Tecno Camon 40 Premier review

Design and handling

The Tecno Camon 40 Premier's design this year is somewhat simpler. There are no additional curvatures or protrusions, only the circular camera bump.

The whole chassis is built of plastic, but a very nice one to touch. The back panel successfully imitates frosted glass, while the side frame is very close to a brushed aluminum finish. The device is indeed a bit slippery, especially compared to last year's model, but the smaller screen diagonal helps provide a tad better one-handed usage.

The front panel is glass, though, and it's Gorilla Glass 7i, an upgrade over the GG5 last year. Interestingly enough, the display is completely flat, as opposed to the slightly curved Camon 40 Pro front panel.

The handset is offered in two colors - Emerald Lake Green and Galaxy Black. Both variants are two-tone as you can see from the picture below. We are reviewing the Emerald Lake Green. It looks quite fresh in person.

The ingress protection gets an update and is now IP68/IP69, which aligns with the current trends, even in the budget segment.

The under-display fingerprint reader does the job nicely, but it's placed too close to the bottom edge, making it a tad uncomfortable to reach.

We must say, for a 6.67-inch smartphone, the Camon 40 Premier is pretty lightweight and thin. It's perhaps due to the choice of materials, but lightweight is lightweight.

The fingerprint reader is of the optical kind, placed under the display. It works fine, and we didn't notice any major issues with it. It's fast and reliable.

Tecno Camon 40 Premier

In addition to the power and volume buttons, Tecno has included a One-Tap button on the left side of the frame, which summons the DeepSeek-powered AI assistant Ella with a long press or launches the camera app in FlashSnap mode instantly.

If the design on this one is too flashy for you, the black one is much more subdued. What we didn't like is how slippery the back panel and frame are.

We are glad to see the ingress protection get an update, but it's also important to point out that many of the Camon 40 Premier's direct competitors offer a more premium build using metal and glass.