Tecno Camon 19 Neo: Better camera and battery performance at the price; detailed review

Tecno recently launched the Camon 19 Neo. At its price, the Camon 19 Neo comes with a rich set of specifications. With an octa-core processor and a triple rear camera system, the smartphone performs well and ticks most of the boxes on the checklist. Let's find out more about the Tecno Camon 19 Neo, how it performs, how good is its camera and whether one should buy the smartphone or not. 

Unboxing Experience

In the box, customers get multiple things, unlike other smartphones in the segment. First of all, the Tecno Camon 19 Neo comes with a good-quality TPU case. Further, customers also get an 18W fast charger in the box, along with a USB-C to USB-C cable. It is also important to mention that the Tecno Camon 19 Neo comes with a pre-installed screen guard. All these accessories add value and it is good to see a company providing them with a smartphone that is priced aggressively.

Display

The Tecno Camon 19 Neo comes with a 6.8-inch LCD display with a resolution of 395 pixels per inch; however, it does not support higher rates. Further, the display can achieve a peak brightness of 500 nits, which feels adequate indoors and outdoors on bright days, but not under direct sunlight. Nevertheless, the display produces vibrant colours, is sharp enough and has decent viewing angles. 

The display on the Tecno Camon 19 Neo has slim bezels on all the sides and a punch-hole cutout in the centre that features the front camera. Additional features related to the display include automatic brightness, which lags sometimes but gets the job done. Apart from the display, the overall built of the device feels sturdy; the button on the right panel provides a good feedback. 

Performance

Under the hood, the Tecno Camon 19 Neo features the MediaTek Helio G85 chipset, which was launched in 2020 and is based on 12nm architecture. Further, Camon 19 Neo comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is a good configuration at its price. Additionally, users can boost the RAM with the Memory Fusion technology that provides 5GB of additional virtual RAM. Staple tasks such as streaming content, watching YouTube, browsing through social media platforms and clicking pictures every now and then did not seem to trouble the smartphone at all. 

When it comes to RAM management, the Camon 19 handles multiple applications very well. However, the Mali G52 MC2 chipset is not the best for this budget, especially for gaming. Users can play games like Call of Duty, and Subway Surfers among others but not at high settings, which is something that is also seen in models sold by other manufacturers in the segment. Nevertheless, Tecno does not market the Camon 19 as a gaming smartphone.

Although the processor has two Cortext A75 performance cores clocked at 2 GHz and six Cortext A55 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, it has aged quite a bit since its launch. For reference, the Camon 19 Neo scores around 365 points in the single-core and about 1270 points in the multi-core Geekbench benchmarking test. 

The custom HiOS v8.6 UI is based on Android 12. On the home screen, users have to swipe from the top right to open all the quick controls including the vertical brightness and media volume sliders. Users get everything they would want, including the Wi-Fi settings, Bluetooth toggle, a button to turn the flashlight and other required settings. Swiping from the top left corner opens the Notification centre. Further, swiping up opens the app drawer which lists all the apps in alphabetical order. 

Camera

Tecno says that the Camon 19 Neo comes with a 48MP triple rear super night camera. Breaking it down, the smartphone has a 48MP primary sensor, a 2MP depth sensor and a QVGA sensor. On the front, Camon 19 Ne has a 32MP selfie camera with an LED flash. Now, readers should not confuse the smartphone with the Tecno Camon 19 which comes with a 64MP triple camera setup with an RGBW sensor. 

Overall, the Tecno Camon 19 Neo clicks decent images with adequate contrast and punchy colours. As seen below, the image on the left is taken with the Tecno Pova 3, which was released by the company in June. However, the image on the right, clicked by the Tecno Camon 19 Neo appears much more appealing. Further, Camon 19 Neo balances the light and retains the details in the darker areas as well. The camera app also has a Super Night mode which works very well in low lighting conditions. 

Not only the back camera, but the front camera is also able to balance poorly lit and bright areas in a shot, which is also referred to as HDR. Further, clicking selfies from the Camon 19 Neo should not be a problem as the smartphone seems to retain a good amount of details. The front camera is accompanied by an LED flash and as soon as users enable it, they get an option to control its brightness. However, in some shots, the Camon 19 Neo tends to brighten the skin a little too much.  

Now, let's talk about two interesting features of the Tecno Camon 19 Neo's camera. First is the video bokeh effect, which works very well in well-lit environments. Essentially, the smartphone uses AI to differentiate between the subject and the environment and adds a layer of bokeh in the background. Second, users can create short clips using video layouts and multiple themes in the 'Film' section of the camera app. There are themes like Performance, Motion, Party, and Sport among others. Using these modes, users can capture different shots and create a media-ready video that is great to watch.

Battery 

Tecno Camon 19 Neo ships with a 5,000 mAh battery. While the company provides an 18W charger in the box, it takes approximately an hour and a half to completely charge the device. Once charged, the smartphone lasted for an entire day of moderate usage including watching videos, playing some games, attending calls and clicking images, with some battery left at the end of the day. The call quality on the Tecno Camon 19 Neo is decent. Upon calling with the smartphone, the other person did not complain about the sound. 

Other Features 

Connectivity options on the smartphone include 4G, 3G, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, OTG, GPS and NFC. Additionally, the Tecno Camon 19 Neo comes with G-Sensor, E-Compass, ambient light, distance sensor and side fingerprint sensor. The official website of the company also mentions that the smartphone is IPX2 splash resistant and has DTS powered speaker; however, the audio output from the single speaker at the bottom could have been slightly better.

Nevertheless, users do get an equaliser to tune the audio output. Additional features include a multi-window mode, memory fusion, a smart pane that provides quick access to several settings, a game mode, tap-to-wake, raise-to-answer gestures and more. It is important to mention that some other smartphones offer 5G connectivity at the same price. 

Conclusion

The Tecno Camon 19 Neo comes in a single model with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. While writing the review, the smartphone is available on Amazon for Rs. 14,999 (M.R.P. Rs. 18,499). At this price, the Camon 19 Neo offers decent camera performance and battery life. Hence, for those who are looking for a budget smartphone that clicks good pictures, the Camon 19 Neo is a good option. The smartphone is available in two colours, Eco Black and Ice Blue.