Tecno Camon 20 Premier review

Introduction

Tecno has been blossoming into an increasingly-successful company lately. What started as a mostly localized business targeting developing countries in Africa has since expanded rather rapidly and is continuing to enter new markets. The Camon line remains one of the company's staples. Since Phantom devices are mostly being branched out into their own thing nowadays, one can argue that Camon phones represent the flagship offerings in what is an overall budget-targeted Tecno portfolio.

The Camon series brings large screens and batteries, with a good camera experience and satisfying performance on the cheap. The Camon 20 Premier 5G is no exception. The "Premier" model, as the name suggests, represents the best Camon offers.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier specs at a glance:

Body: 161.9x74.3x7.8mm, 203g; Glass front, leather back.
Display: 6.67" AMOLED, 120Hz, 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 395ppi; Always-on display.
Chipset: Mediatek Dimensity 8050 (6 nm): Octa-core (1x3.0 GHz Cortex-A78 & 3x2.6 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G77 MC9.
Memory: 512GB 8GB RAM.
OS/Software: Android 13, HIOS 13.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.8, 23mm, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, Laser AF, sensor-shift OIS; Ultra wide angle: 108 MP, f/2.2, 13mm, 115-degree, PDAF; Depth: 2 MP, f/2.4.
Front camera: 32 MP, f/2.5, 24mm (wide), 1/2.8", 0.8µm.
Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps, HDR; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
Battery: 5000mAh; 45W wired.
Connectivity: 5G; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 5; BT 5.2; NFC; FM radio.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, optical); stereo speakers.

The Camon 20 Premier brings a lot to the table, especially in the camera department. Its main camera has a large 50MP sensor, laser autofocus and even tri-axis sensor-shift OIS - not features you see every day, particularly on a budget-oriented phone. But the ultrawide camera is perhaps a bigger attraction still. It uses a whopping 108MP sensor and has autofocus to double as a macro shooter. It is a really intriguing camera, through and through. The Camon 20 Premier also doesn't skimp on the selfie with a large 32MP module up front, complete with dual LED flash.

And the impressive hardware bits aren't just limited to the cameras either. The Camon 20 Premier has a large 6.67-inch, 120Hz AMOLED display. It is also rocking a stereo speaker setup. Plus, a large 5,000 mAh battery with 45W fast charging. The phone also uses a very modern MediaTek Dimensity 8050 chipset, which we are excited to see and test.

Overall, the Camon 20 Premier looks really promising on paper.

Unboxing

Tecno has a great track record when it comes to accessory packages. We are happy to report that the Camon 20 Premier is no exception. It comes in a standard two-piece box, which is sturdy enough to protect the phone and has an additional plastic tray for the device on the inside.

In terms of accessories, it doesn't really get much better than this. The Camon 20 Premier comes with a 45W Tecno charger and an accompanying USB Type-A to Type-C cable. Also in the box - a nice pair of USB earbuds with an inline microphone. These are Type-C since the phone lacks a 3.5mm jack.

Tecno has also thrown in a very good-quality case for the phone. It is semi-transparent/frosted on the back side and otherwise made of soft yet sturdy rubber. We really couldn't ask for more box stuffers than this.

Design

In our opinion, Tecno has succeeded in making the Camon 20 Premier a truly distinctive product. That camera island has such a particular shape that it's hard to confuse. It goes rather well with the surrounding geometrical pattern on the back of the device.

The back itself is made of some hard rubbery material, which has a fine vegan leather type of texture to it. The design elements, including the geometrical lines and writing on the back, are pretty deep grooves recessed into the surface.

You can have the Camon 20 Premier in either Dark Welkin color, which appears to simply be black in renders or the Serenity Blue, which is visible on our review unit. We are very much digging the look of the latter. It's a very subtle pastel kind of color that isn't overly flashy but is not boring either.

The Camon 20 Premier has color-coordinated bezels, which is a nice touch. The bluish tint on our unit is a good, even if broad, match to the back side of the phone. The surface of the frame is very glossy and a real fingerprint magnet. At least the phone's back side doesn't attract any dirt, so there's that.

Speaking of the middle frame, its shape is reminiscent of iPhone design. It has a sizeable flat area and tapers off gently on either side. That's about the only design element the Camon 20 Premier borrows from Apple, though, since it has a very distinctive look of its own overall.

The Camon 20 Premier looks pretty modern from the front as well. It has pretty thin display bezels with a screen-to-body ratio of 89.3%. Its bottom chin is particularly thin, while the top bezel is just slightly larger, but it houses an earpiece that doubles as a speaker and some sensors to the right, plus a dual LED selfie flash module.

The selfie camera punch hole is reasonably sized. It's not overly large.

