TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G Review

The TECNO 11 CAMON 30 Premier 5G is now in the Philippines as the brand’s most anticipated premium midrange-priced smartphone.

The phone comes with a ton of spot-on features that you’d normally see in many other flagship devices. The question is, can the phone really throw punches above its weight class?

Before any readers jump the gun and make a purchase, we’ll cover the device’s pros and cons for you. For reference, our review unit came with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage in the Hawaii Lava Black colorway.

Now then, it’s time to find out if the CAMON 30 Premier can live up to the hype!

Design and Construction

This phone balances traditional aesthetics with modern premium features you wouldn’t easily find under its price range. It also has a light form-factor at first sight, with the device being 7.9mm thin. However, the phone actually has an above-average weight of 210 grams.

Going into detail, most of the back panel sports leather material that is highly appreciated due to its smudge resistance. The back also features a hydrophobic coating that makes water droplets cluster together on the surface.

This prevents soaking and eliminates liquid residue, supporting the phone’s IP54 rating against water and dust.

Meanwhile, the upper right part of the phone’s rear has what seems to be polycarbonate material. Consequently, the camera island is geared a bit toward the left because of this design.

You may also notice two features on the upper left and lower left of the camera island.

On top, we have the action dot. This lights up when the phone is recording, charging, and when alarms go off. Below, we have the phone’s LED flash. Frankly, I loved these placements because it showed how manufacturers are considerate towards shooting and recording orientations.

The camera sensors are enclosed in a classic side-axis design similar to the OnePlus’ and realme’s 12 Series devices. In addition, the enclosure is marketed to help the device with heat dissipation to maintain performance in prolonged use.

Up front, we have the display panel with a 93.9% screen-to-body ratio and the front-facing camera in a hole-punch above.

For buttons and ports, the volume rocker is situated on the left side. On the right, we have the power button.

We also have a dual-sim card slot, Type-C charging port, and one of two loudspeakers at the bottom. There’s also the device microphone on top, along with the other speaker.

Safe to say, TECNO managed to make classic design work with their personal contemporary touches. Even the case that comes with the phone offers users a similar texture to that of the device’s back panel.

Display, Multimedia, and Biometrics

The CAMON 30 Premier 5G boasts a 6.77-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a 2780 x 1264 (450 ppi) resolution. The phone also features an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz for power-conscious end users.

Users can choose between four modes from 60Hz, 90Hz, 120Hz, and auto-switch for refresh rate settings. Of course, we recommend sticking to auto-switch so that you don’t have to worry about this.

You can also find High Brightness Mode (HBM) under display settings, which peaks at 1,500 nits. Consider tinkering with this feature if ever you’re under too much sunlight, at the expense of power consumption and temperature increase.

As mentioned, the phone also has dual stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos on top and at the bottom. They’re quite loud and clear, but not as crisp as I expected. Speaking of, I expected to block the speakers when holding the phone horizontally for video binges or gaming.

With where the speakers were situated, it was a pleasant surprise that it didn’t matter. Users can also find a better experience by connecting the phone with earbuds or headphones to maximize the Dolby Atmos feature.

Notable biometrics consist of the usual modern means of mobile security, such as a fingerprint sensor and face unlock. The former is an under-display sensor, which works pretty smoothly.

For face unlock, it shows a neat animation on the top of the display reminiscent of Apple’s dynamic island.

Cameras

TECNO treats users to four 50-megapixel shooters with this freshly-released device.

The rear features a Sony IMX890 main camera with OIS, a periscope telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and an ultrawide lens. We also have a camera at the front for selfies.

The main shooter is pretty distinct, being the same sensor found in the OnePlus12R, realme GT5, and OPPO Find X6. This camera can use more light for capturing ultra-high definition photos.

With an aperture of f/1.88, photos taken have a noticeable depth effect in daylight. The sensor also provides users with OIS for handheld shooting. Here are some of the shots from the main camera:

Next, we have the 70mm periscopic lens with optical zoom that complements your photos with a natural background blur. This sensor helps users compose flagship-level portrait shots by keeping your subject as the main focus.

