Review of TECNO CAMON 30 Pro 5G - a smartphone with a good camera and a 144 Hz screen.

An interesting offer within 50,000 rubles.

Previously, Propedia.org already shared his impressions of the TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G smartphone with excellent photo capabilities. Now the star of the review is its “little brother” - CAMON 30 Pro 5G. 

Table of contents

• Specifications
• Equipment and design
• Display
• Sound
• Performance
• System
• Cameras
• Autonomy and charging
• Results

Specifications

Equipment and design 

The box with the smartphone is heavy: in addition to the gadget itself, it contains a charger (a powerful 70 W unit and a USB-C cable), a cover cover, a film for the screen, a clip for the SIM card tray and documentation.

The included case not only feels reliable, but also looks nice. It's nice when manufacturers don't make do with a basic silicone bumper for show.

The smartphone itself is offered in two colors: “basalt black” and “silver snow”. The first option came to me for review.

The glass back panel looks nice and practically does not collect fingerprints thanks to its matte finish. The side edges were also pleasing: although they are chopped in tribute to modern trends, they are still slightly rounded at the edges, so that the gadget lies comfortably in the hand.

The camera module is designed as a rotating bezel. In fact, nothing moves, of course, but it looks stylish.

On the bottom edge there is a USB-C connector, a speaker and a slot for two SIM cards. On top is the second speaker, microphone and infrared port.

All three physical buttons (power and volume up/down) are located on the right side, the left is empty.

Because of this arrangement, taking screenshots is not very convenient, and your finger periodically reaches out to lock the screen instead of adjusting the volume.

Display 

Compared to the Premier model, this smartphone has a slightly lower screen resolution, but a higher refresh rate - as much as 144 Hz (in fairness, 120 Hz in the Premier is also more than enough). You can set the frequency manually or let the device adjust it automatically to the content being displayed.

The screen itself is beautiful and unfaded, there is an option to further increase the brightness in strong ambient light - so even in the daytime in the sun, the text remains readable.

An optical fingerprint scanner is built into the bottom of the display. It almost always works the first time; during testing, I only had to enter the password code once because the sensor did not recognize my finger.

Sound

CAMON 30 Pro 5G uses stereo speakers with support for Dolby Atmos surround sound. The sound is quite clear and loud. At 100%, this is quite a mini-speaker with a noticeable vibration in the hand.

During testing, I had only one complaint about the sound: in Genshin Impact, the speakers periodically clicked quietly, and only at specific moments of the looped soundtrack. It was not possible to reproduce this in other applications and games, as well as on other devices with this game. Most likely, this is an unexpected optimization problem with the game itself, and not the smartphone.

Performance

The interface, standard applications and the browser work great, but this will not surprise anyone in 2024: even the most budget devices can cope with such tests. Therefore, I tested the capabilities of the MediaTek Dimensity 8200 Ultimate and 12 GB of RAM on demanding modern games.

At maximum graphics and effects settings in Wuthering Waves and Genshin Impact, minor lags appeared. This can be fixed by switching the game mode to high performance, but it does make the screen noticeably warmer when playing for long periods of time. For some, this compromise will be suitable, but for me it seemed more convenient to slightly reduce the quality and disable a couple of resource-intensive technologies. This way you can play without any problems and loss in the smoothness and beauty of the image.

But Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat, with simpler models and a smaller scale of locations, the smartphone runs perfectly at maximum settings, even in balanced mode.

System

TECNO CAMON 30 Pro 5G runs on the proprietary HiOS 14 shell. This is Android 14 with a number of additional add-ons.

Useful options:

• You can choose the type of navigation - gesture or on-screen buttons.
• All elements on the desktop and lock screen are customizable - you can change the appearance of widgets, the size of icons, and arrange them automatically or manually.

• Supports enhanced Dynamic Port notifications that capture the area around the selfie camera - like Dynamic Island on the iPhone.
• RAM expansion available. The option allows you to allocate part of the internal memory for computing processes so that the smartphone works faster and copes with heavy applications. This way you can increase the amount of RAM from 12 to 24 GB.