The Tecno Camon 20 Premier is very comfortable to hold. It offers plenty of grip, and it is well-balanced. It's not top-heavy and feels nice and dense, with no noticeable hollowness to the back. At 202.5 grams, it is not particularly light, but then again, this is a 161.9 x 74.3 x 7.8 mm device with a 6.67-inch display and a 5,000 mAh battery. It doesn't exactly aspire to be compact.

Build quality

As already mentioned, the Camon 20 Premier feels sturdy and solid. There is no hollowness to the back side. In fact, it feels kind of dense, if that makes any sense.

In terms of materials, we already mentioned the sort of rubbery surface on the back. It doesn't gather dirt and doesn't seem prone to scratching, which we appreciate. We can only assume that underneath that surface is a plastic panel since most of the Camon 20 Premier is made of plastic.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with using plastic as a structural material, either. It is light and strong. Doesn't shatter quite like glass nor bend like metal. Plus, Tecno has done a good job with the glossy finish of the phone frame, which successfully imitates a metal look.

On a less positive note, the Camon 20 Premier lacks any formal ingress protection rating. Tecno also doesn't mention any particulars about the surface covering the phone's display. We can only hope that it is some type of undisclosed glass, but we would still advise you to keep the pre-installed plastic screen protector in place or get yourself a glass one instead.

Controls

The Camon 20 Premier has a pretty standard control layout. The right-hand side of the phone houses the power button and volume buttons. These are glossy, just like the surrounding frame.

We don't particularly like their vertical placement. The power button is a tad too low for our taste. And the buttons don't feel amazing in terms of tactile feedback. They are a bit on the "mushy" side, but nothing too dramatic worth more than just a passing mention.

The left side of the phone is bare as the entire plastic middle frame is uninterrupted.

The top side of the Camon 20 Premier isn't overly busy either. It has a hole for the secondary noise-canceling microphone. Also, a speaker grill, which is a nifty little addition. This way, the two speakers can fire sound sideways and, in theory, be a bit more balanced. Plus, this makes covering the speaker with your palm harder to do.

The phone's bottom side houses the other speaker behind a rather large grill. The main microphone is also here, and so is the SIM tray. It features two Nano-SIM slots and no expandable memory slot, which is a bit of a bummer. The Type-C port is also here.

The Camon 20 Premier uses an optical under-display fingerprint reader. It is both accurate and snappy. This technology has really matured in recent years, so we expect nothing short of it.

Other than that, the front of the phone houses the selfie camera in its reasonably-sized punch hole and a few front-facing sensors, which are tucked away in the top bezel to the right of the earpiece.

In case you were wondering, there is no notification LED on the Camon 20 Premier, even though Tecno managed to fit two front-facing LED camera flash modules in the top frame, grouped together to the right of the earpiece.

Connectivity

The Camon 20 Premier is a dual SIM device. It supports SA and NSA 5G connectivity on both SIM cards. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the local connectivity with dual-band Wi-Fi ac and 5.2 with A2DP and LE support. Well, we are happy to see that there are both NFC and an FM radio on board, so there's that.

The USB Type-C port provides a USB 2.0 data connection. That means theoretical max transfer speeds of 480 Mbps. The Camon 20 Premier has USB Host or OTG functionality. Nothing fancy beyond that, though, like video output.

The Camon 20 Premier does have an almost full set of sensors on board. There is an icm42631 accelerometer and gyroscope combo, stk33562 light and hardware proximity combo and mmc5603 magnetometer and compass combo. There is no built-in barometer.

6.67-inch, 120Hz AMOLED

In keeping with the Camon pedigree, the Camon 20 Premier has a large 6.67-inch AMOLED display that looks pretty impressive on paper with its 120Hz refresh rate. Things start looking a bit less impressive once you start testing the panel's performance, though.

In terms of brightness, the Camon 20 Premier only managed around 493 nits maximum on the slider. The phone does offer an automatic brightness boost toggle in settings which managed to output a maximum of 684 nits in our testing. That's alright to get by outdoors, but don't expect to be using the Camon 20 Premier comfortably under direct sunlight.

On the plus side, being an OLED, the panel still delivers perfect inky blacks and theoretically infinite contrast.

The Camon 20 Premier has two color modes to choose from in settings - original and bright, plus a color temperature slider. Both modes target the DCI-P3 color space and are pretty cold and blue out of the box, particularly bright mode, which blasts the blue channel.

It's not all bad news, though. Stick to the default original color mode and warm up the colors some using the slider (ideally to the position in the screenshot). You can get pretty accurate DCI-P3 color reproduction with good coverage and deltaE values low enough for the panel to be considered color-accurate.

Optimal color settings for accuracy

The Camon 20 Premier has no HDR support on its display. It does have hardware decoding capabilities to handle HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG. No Dolby Vision support. We are also happy to say that the phone has the highest possible Widevine L1 DRM certification, allowing services like Netflix to offer up FullHD streams and saturate the phone's display.