The CAMON 30 Premier 5G even provides AI Motion Snapshot to help you take photos of quick, fleeting moments. Plus, it also features eye-tracking autofocus to make sure the device recognizes its subject.

We’ll leave the shots from this sensor below for readers to see.

The last rear camera gives users wide-angle or macro shots with anti-distortion enabled. Feel free to take photos from your garden close-up, or shoot from a rooftop looking over large buildings.

Either way, this will give you a lot of bang-for-your-buck for photo clarity.

Sample photos for this below.

The phone isn’t a slouch when it comes to selfies either! It sports a powerful shooter at the front to help users stay social media-ready. On the topic of social media, we believe content creators should look into this phone.

Both front and rear cameras can shoot videos smoothly with a resolution of 4K at 60fps. This kind of quality should give creators tons of leeway for cropping, processing, and editing clips.

The CAMON 30 Premier also offers AI-powered dual-chip imaging. This provides features like Social Turbo, AIGC Portrait, and an AI Eraser.

Social Turbo has functions ranging from voice changing, background changing, beauty functions, Tmoji avatars, and more. Meanwhile, the AIGC Portrait helps you create original AI-generated content by using multiple photos and creating imaginative profile pictures.

I think that TECNO is offering so much for the camera segment of this device considering its price range. But you know, more power to the people that can put this to use!

OS, Apps, and UI

Out-of-the-box, the TECNO CAMON 30 Premier runs on HiOS 14 based on Android 14. It’s clean, minimal, but feels kind of flat in terms of what you can tinker around with. While the essentials are there and appreciated, I have but one gripe with this software skin.

Dolby Atmos can’t be added to the device’s quick settings for easier toggling. I have to go into settings and type it out before I can do anything about it. We can only hope that TECNO fixes this in a firmware update.

But anyway, we’ll move on to apps, where TikTok, Facebook, and Shopee came pre-installed with the device. HiOS also features its native apps like Hola Browser, Ella, and Freezer.

For bloatware, HiOS recognizes that users find this a nuisance. So, TECNO went ahead and moved the ‘HiOS Family’ of apps into one folder.

It is up to users on whether they should use (or ignore) them. Tools for daily activities like a calculator, clock, and recorder are also separated into another folder.

TECNO also guarantees three (3) years’ worth of Android updates up to Android 16 30 and three (3) years of security patches. This ensures that the CAMON 30 Premier 5G stays up-to-date, secure, and future-proofed.

However, by the aforementioned three-year mark’s worth of updates, the device will most likely have run its course. Factors such as battery healthspan over the years will affect user experience to the point that updates can’t solve them.

In terms of user interface, you can only do a handful of things. You can dress up the interface under the personalization tab, but there’s not too much to write home about.

At the very least, it has always-on-display available with widget customizations. Other special features include dynamic port, floating windows, MemFusion, smart panel, game mode, and smart hub.

Performance and Benchmarks

The TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G 38 is powered by a Dimensity 8200 Ultimate chipset paired with a Mali-G610 MP6 GPU. This is the same chip optimized for multitasking or gaming that powers the Xiaomi 13T.

Our review unit also comes with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

The phone was able to handle high-performing games with nothing I could think of nitpicking about. It loaded PUBG Mobile with ease, which surprised me considering I had my first game in high-performance mode.

Frame rates were high and stable, and made for an enjoyable session. I also noticed that the device didn’t heat up at all during my gameplay. After my gaming binge, I found out that the phone has a 10-layer cooling system that helped remedy this.

I can surely vouch that the phone is more than capable in the performance department. Benchmark scores are in the table below for those interested.

With these numbers, I’d say there’s only a small margin for apps that the device could struggle with running.

Battery and Connectivity

This device carries a modest 5,000mAh battery and has support for 70W of Ultra Charge technology via USB Type-C.

Charging from 0-100% takes roughly an hour, but if you’re strapped for time it takes 24 minutes to get 50% available. We got this result with the device’s smart charging feature, and sadly it’s the only option for now.

