Tecno Camon 30 Pro review

Competition

The Tecno Camon 30 Pro and the 30 Premier are two very close siblings, feature and price-wise. Of course, the 30 Pro is slightly more affordable, currently selling in Africa for the equivalent of €400/$400, but the price may differ depending on your country. Tecno promises to bring the duo to more markets in the following months.

In any case, the 30 Pro retains some of the standout features such as the slick design, big and bright HRR display (144Hz at that), the powerful Dimensity 8200 SoC, the potent camera hardware (except for the telephoto unit), the fast charging solution and the impressive battery life. In fact, the 30 Pro seems to score better than the 30 Premier in this regard.

Perhaps that's why Tecno priced the two devices so close to each other. In a way, the 30 Pro gets you 90% of where you need to be. A few extra bucks, on the other hand, would give you the 30 Premier, which has a nice telephoto camera, IP54 ingress protection, Gorilla Glass sheet on the front and HDR-enabled display. So it's really up to you to decide whether these features mean anything to you.

Tecno Camon 30 Premier • Samsung Galaxy A55 • Xiaomi 13T • Realme 12 Pro

Alternatively, you can get similarly priced mainstream alternatives from Samsung and Xiaomi. The recently released Galaxy A55 is now selling at a more adequate price and can be found in the mid-€300. However, aside from the somewhat nicer display and IP57 certification, the A55 doesn't hold any other notable advantages. The Camon 30 Pro has more powerful hardware, more RAM and storage, a better camera experience overall, charges faster and lasts a tad longer away on battery power.

The same goes for the Xiaomi 13T, although this one is slightly more expensive than the 30 Pro. Still, it makes a really good case for itself. It has an objectively better display, the same SoC, telephoto camera, faster charging, IP68 ingress protection and guaranteed 4 years of major software updates.

The Realme 12 Pro is also a viable alternative as it has a similar feature set for roughly the same asking price. Still, it falls short of the Camon 30 Pro with inferior camera hardware (especially the telephoto camera with just 2x zoom), less impressive chipset and just 128GB base storage.

Verdict

Just like the Camon 30 Premier, the Camon 30 Pro stands out from the competition with an excellent feature set for the asking price. The device has a competitive display, snappy chipset, slick design, plenty of base storage, long battery life, hard-to-match camera performance in all scenarios, including selfies, and fast enough charging solution.

All in all, the Camon 30 Pro is an excellent all-rounder that's extremely easy to recommend.

Pros

• Thin, light, standout design with premium feel.
• Excellent camera performance all-around, including selfies and videos.
• Solid battery life and fast charging.
• Potent midrange chipset.
• 12GB/256GB memory by default, IR blaster.

Cons

• Occassionally unreliable AF on the main camera.