HDR decoding • Widevine DRM • Netflix playback capabilities

High refresh rate handling

The Camon 20 Premier has a 120Hz refresh rate display. As per software reporting, it supports 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz modes of operation. In terms of settings, the phone has a total of four modes - 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz and Auto switching.

The 60Hz mode works as you would imagine. It just locks the refresh rate at 60Hz. 90Hz and 120Hz modes are a bit different than that. The overarching logic that these modes apply is one based on motion on display. While there is any motion on display, 90Hz mode works at 90Hz, and once the motion stops, the phone drops down to 60Hz.

UI and apps working at 90Hz mode

Unfortunately, the same motion-based logic is also getting applied to video player apps during actual playback, which leads to wasting power by playing videos at 90Hz instead of 60Hz.

Video players working at 90Hz

Certain apps just work at 60Hz regardless of your choice to use a higher refresh rate mode.

Some apps still working at 60Hz

120Hz mode works in much the same way 90Hz mode does. You get 120Hz while there is motion on the screen, and once that is gone, the phone drops down to 60Hz.

UI and apps working at 120Hz

That's not bad logic overall, but there is the obvious issue of video being played at a high refresh rate (120Hz in this case) which still remains.

Video players working at 120Hz

Automatic refresh rate switching mode works very similarly to the other two modes as well. The overarching core logic is the same - you get 120Hz while there is motion on screen and 60Hz otherwise.

UI and apps in Auto refresh rate mode

The one big positive difference the Auto switching mode seems to bring to the table is video playback detection. We noticed that video player apps no longer operate on motion-based logic and work at 60Hz instead, which is the desired behavior.

Video players working in Auto refresh rate mode

We did observe some per-app weirdness in Auto refresh rate mode, though. For instance, the Techo Hi Browser works at 120Hz, whereas Chrome is limited to 60Hz. Oddly enough, the Gmail app all of a sudden decided to follow the motion-based logic and work at a max of 120Hz in Auto refresh rate mode, which was not the case with the other modes.

App weirdness in Auto refresh rate mode

Of course, we tried high refresh rate gaming with a few titles we know can render past the 60fps mark. Auto refresh rate mode didn't manage to handle high refresh rate gaming all that well. Just one out of the four games actually triggered 120Hz, which is not a good result.

Gaming in Auto refresh rate mode

On a more positive note, the 120Hz refresh rate mode did a lot better with high refresh rate gaming, managing to run three out of the four games at 120Hz.

Gaming in 120Hz mode

Overall, Tecno has a solid foundation in place when it comes to high refresh rate handling. The core motion-based logic is a good start, and it tends to work very well and consistently across the UI, which is good. We also appreciate the added video playback logic present in Auto refresh rate mode. However, high refresh rate gaming is far from perfect and needs some more work. In the current state, our advice would be to use your phone in Auto mode most of the time and manually switch to 120Hz mode specifically for games that support frame hates beyond 60fps.

Battery life

The Camon 20 Premier has a solid 5,000 mAh battery pack. This is actually the first time we are seeing the MediaTek Dimensity 8050 in our lab, but we do still have some frame of reference to go by for expectations. Given that the new 6nm chip is quite similar to both the Dimensity 1200 and 1300, we expect it to manage similar battery endurance.

And indeed, the battery life on the Camon 20 Premier can best be described as "dependable" without being spectacular in any way. Just like its siblings, the Dimensity 8050 is a decently-efficient chip.

The phone managed a total endurance rating of 107 hours in our standardized proprietary testing.

As a reminder, the web browsing portion of our testing was conducted at the phone's top 120Hz refresh rate mode, while the video test part was done at 60Hz.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging

The Camon 20 Premier supports 45W fast charging. You get the required Infinix charger in the box. It is rated for a standard output of 5V@2A as well as 11V@4.1A max.

The Camon 20 Premier is not a particularly fast charger. Despite the good charging speeds on paper, the phone takes a hot minute to top off. As per our testing, the Camon 20 Premier god from zero to 26% in fifteen minutes and then 47% in thirty minutes. A full charge took 1:14 hours to complete.

The Camon 20 Premier also has what Tecno calls "AI Smart Charge". It works much like the QNOVO system, optimizing overnight charging to charge the battery slowly up to a point and then wait before pumping in a full charge just before you wake up. This should ensure better longevity for the battery overall and is a much-appreciated feature.

Speakers

The Camon 20 Premier has a hybrid stereo speaker system with an amplified earpiece acting like the second channel. That's a pretty common thing for phones in this price range.

As already mentioned, Tecno has put some extra effort into ensuring better sound output for the earpiece by including a speaker grill on the top bezel.

