Tecno Camon 30 Premier review

Potent 50MP, triple-camera setup

The Tecno Camon 30 Premier is obviously a camera-centric smartphone in the upper mid-range class and the hardware suggests so too. The device features a triple 50MP camera setup with a relatively big main sensor along with a large 50MP sensor for the telephoto camera sitting behind a periscope setup. The latter allows smartphone makers to fit bigger sensors in constrained space.

• Wide (main): 50 MP Sony IMX 890, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, f/1.9, 23mm, PDAF, OIS; 2160p@60fps
• Ultrawide: 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.2, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 14mm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps
• Telephoto: 50 MP Samsung ISOCELL JN1, f/2.15, 1/2.76", 0.64µm, 70mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; 2160p@60fps
• Front camera: 50 MP Hynix Hi5022Q f/2.45, 24mm, 1/2.8", 0.64µm, PDAF; 2160p@30fps

Interestingly, the telephoto camera is the same one used in the Xiaomi 14. The only difference is the latter's setup doesn't use a periscope, and the zoom reach is 3.2x instead of 3x.

The selfie camera also gets some love - it's 50MP with support for autofocus. A rare find not only in this price range, but in the smartphone world as a whole.

In addition to the already impressive camera hardware, the Tecno Camon 30 Premier is marketed as the first smartphone with Sony's dedicated CXD5622GG imaging chip. It helps with computing for camera processing, but we doubt that it fully replaces the MediaTek 8200 own ISP.

Overall, the camera hardware looks promising on paper, so let's see what it can do in the real world.

Daylight photos

Main camera

The handset delivers nice daylight photos with plenty of detail, sharpness, wide dynamic range and somewhat conservative color reproduction. Foliage can sometimes be smeared away, but it's hard to pinpoint the reason. Noise is kept at bay even in more challenging indoor conditions, for example.

Main camera daylight samples

Tecno's additional processing adds a bit of sharpness, and you can notice some sharpening halos around the edges of buildings and in trees and foliage. It's not something you could notice right away, but we believe it's actually a nice rendering. Shadows could be a bit on the dark side sometimes, but this is also a very minor issue. Focus hunting was a problem in some cases too.

Portraits: Normal • Portrait mode

Interestingly, the camera app offers upscaled 100MP photos instead of full-res 50MP, but they look awful anyway.

100MP samples

3x zoom camera

The 3x zoom periscope camera produces excellent images with a rendition that's very close to the main camera's. Colors are a tad more saturated, but the overall look is the same. The stills are clean, sharp, detailed, and have a wide enough dynamic range. We noticed some focus hunting, like on the main camera, but a simple tap on the subject you want to focus on will do the trick. Going indoors produces slightly softer photos, but not by much.

3x zoom daylight photos

Telephoto portraits: Normal • Portrait mode

Additionally, the camera supports focusing from as close as 25cm, which allows for great close-up shots.

Macro samples

Ultrawide camera

We were pleasantly surprised by the ultrawide camera as well. We must admit that we didn't have the highest expectations, but the ultrawide unit showed exceptional performance in various scenarios. Dynamic range is a bit limited compared to the main and telephoto units, but the pictures are sharp, detailed and lack noise even in more challenging scenarios.

Ultrawide camera daylight photos

Our only complaint is that the ultrawide camera itself isn't wide enough - Tecno advertises 114-degree FoV, which is pretty narrow compared to competing solutions with more than 120-degree FoV. On the flip side, there's minimal barrel distortion.

Low-light photos

Main camera

The low-light samples look very nice and natural. There's an automatic switch to Night mode when the software detects low-light conditions and we found it to be very generous, meaning the Night mode was active in almost all of our scenes. When triggered, it improves dynamic range and light sources look nicer.

Main camera low-light samples

In any case, the samples we took look nice, without oversharpening and the tendency to go for lower exposure produces more natural-looking scenes. That leaves some shadows a bit too dark, though. Colors are slightly muted, although noise, sharpness, detail and dynamic range are excellent.

3x zoom camera

Of course, the telephoto camera has its limitations, but the Night mode does an excellent job of retaining detail and sharpness. The color temperature might be off sometimes too. Nonetheless, the overall quality is comparable to that of the main camera.

3x zoom camera low-light samples

Ultrawide camera

The ultrawide camera is understandably softer than the other two, but it's still quite impressive in the context of rivaling solutions. We observed a similar rendition to the main camera with less detail, lower color saturation and a bit narrower dynamic range. Highlights are sometimes clipped, while shadows are crushed in some of the scenes. Still, performance is excellent and the outlined issues aren't deal-breaking.

Ultrawide camera low-light samples

Selfies

The selfies are also excellent and we believe the AF makes a huge difference. They are detailed, sharp, with accurate colors and the subject is always well-exposed, suggesting a wide dynamic range.

Selfies

Video recording

The handset supports 2160p@60fps video recording with all its cameras, including the selfie unit. The software also offers an Ultimate video enhancement mode, which is supposed to improve video quality in various ways, but more on that later. We believe the Ultra steady mode is just an EIS mode, because when turned off, the stabilization looks like pure OIS. This is just us speculating, but since there's no resolution limitation, we suggest leaving that option on. Even then, we've seen better EIS implementations.

The main camera's 4K footage looks great and leaves no room for complaints. Everything looks clean, sharp, detailed and colors are lively, but not overboard. Exposure seems to be a bit on the high end, but nothing too major.

Turning on the Ultimate enhancement mode adds artificial sharpness and boosts brightness, which isn't ideal. We liked the non-enhanced video better.

The telephoto camera also produces nice 4K videos with plenty of sharpness, detail and excellent contrast. It's definitely a reliable camera for video shooting.

We were once again surprised by the ultrawide's performance. It delivers a video that's close to the main camera's quality, which is hard to come by. Despite the ultrawide lense, the video looks sharp, detailed and with impressive dynamic range.

The two low-light videos are surprisingly good. We have a standard sample and one with Ultimate Enhancement mode, but we liked the former more. It has a more natural color tone and has more detail in the shadows without introducing too much noise. The "enhanced" footage, on the other hand, is ever so slightly sharper, with wider dynamic range and less noise, but there's something off with the color reproduction and the white balance.

Video sample playlist

You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.