Tecno Camon 40 Pro review

Display

The Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G packs a 6.78-inch OLED screen of 1,080 x 2,436 pixels (393ppi density). It supports 144Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ content.

The screen is protected by a curved Gorilla Glass 7i curved sheet.

The maximum brightness we measured when using the slider was 554 nits in both manual and automatic brightness. Turning on the High Brightness Mode allows the Auto mode to go as high as 1,054 nits.

The minimum brightness while displaying a white patch on the screen was 2.4 nits.

The Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G supports up to 144Hz display refresh rate. There are three refresh rate modes in the Settings menu - Auto, Standard, and High.

High mode allows for 120Hz in supported apps and games. 144Hz is used only when scrolling certain content, while the rest of the UI and its animations are displayed at 120hz.

Auto Switch uses 120Hz for the UI, but dials down to 60Hz for most apps and games. Both Auto and High go to 60Hz when idling.

Finally, the Standard fixes the refresh rate at 60Hz.

The OS supports Widevine L1 DRM, allowing you to stream high-quality videos on platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. HDR10/HDR10+ is supported, and the screen is recognized as HDR10-capable by YouTube and all information-gathering apps. Netflix does not allow HDR streaming, though.

Battery life

The Camon 40 Pro 5G is powered by a 5,200mah battery, up from 5,000mAh capacity on the previous model.

The Camon 40 Pro 5G posted an Active Use Score of 13:51h, which is a good one, but a bit lower than the Camon 30 Pro 5G's.

The model from last year had a slightly smaller battery but a higher-end Dimensity 8200 Ultimate (which is fabbed on the same 4nm node as the Dimensity 7300).

The extra performance helped in the gaming test where the old model lasted an hour longer. It also had the upper hand in the call test, while the web and video tests are quite close - this gave the 2024 Pro an extra 40 minutes of Active use score.

The recent Motorola Edge 60 Fusion makes for an interesting point of comparison - the global model (which is the one we tested) uses the same Dimensity 7300 chip and the battery has the same 5,200mAh capacity. The screen is a bit smaller, but it has a higher resolution - 6.67" 1220p+ for the Motorola compared to 6.78" 1080p+ for the Tecno. It has an advantage of over 2 hours in the video playback test, which was enough to outscore the Tecno by a small margin.

The Poco X7 runs on the Dimensity 7300 Ultra (a minor variation of the 7300) and 5,110mAh batteries (just 90mAh less than the Tecno). It has a smaller, sharper 6.67" 1220p+ display that has a 120Hz refresh rate. While the hardware appears close, the X7 is down 2:30 hours in the Active use score with worse results across the board.

Charging speed

The Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G supports 45W fast wired charging and comes with a 45W power adapter in the box. There are Smart and Low-Temperature charging options, but there is also a hidden one - Hyper Charging. The latter is available only via a notification pop-up, which appears when you start charging via Smart Charging and it will boost the charging speed even further.

Charging in Smart mode yields some good results - we captured 27% of Charge in 15 minutes, 51% in 30 minutes and 100% in 64 minutes.

Then we tried charging with the Hyper option and the difference is minimal - there is 2% increase on the 15min mark and a full charge takes 4min less.

In terms of battery protection features, Tecno offers Bypass Charging option, AI Charging protection (based on your routine), and Custom Charging Protection (setting a charge limit between 80% and 95%).

The Camon 40 Pro does not support wireless charging.

Speakers

The Camon 40 Pro 5G offers stereo speakers with one bottom-firing and another one with top and front-facing outlets for better sound balance.

The speakers support Dolby Atmos and it's ON by default, set on Intelligent mode.

The stereo speakers scored an Average mark on our loudness test. Their audio quality is also average - the vocals are alright, the high-frequency range is well presented, but the bass is minimal of any, and songs sound shallow.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.