Even so, the stereo setup on the Camon 20 Premier is not particularly well-balanced. The dedicated bottom speaker is noticeably louder with a wider sound stage than the earpiece. In terms of loudness, the Camon 20 Premier managed a "GOOD" score in our testing but is a bit quieter than some of its competitors. Not by a lot, though.

The Camon 20 Premier has a pretty clean audio output that doesn't get distorted even at high volumes. Highs are pretty crisp, and mids sound good as well. There is pretty much no bass, but that's expected.

DTS Sound

There is a DTS Sound optimizer on board the Camon 20 Premier with a few audio presets and a basic equalizer. It gets the job done but is nothing too in-depth. The Camon 20 Premier also supports Hi-Res AUDIO and Hi-Res AUDIO WIRELESS as well as DTS.

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.

HiOS 13 on top of Android 13

The Camon 20 Premier runs on Android 13 with HiOS 13 on top. Even though HiOS has gone through a major version number change this time, not a lot has changed in the UX.

Tecno has been running and refining its own skin for some time now, which we've generally found to be quite good in the past, with a few on-and-off caveats here and there. These mostly come down to pre-installed bloat and ads., but the experience on the Camon 20 Premier is actually pretty clean, as the bloat and the ads are noticeably reduced.

That's not to say there aren't many pre-installed apps and utilities. Tecno is still sticking to its traditions of developing and deploying its own set of apps to cover the basic features. You get an in-house gallery and video player and an app store, even two depending on how you count them. These can still get annoying at times, but we can understand the angle Tecno is coming from.

Hi Browser • AI Gallery • Phone Master • Phone Master • AHA Games • Palm Store

If some of the third-party apps are bothering you with various notifications, you can disable those from within the annoying app or the Notification settings.

Getting into the Camon 20 Premier is business as usual, with both fingerprint and face recognition available. You can also choose from a few animations for the under-display fingerprint reader.

Biometrics and security

The Camon 20 Premier has an always-on display function to go with its OLED display. The lockscreen has two shortcuts on the bottom - one for the camera and one for the flashlight. Tecno offers a cover display implementation for its lock screen if you want to see different images when you unlock the device.

Once you're past that, you arrive at a standard homescreen interface. The leftmost pane, called the Zero screen, holds cards with suggested news, weather and quotes widgets and an app usage widget. You can disable the Zero screen in the 'Desktop settings'.

There's an app drawer by default which you can access from the old-school A-Z orange icon at the bottom or with an upward swipe from the bottom.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Zero screen • Folder view • App drawer • Task switcher

Themes are available as part of HiOS, and there is a dedicated Theme store for this purpose.

Hi Theme

Tecno has a long-standing selection of advanced features that generally get carried forward from older models. That includes the Game mode with all the settings, statistics and parental controls. There is also a Smart panel with slide-from-the-side shortcuts.

Special function menu • Game mode • Social Turbo • Smart Panel

Social Turbo toolset is rather interesting (a WhatsApp enhancer of sorts) - it can change your voice, enhance your face during video calls, record your WhatsApp calls, and allow you to read messages without marking them as Read.

MemFusion is Tecno's name for virtual RAM. The Camon 20 Premier has 8GB of physical RAM chips on board and can extend that up to 16GB with another 8GB of virtual memory. By default, MemFusion is set to 5GB.

MemFusion

Ella - Tecno's own assistant is onboard.

Ella personal assistance

There is also FM radio app, as the phone offers support. You will need to plug in Type-C headphones to serve as an antenna, as usual (there are bundled ones).

Performance and benchmarks

The Tecno Camon 20 Premier uses a Mediatek Dimensity 8050 chipset. It is a very new 6nm chip, announced back in May this year. So much so, in fact, that we currently only have three devices in our database running the chip. That being said, however, the Dimensity 8050 is not entirely new since it is very similar to the Dimensity 1200 and 1300. As such, we expect very similar performance from it.

The Dimensity 8050 has four fast Cortex-A78 cores and four efficient Cortex-A55 cores. The Cortex-A78 units are actually divided between 1 Super Core running at up to 3GHz, and three Performance Cores ticking at up to 2.6GHz. There is a Mali-G77 MC9 GPU inside the chip. It is paired with 8GB of physical RAM and 512GB of non-expandable storage.

Let's kick things off with some CPU testing and GeekBench. As expected, the new Dimensity 8050 performs quite comparably to the Dimensity 1200 and 1300. We can kind of add the original Google Tensor chip and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1 to that list as well. That gives us a pretty good ballpark estimate of the raw performance of the Dimensity 8050. It's not a chart-topper, but it definitely holds its own, particularly in its price range.

Geekbench 5

GeekBench 6

AnTuTu is a much more compound benchmark that takes into account things like memory and storage speeds and also features graphical tests. It is pretty favorable towards the Tecno Camon 20 Premier. Again, we are not looking at a chart-topper, but the Camon 20 Premier still manages to outpace some of its far more popular competitors like the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro.