• There is application cloning - useful for programs that do not allow you to quickly switch between accounts.
• Game mode allows you to control CPU load and power consumption.

The system feels quite smooth and polished, and the settings have convenient visualization: if the purpose of a function is not obvious, it is almost always accompanied by an explanatory picture or animation.

Cameras

At the back, two 50 megapixel main modules are used: the main camera with a Sony IMX890 sensor and an ultra-wide-angle one. In the third compartment of the camera block there are two sensors: for measuring depth (2 MP, responsible for blurring the background in portrait mode) and for detecting flicker. On the right are a dual flash and a red video recording indicator. 

In terms of photo capabilities, this smartphone differs from its “big brother” CAMON 30 Premier 5G only in the absence of a periscope camera. Because of this, there is no optical zoom provided here - only 2x digital zoom. But it works decently due to the high resolution of the main module.

The main module

Both in standard mode and in ×2 shooting, the image quality is approximately the same: without additional settings, the picture is juicy, HDR works as it should. The only caveat is that when shooting at ×2, the picture turns out to be a little lighter than at ×1 under the same conditions.

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In addition to the Pro mode with the ability to adjust shutter speed, aperture and other parameters, there are also options for the average user who does not want to understand all this. You can enable the 100 MP mode for high-resolution shooting (with software enlargement of the image), HDR, the function of shooting fast moving objects, or AI focusing. There are also filters and changing the aspect ratio of the frame.

Interestingly, the smartphone warns about a dirty camera: if the data from the sensor does not resemble what the system expects, an advice to clean the lens will appear on the screen.

The feature of the smartphone is the Super Night mode, which allows you to shoot in almost complete darkness and get good shots using a long shutter speed. However, even without this mode, night shots come out quite good: much more will be visible in the photograph than in real life.

Shooting at night in normal mode. Photo: Daria Gromova / Propedia.org

Both Super Night and Fast Focus rely heavily on post-processing, and the algorithms aren't always able to make every part of the image look perfect. When you get closer, individual details may not look as nice as they seem from afar.

Wide angle

The wide-angle camera is nice and can be used to liven up architectural shots that might look too cramped and regular when shot with a regular camera. This module can also turn a sleepy cat into an album cover for an indie band.

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The photos turn out nice, but only with static objects: it’s difficult to get focus on moving ones, and most photos come out blurry. In night mode, this camera copes worse than the main one: it provides less clarity and detail. But this gives the shots the vibe of being shot on an old point-and-shoot camera, which can be a plus in some scenarios.

Frontal

The selfie camera here is also 50 megapixels, with it you can take photos with high detail: the skin texture is not erased in post-processing. The camera catches enough light to make selfies look pretty without much effort, but iPhone or Pixel users might find the default settings to overextend their faces.

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You can shoot in normal or portrait mode. In the second case, you have access to facial enhancement functions (skin smoothing, face narrowing, makeup, etc.) and setting the virtual aperture width (this determines how blurry the objects in the photo will be).

The selfie camera is also responsible for face unlock. It's quick to set up and works great: after adding this option, I almost never had to use the fingerprint scanner or passcode.

Autonomy and charging

The 5,000 mAh battery easily lasts for a whole day of work, even taking into account frequent use of the camera and gaming at high graphics settings.

The USB-C port is used for charging. The manufacturer promises full recharge in 48 minutes. With a native 70 W unit this is approximately what happens, with third-party ones it depends on the characteristics. Fast charging will work with any adapter of suitable power, but you should not use more than 70 W (and there is no point).

There is only one drawback regarding charging: the smartphone cannot be powered wirelessly.

Results

For 49,990 rubles (or 44,990 rubles with a discount) TECNO CAMON 30 Pro 5G offers a wonderful bright and smooth screen, decent high-resolution cameras and fast charging. The disadvantages include the lack of optical zoom (followed by the Premier model) and wireless charging, as well as minor compromises in the operation of demanding games. However, all this would hardly fit into such a price tag.

Therefore, even in its current form, CAMON 30 Pro 5G looks like a good option for those who are looking for a balanced device with flagship features, but are not ready to put up with a high price.