TECNO PHANTOM 8- THE FULL REVIEW

TECNO PHANTOM 8- THE FULL REVIEW

The anticipation was high, the rumours enticing and the launch glamorous.  The much-awaited Tecno Phantom 8 was here, finally.  As I looked on at the incredibly designed gadget showcased to a large audience in Dubai – and on my TV screen, I just knew I had to get my hands on it.

And get my hands on it I did. Powerful dual rear cameras, 4G LTE and massive 64GB internal storage amongst other great features were what I found. Here’s a full review of all the features embedded in this beautifully designed addition to the Tecno Phantom series.

Tecno Phantom 8 Review: The Design

Without attempting to exaggerate, I must say that I was wowed by the design of the Phantom 8. I appreciated the Champagne Gold allure of the Phantom 6 Plus, the reason I settled for a Gold variant again. As generic as that sounds, the “Diamond Fire” design delivers a glossy 3D glow that makes even the most basic colours come to life. The Phantom 8 comes in 3 back cover colours- Champagne Gold, Black and Galaxy Blue.

The Phantom 8 fit snuggly in my palms this is as a result of the slimmer dimensions of the device noted at- 159.9*79.5*7.9mm. The device comes with a home key at the front of the device (of course) flagged by two basic navigation keys while a fingerprint scanner is mounted below the cameras at the back of the device.

Tecno Phantom 8 Review: The Display

I turned on the device and was immediately welcomed by high-quality display typical of the Tecno Phantom series. The device projects, with full clarity, 1080×1920 pixels and 403 Pixels Per-square Inch. The device comes with a 5.7-inch screen coated with 2.5 Gorilla Glass protecting the phone from accidental scratches.

Tecno Phantom 8 Review: The Camera

As a self-professed professional photographer, I was reasonably satisfied with the cameras mounted on the rear of this device. Two powerful cameras combined to deliver some of the most professional looking images I have captured on any of the phones in the Phantom series –even rivalling some of the devices in Tecno’s camera-focused Camon series.

The dual rear cameras are characterized by 12-megapixel Sony wide-angle sensor coupled with the 13-megapixel telephoto sensor and a 10x super digital zoom. The Selfie camera on this device delivers 20-megapixels, and that’s not the best part. As I posed for a selfie to test the quality of the camera, I was pleasantly surprised by a bright LED flash –that was the icing on the cake. I was able to take bright and clear selfies even in a dark room, thanks to this added feature.

Tecno Phantom 8 Review: The Battery

The battery power on this device was not groundbreaking for me. As a heavy user, and judging from the powerful battery on the Phantom 6 Plus, I was eagerly expecting a larger more powerful battery on the Phantom 8. Sadly, this was not the case. The Phantom 8 is powered by a 3500mAh lithium battery which, with my medium to heavy usage, stayed on all day; and when plugged in to charge delivered incredibly fast charging of about an hour was a true testament to Tecno’s advanced light speed charging technology.

Tecno Phantom 8 Review: Software/Hardware

One of the key features I looked forward to on this device was an enhanced RAM and storage. The Phantom 8 delivers 6GB RAM and 64GB storage. As a serial multi-tasker, I typically have too many apps running simultaneously in the foreground in addition to the ones running in the background. In the past this has translated to slow running apps, apps hanging during use and the device just being run beyond capacity.

The Phantom 8, however, tackled all of these issues for me. It is powered by a 2.6GHz Octa-core MediaTek Helio processor and it allows about 80 apps to run simultaneously without interference. The device runs on Android 7.0 Nougat which allows for fast and easier updates, data saving options and other great features.

All in all, it allowed me to move a ton of videos, images and audio files from my old device into its massive storage, download even more games and delivered seamless gaming experience on the device.

Phantom 8 Price

Given the many remarkable features of the device, I found the Phantom 8 to be a bit high but still reasonably priced at about N128,000. What do you guys think about the price?

GeekBench Single core Test

• Phantom 8 Score: 847

GeekBench Multi-core Test 

• Phantom 8 Score: 3933

ANTUTU BENCHMARK

• Phantom 8 score: 63896

Tecno Phantom 8 Full Specs