not every phone with 21MP camera captures colourful and stunning pictures but the Tecno Phantom 6 plus camera does the job excellently well like a professional DSLR camera.
Faster Fingerprint scanner
The fingerprint scanner on the Tecno Phantom 6 plus amazes me with its speed and accuracy. It’s so fast that it can unlock the device even when the screen is off. And not only can the fingerprint scanner be used for unlocking your device, it can also help to encrypt applications, take pictures and answer an incoming calls. The device apart from fingerprint scanner has Iris scanner and Trustlook anti -virus for securing and protecting it against viruses
Long Lasting-4050mAh battery, fast charging with USB type -C Cable
Tecno phantom 6 and phantom 6 plus are the first TECNO’s devices to come with the revolutionary USB type –C. I found it extremely useful when transferring files from the Phantom 6 plus to my laptop, it’s very fast. From the look of things, the old type -A connector may be heading for extinction any time soon.
The type C cable connected to the type A –type C adapter and the fast charging type C cable
The device comes with large 4050mAh non-removable battery which always take me whole day on constant usage. If you are not a heavy user like me you may get up to three days usage because with the help of Android Marshmallow’s Doze feature, my runtime stretched closer to three days with more sporadic use. Now if a device has this huge battery, it always makes lot of sense if the device support fast charging. The Tecno phantom 6 plus refills its 4050mAh battery in less than 1hour which is amazing, anyway thanks to the USB type -C charger and the Mediatek fast charging technology.
Verdict
The Tecno Phantom 6 plus is a phone that will change your buying habits because it casts a different light on many flagships. Its metal unibody design evokes some high-end classics, the display is impressive, and the chipset stood its own against some flagships. With all this, you’d never guess it’s a sub-N130, 000 phone.