Again, we’re hoping TECNO provides a fast charging toggle through a firmware update. The only other alternative is low temp mode, which slows charging down in favor of battery lifespan.

By the way, the phone has an extended lifespan with support for at least 1,600 charge cycles. The device’s battery also maintains 80% of its effective capacity after 4 years.

As for how long you can keep using the phone, it’s great for most of the day. We took some practical tests for the newly-released phone, with different results coming from mixed use variables.

In PC Mark’s Work 3.0 Battery Test, our review unit lasted 11 hours and 52 minutes. This test was conducted with 50% brightness, volume muted, and in airplane mode.

This isn’t much for a smartphone with this battery capacity, so we tested it more with different parameters with better results.

In our video loop test, the TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G provided 22 hours and 50 minutes of media playback. This test was done by playing a full HD movie with the same factors present in the previous test.

In addition, we conducted a gaming test for the device. We found that this phone can provide players with 12 hours and 30 minutes of gameplay.

For this, we had brightness and volume set to 50% over a Wi-Fi connection, while also having. the high-performance setting on.

Our consensus for the battery is that it’s more than capable for video and gaming binges throughout the day. While the phone did seem to struggle with general multitasking from the first test, the numbers that followed proved otherwise.

Connectivity options consist of WiFi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, and 5G from the dual nano-SIM card. Users also get a handy IR remote control, which you could use for smart home appliances. Call quality is also decent, as with all phones in today’s modern day and age.

Pricing and Conclusion

If interested readers are still considering purchasing the TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G, I can say it’s a no-brainer. For what it offers, the retail price of PHP 23,999USD 409INR 34,669EUR 390CNY 2,978 for 12GB+512GB isn’t much of a debate.

If readers make in-person purchases, you also get wireless speakers worth PHP 3,000USD 51INR 4,334EUR 49CNY 372 too.

It sports flagship-level cameras, a beautiful display, and great performance complemented by battery life. These are even bundled up in a premium build and sleek design (with a leather case) to boot.

Not much to recall in terms of what I didn’t like from my time using our review unit. Apart from a flat software experience and a few issues with the user interface, it’s all good!

I’m sure my findings will be addressed with a few updates here and there, but the pros definitely outweigh these. In summary, this phone is very much worth your time to look into.

What do you guys think? Share your thoughts on the TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G below!

What we liked:
* Premium design and build
* Free leather case
* Good performance
* Great cameras
* Above-average battery life
* Mid range price for flagship features
* IR remote control

What we didn’t like:
* Flat software experience
* Absence of fast charging feature and Dolby Atmos toggle in quick settings
* Audio quality (speakers) could’ve improved

TECNO CAMON 30 Premier 5G specs:
6.77-inch LTPO AMOLED display @ 2780 x 1264 pixels
120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 1,500 nits (peak brightness)
MediaTek Dimensity 8200 Ultimate 5G
1x Cortex-A78 @ 3.1GHz
3x Cortex-A78 @ 3.0GHz
4x Cortex-A55 @ 2.0GHz
Mali-G610 MP6 GPU
12GB RAM
512GB UFS 3.1 storage
Triple-rear camera setup
50MP Sony IMX890 (f/1.9, 23mm), OIS
50MP periscope telephoto (f/2.2, 70mm), 3x optical zoom
50MP ultrawide (f/2.2, 14mm)
4K @ 30/60fps (HDR), 1080p@30fps
50MP front camera (f/2.5, 24mm)
4K@30fps, 1080p
Dual stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos
5G
Dual nano-SIM
Wi-Fi 5
Bluetooth 5.3
NFC support
GPS, GLONASS, OTG
FM Radio
USB Type-C
Fingerprint sensor (under-display)
Face unlock
HiOS 14 (Android 14)
5,000mAh battery, 70W Ultra Charge (wired)
IR remote control
Proximity, flicker, ambient light sensors
Electronic compass, gyroscope
IP54 dust and water resistance rating
162.66 x 76.23 x 7.9mm (dimensions)
210 grams (weight)
Alps Snowy Silver, Hawaii Lava Black (colors)