AnTuTu 9

As already mentioned, the new Dimensity 8050 is pretty similar on a hardware level to the Dimensity 1200 and 1300. As expected, the rough performance figures posted by the Mali-G77 MC9 GPU are in the same ballpark. That's great to see, and it means that the GPU drivers are already mature and that Tecno is making proper use of the hardware at hand.

And once again, while the Camon 20 Premier isn't topping any graphical test charts either, it is also holding its own very well in this area. It is worth noting that Dimensity 8000 and 9000 series chips offer notably more potent GPU configurations than the Dimensity 8050. The same goes for the Google Tensor chips, both original and G2, also the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2.

GFXBench (onscreen)

GFXBench (offscreen)

Again, it is worth noting that the Camon 20 Premier has both the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro beat - two of its prominent competitors. The same goes for the Realme 11 Pro+, which is rocking the also new Dimensity 7050 chipset.

Finally, we have 3DMark, which generally tends to offer a more concise and cleaner visual representation of the relative graphical performance of devices through its consistent off-screen rendering tests. It offers no major surprises. As expected, the Camon 20 Premier still holds its ground well and performs in the Dimensity 1200 and 1300 ballpark. Once again, there are definitely more potent GPU devices out there in the same price range, but the Camon 20 Premier also has both the Galaxy A54 and Redmi Note 12 Pro handily beat in this department.

3DMark (offscreen 1440p)

The Dimensity 8058 inside the Camon 20 Premier seems to run relatively cool without too much thermal stress. The device itself definitely doesn't get too hot to the touch on the surface, just moderately so, which is a major plus. Tecno seemingly paid extra attention to cooling, equipping the phone with a large 5515 mm2 graphene sheet, 2224 mm2 vapor chamber and high thermal conductivity polymer gel.

The Camon 20 Premier has good thermal-throttling behavior with a nice and gradual decline in performance over time without major hiccups and drops. The phone does lose a substantial amount of performance over time, though, which is perhaps worth noting.

Thermal-throttling

Overall, the Tecno Camon 20 Premier is powerful enough to offer a perfectly smooth and fluent experience. It managed to chew through every task we threw at it with ease, even relatively heavy games. While it's not topping any charts, the Camon 20 Premier is definitely not starved for performance in any way.

New triple camera setup with a huge ultrawide

Camon devices have always had an extra focus on the camera experience. One might say this is even evident in the series name - "Cam-ON". The Camon 20 Premier is no exception. Let's start with the main camera. It is based on a pretty big 50MP Samsung s5kgnx sensor behind an f/1.8 lens. That "x" suffix at the end that the phone reports suggest that the sensor could either be a GN3 or a GN5. Both of these are 1/1.56" sensors with 1.0 µm individual pixels. While it is hard to tell exactly which one of the two Tecno used, our bet is on the newer Samsung GN5. The main camera is also equipped with tri-axis sensor-shift stabilization technology, as well as laser autofocus.

The pretty impressive main camera is arguably overshadowed by the super large 108MP ultrawide on the Camon 20 Premier. It sits behind an f/2.2 lens. Digging through the phone, the ultrawide seems to be based on a Samsung s5khm6sxwide sensor. It is colloquially known as the ISOCELL HM6. It is a 1/1.67", nona-pixel ISOCELL 2.0 sensor with 0.64 µm pixels. The ultrawide on the Camon 20 Premier has autofocus and is also leveraging the laser autofocus module. That allows it to double as a powerful macro camera.

The third and final camera on the back of the phone is a 2MP, f/2.4 supplementary depth sensor. It is based on a GalaxyCore gc02m1 sensor. Nothing particularly special.

On the front, the phone has a pretty large 32MP camera. It sits behind a rather dim f/2.5 lens. It is based on the Samsung s5kgd2sp sensor. This is the same sensor found on the Tecno Camon 19 Pro. It is a 1/2.8" sensor with 0.8µm pixels and a tetrapixel arrangement. Unfortunately, the selfie on the Camon 20 Premier lacks autofocus. At least there is a couple of hidden LEDs that serve as fill light for your selfies in the dark.

There is nothing particularly special about the camera app on the Camon 20 Premier. The inclusion of actual focus points visualized in the viewfinder is a noteworthy addition that you don't see every day. Other than that, it's business as usual, with modes on one end of the UI and quick toggles on the other. One thing specific to the Camon 20 Premier is that it has high-resolution toggles for both its main camera and ultrawide (50MP and 108MP, respectively).

Camera UI

The Camon 20 Premier expectedly has a Pro mode. It is pretty standard as well. It offers exposure correction (-2 - +2), shutter speed (1/1500s - 30s), ISO (100 - 6400), white balance (2000K - 9000K), autofocus and metering mode. Unfortunately, no RAW mode is available, nor is there anything else fancy like a histogram.

