Two months ago Tecno launched their latest edition of the Pouvoir series, the Tecno Pouvoir 4; a mid range device that’s meant for power users. Here, power users means people who use a lot of power intensive apps. I am talking about those who cannot afford to put their phones down (you should learn how to), people who play games all the time, and people who watch a lot of videos.
There is a different type of power users – people who want phones that can execute heavy apps instantly, or people who want to multitask, those are not the kind of power users Tecno Pouvoir 4 is tailored for. For such kind of people, phone companies usually unveil high end devices to meet both their bragging and use needs.
The fact that Tecno Pouvoir 4 is tailored for mid range consumers doesn’t mean it can’t multitask, it simply means it can multitask up to some low level range – and that’s because of instead of coming with an 8 GB RAM typical typical of modern day high end smartphones, its RAM is 3 GB. Don’t get me wrong, 3 GB RAM is still huge, so huge so that it can still run all your social media apps simultaneously, and allow you to add one or two games on top of that without crashing.
And that’s why Tecno Pouvoir 4 comes with Game Mode Optimization. Game Mode Optimization is this feature that enables one to interact with other apps while the given game is still running. For example, message optimization lets you to quickly browse the important messages without disturbing your gaming experience and winning records.
You must have had an experience where while playing a game, the entire phone is locked such that to know what’s happening to the rest of the world you have to quit the game, sometimes midway, get to your messages and notifications, respond to them, then start a new game. When you exit games midway, the price to pay is usually registering a loss on that game. Such unnecessary losses is what Tecno Pouvoir 4 has done away with.
Usually it is easy to judge a phone’s price point just by running through its spec sheet. Basing your judgement solely on the spec sheet for Tecno Pouvoir 4; it’s size, the camera, the battery, you can easily misjudge the phone as a device that’s worth close to shs 30,000 – maybe Shs 25,000 if you are given a discount. I am sorry to disappoint you, this device retails for a meagre shs 14,999. You have to give it to Tecno for doing their best to give the budget phone users a real value for their money.
On size we are talking about a 7 inches dot display. But given the price point, Tecno had to compromise on pixels to put a ~256 ppi density instead of the minimum 300 ppi that the human eye can recognise as natural. The 256 ppi on the Pouvoir 4 is as a result of the 720 by 1640 – way below the expected 1080 by let’s say 2460 that would provide us with a 384 ppi.
The advantage of the bigger screen however is that you can now watch your videos in “big screen”. Remember the days of phablets? Yeah, if Tecno Pouvoir 4 came around those days, we could not have called the phone a smartphone, but rather, a mini tablet. I actually owned a Safaricom Neon Mini Tab 5 years ago and the device was so huge so that one would think I was holding a small TV on my ear whenever I was on call. Now imagine Tecno Pouvoir 4 is almost of the same height but reduced width, and that has been made possible for one reason: the phone manufacturers have been able to almost get rid of the bezels which have been eating up screen real estate.
The one thing that’s very unique about the phone is the Google assistant key on the left hand side of the phone. It is probably signalling the beginning of the aggressive development of the voice calls and AI use on the Android phones. Recently we also saw the launch of voice note by Twitter and that caused a stir for a day and to before went back to the default mode. It could be a trend that is starting to shape going to the future.
Although for many people talking to the phone is yet to become a thing, more and more are finding it as a way to express themselves. Those born post 1990s are finding it easier to use things like voice notes, hence Tecno Pouvoir 4 and other devices that want to make voice search, voice commands and voice communication between the user and the device a standard thing to do are making it seamless for the voice communication to become the default method for not only obtaining relevant information through smartphones, but the default method for human-phone communication.
Those juicy specs for Tecno Pouvoir 4 aside, the selling points for the device are only two: the 6000 mAh battery and the quad setup camera plus the 8 MP selfie camera. When I saw the initial specification for the battery I suspected that the phone would give some great battery life. And it did not disappoint while testing the phone battery. Fully charged battery lasted for three days with active use. With 6000mAh battery, the test results are probably expected but still that is some great effort by the Tecno team for a budget phone. Tecno was able to put in a gigantic battery into the device thanks to lengthening its length. The phone is 174.9 mm, which is is a few millimeters shorter than the Safaricom Neon I mentioned earlier.
And by the way, who doesn’t like the idea of charging a phone once every 3 days? Remember this not only allows one to use the phone for several days at a time, but it also means you can use the phone for up to 8 years without worrying about replacing the battery. When a phone is charged once a day, then the number of years you can hope to use the phone before the battery expires is 3 years. That’s because typically a Li-Ion battery has a lifespan of 1000 charge-discharge cycles.
Camera is decent considering the price range. As mentioned in many of the phones that we have looked at here, phone cameras have become a big selling point for most phones. 13MP and 8Mp selfie camera with LED Flash are not too bad at all. Selfie pictures look great.
