Overview
For the last two years, there have been questions about the spectacular rise of the Tecno brand in Nigeria. Are Tecno smartphones derailing the sales of other big names companies like Samsung and Blackberry? Will the Tecno brand remain a smartphone for low-income earners or will it gradually take over the role of smartphone usage in Nigeria?
With the release of the new generation Tecno Phantom A1, Tecno isn’t making these questions any easier to answer.
Tecno Phantom – A1 looks like every other smartphone out there using the Android operating system. The design is carefully crafted to amuse even users of high-rated smartphones.
Tecno Phantom – A1, (aka Tecno F7) is built with rigidity and what’s more? The battery life is equally fantastic. Earpiece, USB cable, USB charger, flip case and a Power bank is included right out-of-the-box. You call that value for money? It couldn’t be any much better.
Design
Tecno F7 comes with plastic casing and looks like a downmarket phone. It is at least functional, which is obviously what every smartphone user craves for. The edges also has a different kind of plastic, but the finishing looks more or less like metal. Tecno did incredibly well in the thickness at a little above 9mm. Specifically, the F7 is a 9.1mm thick smartphone with the ability to remove the back of the phone. This does give room to swap out the battery or expand your storage capacity with a mircoSD card.
One place Tecno does manage to score design points is using the most wanted 5.0 inches on the Phantom – A1, while still making the phone thinner, narrower and have a superb grip. Speaking of the screen, it is not the nicest I have seen from different range of smartphones as it has a low pixel density of 293ppi. At 293ppi, crystal clarity is not guaranteed in any way, although it does come with a 720p HD capacitive display.
Unlike Nexus phones which are moving away from physical buttons for navigation, Tecno F7 retains the touch buttons which can be clearly seen close to the end of the phone.
Camera
At the back of the phone is a 8.0MP camera with LED flash and the speaker is equally well positioned at the bottom edge of the phone. At the front is a beautifully positioned 1.2MP camera. In decent lighting, the camera is not among the best shooters out there, but the Images are sharp and there is surprising a considerate amount of depth of field. Colors are rich and video quality looks fairly great as well.
| QUICK SPECIFICATIONS | |
| Display Type | 5.5 inch Full HD display (441ppi) |
| System OS | Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean |
| Processor | 1.0GHz Snapdragon processor |
| Memory | 1GB (Max) |
| Storage | 4GB (32GB Max) rpm |
| Battery | 2100 mAh Li-Ion Battery |
Connectivity
No 4G! So you are left with the downmarket 3.5G radio. It does come with dual SIM ports; one provides 3G network with video calling while the other focus more on EDGE and GPRS. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth have also been included. It uses the conventional USB port, which means that you can easily use one of these MHC cables with your Phantom – A1.
Processor and RAM
Tecno F7 runs on the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon dual-core processor which is clocked at 1.0GHz. This is fairly low but considering the price, you can’t really make a complain. It has 1GB of RAM and also ridiculous for a smartphone that has been on a hype train. But then again, it fits perfectly the price tag slammed upon it. For average games, there have been no reported cases of lag, but a slight lag with GTA was however experienced. Not entirely bad, as other games runs perfectly. If you have an app drawer full of apps, this can obviously be a different story.
Storage
Tecno Phantom – A1 comes with a very low internal memory, nothing compared with what the big guns have to offer. The internal memory sits lame at 4GB, but here is the deal; you can expand your storage capacity to a maximum of 32 GB via microSD card. 8G microSD is also included in the pack, so you get a total of 12GB. Not a bad deal if you wanted to know my opinion.
Verdict:
Obviously the Phantom – A1 is a nice piece of gadget from Tecno, it’s sweet price spot is the main selling point but it does have a great deal of functionality and it runs impressively on the Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean OS. It is powered by a 2100 mAh Li-Ion battery. If you are a heavy user, you can get up to 7-8 hours and the camera looks impressive as well.
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9 Comments
James
For sometime now I’ve been paying attention to Techno Android devices, and I can see that they’re really doing great. Although, the casings, graphic capabilities and RAM are not always the best. But, the truth is we’re actually paying less for what we are given since we’re more or less enjoying the benefits of a high-priced phone. Come to think of it, a lot of users don’t even care or know about the lapses in their devices.
Nosa E Nosa
Tecno is more interested in the Africa market since any attempt to have the slightest fame in the western market would be ridiculed by Samsung and Apple.
This they do well by providing an Android 5.0inch smartphone at a wallet-friendly price. Obviously, we can’t get all the high-end features and expect the price to be fairly low, hence they have to be a balance somewhere by allowing some downmarket specifications.
I guess a vast majority of Africa users are not interested in some of the over-hyped features being forced down the throat of users by bigger companies. Tecno F7 earned an unbelievable 4.0 review score because it managed to strike a balance between price and functions.
nancy
please i want to know sometin, am using tecno f7. but i cant brows with it nor do anything with it, its telling me out of storage. while i have no application on my phone. i formatted my sd card cos of that, yet i cant use it to browse nor install any application
Olili Bob
i like the fact that tecno improved the RAM of phantom A+ cos people have been complaining about the Ram of their phones.nice review boss
Nosa E Nosa
Hi Olili,
I have to admit that the slight improvement in RAM size was a good move, at least lag-free gaming can be achieved at over 90%
Obasi Miracle
That was a very brilliant review buddy at least I now know were to look at when thinking of a smartphone for my grandma.
The features are extremely compelling and brilliantly, they even added extra 8gb in the pack meaning that my grandma can play cool blues all night.
Thanks for this awesome review and do have a great day ahead of you buddy
Nosa E Nosa
I will really love to meet your grandma, you talk about her alot and I like the fact that you want don’t want your grandma to be lost in the tech trend 🙂
The 8GB microSD card would make you forget that the smartphone has an inbuilt 4GB internal storage. That isn’t a bad compensation if you asked me.
clinton
Cool review ah think am going to get ma self the phone!!blackberry batter has really messed me up!! Xcept there z no unlimited data plan yet for androids like we enjoy wit blackberry!
nancy
please what do i do my techno f7. how do i manage the memory so i can instal and browse with it. the phone is a nice phone but dis one is being useless to me now