Camera Pro mode

Daylight photo quality

The main camera on the Camon 20 Premier captures stills in a little over 12MP by default. These look nice and sharp with plenty of detail, good contrast and colors.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera samples

While we generally like how foliage and fine details are rendered, some of that comes down to additional sharpening, which is a bit on the aggressive side. We wouldn't say the photos are oversharpened, though. The one other complaint we have is regarding dynamic range. Detail in dark areas gets frequently crushed and lost.

You can make the main camera shoot in its full 50MP resolution, and if you can deal with the slightly slower capture times and the bigger file size, we believe it is largely worth it. 50MP photos have noticeably more fine detail than their 12MP counterparts. They also look much more natural with a lot less processing and sharpening applied.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 50MP main camera samples

Colors do come out slightly muted compared to regular 12MP shots, but it's not a huge deal.

The main camera on the Camon 20 Premier captures some great-looking portraits. These are sharp with plenty of detail, nice and true-to-life skin tones and good-enough skin texture rendition. Subject detection and separation are pretty great, and the quality of the background blur is excellent.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera samples

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

Portrait mode works pretty well on non-human subjects too. The camera picks those up without too much hesitation.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera portrait samples

The Camon 20 Premier lacks a dedicated telephoto camera, but it still has a 2x zoom toggle in its UI for digital crops from the main camera. These shots look pretty good and very close in terms of quality to 1x ones. Besides slightly more noise in the frame, we have very little to complain about.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples

Here's how the main camera stacks up against competitors in our extensive photo database. Pixel-peep away.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier against the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Photo compare tool

50MP: Tecno Camon 20 Premier against the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Photo compare tool

Let's move on to the 108MP ultrawide camera. By default, it actually captures photos in a bit under 12MP resolution. These shots look pretty good. The resolved detail level, while not close to that of the main camera, is still very good for an ultrawide. Contrast is good, and so is dynamic range. Barrel distortion near the edges and edge softness are almost non-existent. Ultrawide shots are not as aggressively sharpened as main camera ones, which is a plus in our book.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12MP ultrawide camera samples

Colors tend to come out a bit too warm for our taste. There is somewhat of a yellow tint applied to the frame. Definitely enough so to be very distinct from the main camera's color rendition. This is not a huge dealbreaker, though.

The ultrawide camera can shoot in its full 108MP resolution. We would advise against doing that, however. The file sizes are huge, and the high-res mode doesn't appear to offer any obvious advantages over the regular one. Definitely not in terms of resolved detail, which is actually a bit worse on average when pixel-peeping. These photos also seem to be a bit noisier.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 108MP ultrawide camera samples

Thanks to its autofocusing capabilities, the ultrawide camera has another party trick - it can double as a very potent closeup/macro camera. These shots from the Camon 20 Premier look truly great. There is plenty of detail in the frame and enough resolution to zoom to your heart's content. Subject detection and autofocus work great. We also love how the natural bokeh background looks.

Honestly, closeups might be one of the highlights of the camera experience.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12MP ultrawide camera macro samples

The selfie camera on the Camon 20 Premier captures 32MP photos, which does mean that their file size is a bit on the larger side. It's a bit of a weird choice, given that the sensor in the selfie cam is Quad-Bayer and should produce 8MP shots by default. On the plus side, however, selfies look great with plenty of detail, nice and true-to-life skin tones and texture. Colors look great too.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 32MP selfie camera samples

While we would have loved to see autofocus on the selfie cam, the focal plane is quite wide and forgiving as it is.

Selfie portraits do get saved in 8MP resolution, as expected from the sensor. These look about as good as regular selfies in terms of skin tones and texture.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 8MP selfie camera portrait samples

Subject detection and separation aren't always perfect, but they are definitely good enough. The quality of the background blur is pretty high.

Video quality

The Tecno Camon 20 Premier can shoot video at up to 4K@30fps on both its main and ultrawide cameras. The selfie cam is capped at 1440p. Video gets recorded in a standard H.264/AVC video stream at around 50Mbps for the main and ultrawide and 20Mbps for the selfie with a stereo 48 kHz AAC audio stream, saved in an MP4 container.

The main camera captures great 4K video with superb detail and awesome colors and contrast. The frame rate is both smooth and stable. Honestly, we have no complaints beyond the dynamic range being perhaps a bit wider.

Here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our video compare database.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier against the Samsung Galaxy A54 and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro in our Video compare tool

And here's some 2x zoom 4K footage from the main camera.

The ultrawide camera also captures very clean and sharp 4K videos. Detail is pretty good, and so are colors. Just like with stills, there is a noticeable yellow tint compared to the main camera.

Even so, these are some of the better ultrawide 4K videos we've seen, particularly in this price range.

Even though they cap out at 1440p selfie videos also look great. Detail is plenty, colors are nice and natural. Skin tones and texture look good.

