TECNO Phantom 6 Plus Review

The Phantom 6 Plus is the best phone ever made by TECNO. As such, writing about it becomes a big challenge as you fear there are many aspects about it that you might not put down. Or others that might come out wrongly when other people read the review. That’s why I have taken a while writing this review.

First of all, we need to note that this is the most expensive phone TECNO is currently offering. It is the company’s take on high end flagships. But they have done it differently in terms of cost. They have tried to bring the best of specs and performance, including design, but in a way that many people can afford it – less than $400.

Yes, it is still an expensive phone for many people. But for what it offers, and how it looks, you won’t help but appreciate that there is a team that actually sat down and worked on this beautiful device.

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Look and Feel

The specs of these beast of a device automatically make it stand out. And many people will not ask twice if they are described to a device that features those specs for less than $400.

But for me, the look – though it borrows much from HTC phones and as some argue, from the Infinix Note 3 – is what make this phone stand out.

The champagne gold metallic finish shines very nicely outdoors. The rounded edges and the speaker grills at the bottom make it quite something to have. The antenna lines – I’ll assume that’s what they are – made me absolutely grin and feel good when I was unboxing it some close to 3 weeks ago.

The phone is nice on the hand. Doesn’t feel too big. The side bezels are almost not there when the display is off. The top and bottom bezels are also not huge and annoying as on other phones.

It is not as thin and light as the Phantom 6. But the camera bump annoys me and makes me overly cautious when placing the phone down on a table or anywhere.

Another thing that annoys me is the colour theme that TECNO chose for the HiOS Skin on top of Android 6 Marshmallow. Black and Copper (brownish gold) may seem good for houseware etc. But on a phone… You’ll find yourself squinting to see the display in full sunlight when outdoors. Not because the display is bad or the brightness is low, but because of the black and brownish gold theme.

Display:

I love the display. The black and copper theme is annoying and doesn’t show off the display as I would have loved it to.

1080p resolution on an LTPS 6-inch display turns out to be good on the eye, like the content is above the screen, right next to you.

LTPS stands for “Low Temperature Poly-Silicon”. It is a type of active matrix LED with the highest mobility and as such it provides very high resolution display with very little power consumption. Meaning your battery life isn’t affected by the very clear resolution and bright display

It is also good on the battery with close to 6 and 1/2hrs screen-on time.

Performance:

I don’t know how to explain 4GB RAM with that processor. I can comfortably switch between apps. I can comfortably open the following games and switch between them smoothly: Dead Target, Asphalt 8 Airbone, Marvel Future Fight, Modern combat 5 and Jetpack Joyride.

These are all heavy apps that require a lot of resources. They still don’t manage to slow down or make the phone lag. From the screenshot below you see that with about 57 apps open, only about 2.7GB of the 4GB RAM is in use.

I did Geekbench tests and here are the results in comparison to other phones.

GeekBench test

It comes close to the big phones in the market:

It beats many other phones

And on single core it also beats others:

I did the tests three times and the Phantom 6 Plus always beat the phones above.

Cameras

I would want to praise the 21MP camera. But there are a couple of things that still felt off with some shots. Colours don’t come out that good. Plus, you also get certain distortions when outdoors or under very bright light.

Still, it is a very good camera. And I have sample images in very many platforms for you to see.

1. If you follow @TechishKenya on Instagram, you’ll find numerous photos taken by this phone’s camera.
2. I have a Behance project with full size pictures the phone took.
3. I also have an album on Google+ with many more pictures taken by this camera.

I have tested the camera in low light. Whether with the flash on or not, the pictures the camera takes are amazing. Here’s a sample:

The front camera is meh. Sometimes you convince yourself the pic is good. Sometimes you wonder what happened. Sometimes it amazes you.

Audio:

The speaker grills at the bottom are beautiful. But only one of them is a speaker. The other is maridadi.

The speaker sounds good. It gets reasonably loud, is clear, and tries to pump out quality music. But when playing a game, I find my hand blocking it. TECNO should now just make phones with front facing speakers.

The earphone jack (yes, there’s one) is located at the top of the phone. I personally would have loved it at the bottom of the phone next to the USB type C port.

The earphones sound great. And I am not giving them up for any other headphones or earphones. They are amazing. And they work well with the Boom Maxx app on the phone.

I have put aside every earphone or headphone for these pair.

Battery life:

With 4G internet on and heavy use, I can force the 1080p LTPS display last approximately 4hrs. On 3G with heavy use, I can push close to 6hrs.

On normal use, I only need 20mins to recharge the phone the next morning before going out. The day can end with me having about 30% remaining.

There’s an issue though with the phone heating up when using it on 4G.

Small things:

• I love that they included a small dongle to help you use normal USB on the USB type C port. It is a tiny and easy to lose dongle that I hope you won’t lose on your first day.
• I love that the phone read and write speeds are acceptably good.
• I love that the fast charging makes me always happy when my battery is running low.
• I love that the metallic material used doesn’t scratch easily. And this makes me confident carrying it without a case.
• I hate that I cannot use the phone with 2 SIM cards unless I give up using a Micro SD card.
• I hate that fast charging means the phone has to heat up.

Extras:

Here are some extras

Flipcover front:

Flipcover back:

Can fail to fit in your pocket!

Best wallpaper ever!

This is the only wallpaper I have used since I got the device!

Finally,

The Phantom 6 Plus is a nice take on Flagship killers. The Geekbench test and my time using it prove that there’s very little you’ll miss from very expensive high-end phones if you use this device. Buy the phone from Jumia Kenya.