Tecno has a new next to flagship device in the market, the Tecno Camon 16 Premier. The problem with the latest release is that it comes a mere five months after the previous version of the same device, the Tecno Camon 15 Premier that was launched in April 2020. This is a problem because it leaves many wondering whether Tecno has actually added any meaningful features to the new iteration. That’s why this article is meant to lay bare the differences between the two 2020 next to flagship devices – they are next to flagship because ever since Tecno dropped the Phantom Series, the Camon Series took the crown.
PHONE SIZE AND BATTERY
The first difference we noticed with the Tecno Camon 16 Premier when compared to its previous version is the shear size. Whereas Camon 15 Premier came in with a 6.6 inches screen, an additional 0.3 inches was added to make the Camon 16 Premier come at a gigantic 6.9 inches – both boasting of real Full HD resolution of 1080p. Although there is an increase in vertical pixels count from 2340 pixels in the Camon 15 Premier to 2460 pixels in the Camon 16 Premier, the 0.3 inches increase in screen size means the pixel per inch has dropped slightly from 390ppi to 374ppi. What this means is that in as much as there is more in screen real estate that will allow the user to view bigger pictures, watch videos better, text much easily and even get to play videos in a slightly bigger screen, the sharpness of the images to viewed in the new Camon 16 Premier is unnoticeably lower.
The bigger screen has been made possible not so much as reducing the size of the bezels (that has been reduced for the Camon 15 Premier 84.3% screen to body ratio whereas the Camon 16 Premier has 88.7% screen to body ratio), but mostly due to the increase in the actual physical size of the phone. Tecno Camon 15 Premier comes at the dimensions of 163.3 x 77.7 x 9.1 mm but the newly launched Tecno Camon 16 Premier features 170.6 x 77.2 x 9.1 mm. That means the two phones are almost identical in physical dimensions except for the increased length by whooping 7 millimeters.
In addition to allowing the bigger screen to fit into the new device, Tecno Camon 16 Premier is now able to house a gigantic 4500mAh battery compared to the 4000mAh battery that was in the Tecno Camon 15 Premier. More battery capacity definitely means you will be able to take more pictures, enjoy more video hours, make many more calls, and generally use the phone more – at least by up to 6 more hours if Tecno Camon 15 Premier served you for 48 hours.
OS AND PROCESSOR
Given that the two devices were launched relatively close to one another, there isn’t any difference on the software that runs them – that is both the Android and the Tecno HIOS are exactly the same – Android vs 10 and HIOS vs 6 respectively. The advantage Tecno Camon 16 Premier has over Tecno Camon 15 Premier in performance comes from the CPU and GPU that the software operates. In the vs 15, we have the Mediatek MT6765V/W Helio P35 (12nm) chipset, in octa core processor that come in two parts segmented as 4×2.35 GHz Cortex-A53 and 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53. In the Tecno Camon 16 Premier, we have the device running on the Mediatek MT6785 Helio G90T (12 nm), as an octa core processor, but the processing power has been improved to 2×2.05 GHz Cortex-A76 and 6×2.0 GHz Cortex-A55.
To help run the faster processor even better, the Camon 16 has been given an 8 GB RAM, an improvement from the 6 GB that Camon 15 was launched with. One would expect some improvement in storage but that has been kept constant at 128 GB. That shouldn’t bother you given that someone like me hasn’t found any reason to have a phone that has more than 64 GB in storage – now that these gigantic storage capacities in phones usually go to waste whenever the phone dies. Someone should find a way of making the storages transferable from one phone to the next, same way we can get to transfer our PC hard disks to new PCs whenever we upgrade.
CAMERA
In as much as I am of those people who cannot buy a phone for its Camera, most of you find the Camera the most important feature in a smartphone, and that’s why guys like TECNO get to lure you with advanced camera capabilities after every device. Actually, for TECNO, the Camon series is their Pioneer series in camera technology.
When it comes to improving the Camera on Camon 16 Premier, Tecno has basically maintained the pixel count at 64 MP as found in the Camon 15 Premier, but made some details in nitty gritty specs. For example the quad camera setup in Camon 5 comes at 64 MP, 5 MP for ultrawide, 2 MP for depth and a QVGA camera for god knows what, but the Camon 16 Premier has the 64 MP main camera, 8 MP for ultrawide, 2 MP for depth and another 2 MP dedicated for video.
The noticeable differences is in the front camera where Camon 15 features just a single 32 MP shooter, but the Camon 16 now has a dual setup of 48 MP wide angle augmented with an 8 MP ultrawide lens.
CONCLUSION
There are two questions worth asking:
- Given that both Tecno Camon 15 Premier and Tecno Camon 16 Premier were launched this year, is it necessary to save and buy the Camon 15 Premier? Camon 15 Premier currently retails for roughly Shs 26,000 at Jumia Kenya. My advice would be that look for the extra Shs 2,500 and get yourself the Camon 16 Premier, as the new features are definitely worth having.
- If I already bought the Tecno Camon 15 Premier, should I upgrade? Here the answer is a definite no. Although the new features in Tecno Camon 16 Premier may be luring, they do not lure to an extent of warranting an upgrade – since upgrading would suggest you wasted thousands of shillings that can still serve you for two or three more years. Actually if you already bought the Tecno Camon 15 Premier I’d suggest that you keep that baby until 2024.