Honestly, the only deficiency we can spot is the relatively narrow dynamic range. But, even it isn't bad enough to complain.

For stabilization, the Camon 20 Premier has something called Ultra steady. It's EIS that works pretty consistently across all cameras. It does a good job of smoothing out shakes and bumps. However, you are limited to 1080p resolution, which makes a huge difference to the level of detail in frame.

Low-light camera quality

The main camera on the Camon 20 Premier captures pretty good low-light photos. These have plenty of detail and good, true-to-life colors. The dynamic range isn't half bad either, and dark areas have impressive detail.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples

On the flip side, the phone doesn't handle light sources all too well, and some noise is noticeable, particularly in darker areas of the frame.

The Camon 20 Premier does some form of automatic low-light optimization, as indicated by the scene detection trat triggers with a "moon symbol" in the camera UI. Beyond that, the phone also has a "Super night" mode in the camera. It takes two to three seconds to capture a shot, which is not the fastest we've seen, but not too slow, either.

The results are a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, night mode does noticeably sharpen up the photos, but frequently a bit artificially and way too aggressively. There is less noise in darker areas, which is good, but not necessarily any more detail. Light sources are handled notably better in Night mode.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera night mode samples

Contrast is cranked up way too high in these photos, and colors don't look as natural as in regular shots. Night mode photos look a bit darker overall.

Beyond Night mode, it is worth noting that the Camon 20 Premier has a particularly powerful rear LED flash array. You can depend on it for close-quarters shooting.

2x zoom shots from the main camera are very comparable to regular 1x ones in the dark. They are just a bit softer and noisier, but not by a lot.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom low-light samples

Night mode has pretty much the same effect on these photos as well. We like the better light source handling, but not necessarily the aggressive sharpening, nor the excessive contrast and overall darker look.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom night mode samples

The ultrawide camera generally does alright in low-light conditions without being overly impressive. It manages to focus properly most of the time, which is great to see and always a concern about autofocusing ultrawides. Its regular shots have plenty of detail and nice colors.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12MP ultrawide camera low-light samples

Light sources tend to be blown out, and there is noticeable softness on surfaces, but not too much actual noise, which is good.

Night mode on the ultrawide can probably best be described as aggressive. Contrast is cranked way too high, and everything is artificially sharpened up. So much heavy-handed processing is applied that some of the actual detail gets lost in the process.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 12MP ultrawide camera night mode samples

On the plus side, light sources are handled and contained noticeably better.

The 32MP selfie camera does alright in low light conditions but is nothing to phone home about. There is a good amount of detail, though facial texture doesn't really come through. Colors aren't bad either, but skin tones could be a bit more natural.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 32MP selfie camera low-light samples

Night mode is available for the selfie as well. Interestingly enough, Night mode on the selfie produces 8MP photos, as this quad-bayer camera should in the first place. It offers a bit more detail with slightly more skin texture coming through and more natural skin tones.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 8MP selfie camera night mode samples

Just like on the rear cameras, it sharpens the image rather aggressively with lots of contrast. It's definitely a particular look, but one you might enjoy.

The Camon 20 Premier also has another party trick up its sleeve for low-light selfies - the pair of pretty powerful selfie LED lights on the front of the device. We think using these provides a great middle ground between regular and night-mode selfies. There is more detail, better skin texture, and more natural skin tones.

Tecno Camon 20 Premier: 32MP selfie camera low-light samples with flash

All of this without aggressive oversharpening or overly high contrast. Unlike night mode, you do still, unfortunately, get large 32MP selfies, though.

The main camera captures pretty great 4K low-light videos. These are plenty sharp with a lot of detail, good dynamic range and nice and natural colors.

Shooting video in 2x zoom mode produces very comparable results, which is great. Naturally, there is a bit more noise in the frame, but nothing deal-breaking.

The ultrawide camera holds its own well in low-light conditions. Detail is nowhere near as good as on the main camera, but pretty decent for an ultrawide. Dynamic range is not as wide as well, but again, quite good. There is some noise in the frame, but not too much. We didn't notice any focus hinting, which is also great.

Competition

The Camon 20 Premier is currently available in a single 8GB RAM, plus 512GB storage configuration. That retails for just over EUR 410 - a competitive price for the package. Just to be on the safe side, we'll cast a slightly wider net when looking for competitors and bump the budget up to EUR 450. However, it is worth noting that there are plenty of great options even below the EUR 400 mark.

