The Phantom, Camon, F and Spark series: A Guide to Tecno Smartphones

Established in Hong Kong in 2006, TECNO Mobile is a China-based smartphone company with its products, deeply and widely spread across African, latin American, and Southeast Asian smartphone markets. With over a decade in the business of manufacturing and developing the best of smartphones, Tecno Mobile started off in the African market as it penetrated the region using (Android) smartphones that fitted in so well into the (low) buying power of the average African.

After about 8 years of doing business in Africa and Asia, Tecno Mobile quitted the South Asian market to exclusively focus on the African market. In another 8 years (2016), the Chinese smartphone brand entered the Middle East region and Southeast Asia a year later (2017).

Now, the Transsion Holding sub-brand boasts of strong presence in other regions and a number of series (read: categories) under which it releases its smartphones. Let’s have a look at some renowned series of TECNO-branded smartphones.

1. Camon Series

The Camon series is one of the most popular category of the brand and equally contains some of the most popular Tecno smartphones. Smartphones in this series are renowned for their impressive camera strength/prowess. In addition to being camera-centric, the series also contains reasonably priced budget devices with mid-range specifications.

Should you love the TECNO brand and at the same time be a selfie lover, your best bet when purchasing your next (or first) Tecno smartphone is to buy from the Camon series. The Tecno Camon C11 and Camon C11 Pro are the latest devices in the series and are equally the first smartphone from the OEM with a display notch.

Tecno Camon C11 Pro (Bordeaux Red)

Other prominent members include the Camon X, Camon CX Air, Camon C9, Camon C8, and Tecno Camon CX Manchester City Limited Edition.

2. F series

Alternatively called the POP series, this category was created to cater for smartphone users with very low purchasing power — for consumers in emerging markets. In addition to the low-priced nature of devices in this series, they are all powered by the Google-optimized edition of Oreo operating system (i.e Android Oreo Go Edition).

Tecno POP 1 Pro (F3 Pro)

There are presently only three devices on the series: Tecno F1, Tecno F2, and Tecno F3 (POP1). Despite their low price, they boast of decent camera with what Tecno Mobile calls “wide degree selfie panorama” and likewise impressive performance.

3. Spark Series

Akin to Infinix Mobile’s Smart series, the Spark series is an entry-level category that, according to Tecno, is focused on the youth aspect of its market. The first device from the series are the Tecno Spark K7 and Spark Plus (also called the Tecno Spark K9).

The devices are designed to give tech-savvy social lovers the utmost mobile experience and are equipped with state-of-the-art features.

Smartphones in the Spark series do not have a particular highlight feature like the camera-centric Camon series but they pack the specs you’d need on the average modern-day mid-range phone: the perfect combination of battery, camera, display etc.

The latest addition to the series is the second-generation Tecno Spark 2 which comes with improvements in the aspect of design and performance compared to its previous generations.

4. Phantom Series

The Phantom Series contains the most premium and priciest Tecno smartphones. These devices equally sport the best specs ever on a smartphone. The series was launched in 2013 and was reportedly dubbed “Phantom” by Tecno to house the best of its smartphones for every calendar year.

Tecno Phantom 8

The pioneering device of series is the Phantom A which was unveiled in 2013. The Phantom Z, Phantom Z mini, Phantom 5, and Phantom 6 with Phantom 8 and Phantom 8 Plus being the latest members. Again, price-wise, this series inhabits the most expensive Tecno phones.

5. Boom Series

Launched way back in 2015, the Boom series was created for the music lovers. Devices in this series come with impressive sound and audio quality, hardware and software-wise. The TECNO Boom J7, for example, was the first member of the series and it launched with a BOOM headphone sold only together with the device.

Tecno Boom J8 with BOOM headphone

The sequel, Boom J8, was dubbed the “music phone” and debuted the company’s native BOOM audio and video player. And though the Boom series is no longer “active” as no new device has come out of the series in more than 2 years now, it is still worth mentioning on this list. There are, however, rife (but unconfirmed) speculations that the Boom series has been replaced by the Spark series.

6. The i Series

The i series was launched in February 2017 at an event in New Delhi, India. This is the series through which Tecno Mobile entered the Southeast Asia smartphone (Indian) market. And should you not know, the “i” in the name stands for India.

Tecno i5 Pro

Devices in this series include the Tecno i3 and i3 Pro, Tecno i5 and i5 Pro, and Tecno i7. The highlight feature of phones in this series are big battery capacity with “Rocket Charging”, top quality camera, and physical home button with embedded fingerprint sensor. To boast of the image capturing prowess of the i-series, Tecno states that the camera of the devices in the series are different from other Tecno-branded smartphones in that the camera app are built with an algorithm that adapts to the skin tone of Indians.

Device in the series are peculiarly made and sold only in the Indian market and are reasonably priced. Buying and using it in other regions might be difficult.

7. L series

This is the battery-centric series of the Hong Kong smartphone brand. The Tecno L9 Plus is the newest member of the series which boasts of a 5,000mAh battery with support for fast charge.

Tecno L9 Plus

The Tecno L5 is another member with 5,000mAh battery. Other high battery capacity members of this series include Tecno L8 and Tecno L8 Plus with 5,050mAh battery.

There are still a whole lot more series but the above-listed series are the categories under which Tecno Mobile commonly released its smartphones in different regions and countries. Got any favorite series on the list? Which series does your Tecno smartphone fall under?