Hot on the heels of its new Camon series landing in Malaysia, Tecno followed up with the Camon 40 Pro 5G. It gets roughly the same specs as its 4G counterpart but with a more powerful chipset and a slightly upgraded display.
The new Pro gets an affordable price tag and with it, the company is going all in on its AI features, including its own Ella AI voice assistant powered by China’s DeepSeek model. With it, the phone comes with every AI tool you can think of that have been introduced to smartphones in the past year. But is this enough to make up for its shortfalls?
Specifications
The Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G is fitted with a 6.78-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate and an undisclosed brightness rating, although a 1,600-nit global peak brightness figure has been floating around. Underneath the chassis lies a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultimate chipset paired with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage capacity while for protection, the mid-ranger ships with an IP69 rating for dust and water resistance alongside Corning Gorilla Glass 7i on the screen.
On the optics side, the Pro gets a simple setup made up of a 50MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 50MP front snapper with autofocus. Powering it is a standard 5,200mAh battery with support for 45W charging.
Connectivity-wise, it supports NFC as well as unspecified versions of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. For security, it features an under-display fingerprint scanner.
Looks & Functionality
The Camon 40 Pro 5G gets a somewhat unique design while still managing to remain subtle. The camera lenses are positioned in a straight line with a corner camera island that is slightly raised, but instead of a huge glass bump separating the camera module from the backplate, the edges curve and blend seamlessly into the back of the phone, making it look and feel like a cohesive unit. It also gets a matte/frosted finish, giving the user a good grip while being fingerprint-resistant.
Up front, the phone feels like a huge disappointment as it sports curved edges, an irritating smartphone design trend that is slowly dying out. With that out of the way, the display is honestly decent at this price point, with acceptable — albeit slightly vivid — colours and good outdoor visibility.
One thing that made me question the build quality from the moment I laid hands on it is the fact that the buttons are slightly wobbly and loose, something I wouldn’t expect even from an entry-level phone these days. Moreover, it is quite top-heavy for such a tall phone, making me feel insecure in using it one-handed.
Speaking of buttons, the left side of Camon 40 Pro 5G features a new orange One-Tap customisable button. Despite its name, however, nothing happens when you press the button once. There are only two mappable functions, namely a double press and a long press. While the double press can be mapped to any app or shortcut you can think of, the long press is limited to calling up the voice assistant, which you can choose between Ella and Google Assistant.
On the software side of things, I’m not the biggest fan of HIOS. It feels clunky both from a design perspective and just in general usage. It also has too much bloatware, with the Pro automatically downloading numerous apps and games from its Palm app store after the phone was set up.
On the AI side of things, there are some admittedly useful tools such as the Smart Touch function that detects text and screen and gives you an option to copy them, a feature that has been around for a couple of years but is seldom seen in affordable phones. That being said, this feature would sometimes lag and freeze when I activate it, so there are definitely some kinks to work out.
Other AI tools include a writing assistant, which can help you write and also summarise any text on screen, along with Google’s Circle To Search feature. Its gallery app does contain generative AI editing features such as sharpening, erasing, and expanding, but its capabilities are lagging behind similar features seen from Samsung and other brands.
Performance & Battery
The Dimensity 7300 should be an adequate mid-range chip in theory, but the UI’s slow animations make the Camon 40 Pro 5G feel slower than it actually is (although, it does occasionally take longer than expected to open up the camera app). Because of this, while the phone is positioned as a lower mid-range device, it often felt like I was using an entry-level budget phone.
As for its performance on synthetic benchmarks, it scored mediocre marks across the board, but on the bright side, its lack of power means that it does not overheat even under a heavy, continuous load. You won’t be gaming competitively with this phone, but it does its job with day-to-day usage.
The battery life is slightly above average, comfortably lasting an entire day but not enough to stretch a second day without getting a top-up. On a YouTube streaming stress test, it lasted nearly 22 hours, which is commendable, but nothing notably impressive.
Camera
The camera is probably the most boring part of the Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G. As previously mentioned, it contains a 50MP primary sensor with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 50MP front shooter.
In proper outdoor lighting, you can get some fairly decent shots, but they are a bit dull and occasionally under-exposed. From time to time, it will even glitch out and raise the exposure to the max for no reason. Under darker conditions, things start to fall apart as pictures become noticeably noisy.
It does have a macro mode but I found it to be practically useless as the photos are often grainy and low-res. AI-wise, it comes with a generative portrait feature that lets you generate pictures of someone with different hair and clothes in specific situations, but I found this to be very gimmicky and found no reason to actually use it.
Camera Samples
Competition
Samsung Galaxy A26
The Samsung Galaxy A26 costs RM100 more than the Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G for a similar 8GB+256GB configuration, but it does come with a flat 6.7-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, Gorilla Glass Victus+, and an undisclosed peak brightness rating.
Under the hood, it runs on an Exynos 1380 chipset along with a 5,000mAh battery that supports 25W charging. For photography, it features a 50MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, a 2MP macro lens, and a 13MP front snapper.
POCO X7
The base POCO X7 also gets a comparable RM1,199 price tag, sporting a 6.67-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a peak global brightness of 1,200 nits, and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. Inside, the phone contains a MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultra alongside a 5,110mAh cell with support for 45W charging.
On the imaging front, it is equipped with a 50MP primary lens with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide, a 2MP macro lens, and a 20MP selfie shooter. As for dust and water resistance, it comes with an IP68 rating.
Redmi Note 14 5G
Last but not least, there is the cheaper Redmi Note 14 5G, which is priced at RM899 for the 8GB+256GB variant. It is fitted with a 6.67-inch 1080p AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate, a global peak brightness of 1,200 nits, as well as Gorilla Glass 5 and an IP64 rating for protection.
Powering the budget-friendly phone is a Dimensity 7025 Ultra with a 5,110mAh capacity and 45W charging. For the optics, it carries a 108MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide, a 2MP macro lens, and a 20MP front camera.
Conclusion
The Tecno Camon 40 Pro 5G overpromises and under-delivers, mostly thanks to its clunky and bloated UI. It is not an inherently bad device, especially for the price, but the under-developed AI features are not able to mask the laggy performance of the phone, which would ironically benefit from having a more lightweight system without so many unnecessary features and apps.
Despite its IP69 rating, I do also wonder about the long-term durability of this phone given its somewhat questionable build quality. In my humble opinion, Tecno needs to hunker down on the basics before shipping out gimmicky tools.