Let's kick things off with Samsung and the popular Galaxy A54, which fits our budget nicely. A base 128GB model should run you just EUR 370 in most places, while the 256GB one is comparable in price to the 512GB Camon 20 Premier. That's one area the Tecno has it beat in value. The Samsung does, however, offer expandable storage. It also brings IP67 ingress protection to the table and a brand-name Gorilla Glass 5 protective finish on its display. Speaking of which, the A54 display is also a 120Hz AMOLED, but one that is much brighter than the Tecno's and with HDR10+ support. Adding to that, the A54 is a well-rounded phone with stereo speakers, a large 5,000 mAh battery with 25W charging, a 50MP OIS-enabled main, 12MP ultrawide and 5MP macro camera setup and a decent Exynos 1380 chipset, though not as powerful as the Dimensity 8050 inside the Camon 20 Premier.

As we usually do, we can't fail to mention the much cheaper Galaxy A34 as a viable alternative to get much of the way to the A54 experience on a much tighter budget.

Samsung Galaxy A54 • Xiaomi Poco F5 • Realme 11 Pro+ • Google Pixel 6a

Unsurprisingly, there are plenty of viable options over in camp Xiaomi. For about as much as the Tecno, you could pick up a Poco F5. Some of its highlights include IP53 ingress protection and Gorilla Glass 5, stereo speakers, a large 5,000 mAh battery with 67W charging, a 12-bit, 120Hz, HDR-capable and much brighter AMOLED display, a more potent Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chipset and a pretty versatile camera setup with a 64MP, OIS-enabled main cam.

Alternatively, you could lower the budget quite significantly and go for something like the ever-popular Redmi Note 12 Pro. Despite its lower price, it still offers much of the same Xiaomi experience, including IP53, stereo speakers, 5000 mAh battery with 67W charging and a 10-bit, 120Hz, HDR AMOLED display. The Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro is another option quite similar to the Redmi with a Snapdragon chipset and better battery life, but also some concessions, like no OIS.

Looking over to the BBK's roster, we can't help but point out the vivo V27 Pro. It hasn't been enjoying massive popularity in our database, and it might be a bit harder to find for many. Still, it is a great choice for around as much as the Camon 20 Premier costs.

That V27 Pro might not be the best value for money, though. It is hard to ignore the Realme 11 Pro+ in that category. Its starting MSRP is less than EUR 300. All the while, it offers stereo speakers, a large 5,000 mAh battery with a whopping 100W charging and pretty good battery endurance. It also has a large 6.7-inch, 10-bit, HDR10+, 120Hz OLED display, much brighter than the one on the Camon 20 Premier. The Realme 11 Pro+ has a very interesting camera setup in its own right with a 200 MP, f/1.7, OIS-enabled main snapper. Not too shabby at all, especially for the budget.

Last but definitely not least, why not consider a Google Pixel? As long as a large display isn't pretty high up on your wish list. The new Pixel 7a would naturally be our first choice with its better 90Hz OLED display, bigger 64MP main camera and bigger 12MP selfie. It, however, is a pricier device than the Camon 20 Premier and closer to the EUR 500 mark than the EUR 400 one.

The older Pixel 6a is far from outdated, though. Sure, you'll have to live with a 60Hz refresh rate and, as mentioned, a much smaller overall display size, but the panel is HDR-capable and much brighter than Tecno's. The Pixel 6a also offers IP67 ingress protection stereo speakers and better battery endurance despite having a smaller battery than the 7a. Its camera system is still world-class, mostly thanks to Google's prowess in computational photography. And all of this, plus pure Android and very long software support, can be had for just around EUR 330 at current pricing.

Our verdict

The Tecno Camon 20 Premier is a very well-rounded overall package. It manages to achieve these accolades even in a very aggressively-competitive market full of excellent devices. If we had to list some highlights from our experience with the Camon 20 Premier, the interesting camera setup would definitely be up there. It is very reliable and versatile, offering very good all-around performance. Plus, that high-resolution 108MP autofocusing ultrawide is a real treat in its own right that does its primary job pretty well and also produces some excellent macro shots if you are into that sort of thing.

The Camon 20 Premier is also a very good-looking and distinctive device, no doubt about that. It also feels sturdy and well-made. Its large display is also a treat to use indoors with competent if imperfect high refresh rate handling up to 120Hz and great color accuracy. Throw in the pretty nice stereo speaker setup, and you get a solid multimedia experience from the phone. Battery life and overall performance are nothing short of dependable as well. The Camon 20 Premier runs very smoothly, and we appreciate all of the extra options afforded by HiOS 13, especially little touches like AI Smart Charge for better battery longevity.

The list of things we didn't quite like about the Camon 20 Premier is fairly short but potentially important to many prospective buyers. We really wish the phone had some official ingress protection level. Plus, we can't shake the feeling that the display surface is not particularly tough since Tecno makes no mention of its protection. As much as we like using the display indoors, it kind of falls short outdoors, particularly in the sun. A little bit higher brightness would have gone a long way.

We enjoyed our time with the Camon 20 Premier and give it a tentative but guilt-free recommendation, especially if you manage to snag one for a good price.