The Tecno Camon 50 Ultra is the only model in the brand’s camera-focused Camon 50 series to land on our shores. It also happens to be the fanciest version in the lineup thus far, if the name doesn’t already make it obvious. “Ultra” is not a word to be thrown about lightly, and to wear the crown is to bear the crown.
Ultimately, though, the device does fall firmly into the midrange category. Its premium designation is mostly in relation to the other variants in the series. In practice, it’s very much a 5G-enabled version of the Pro model, so it makes sense to treat it as such.
Specifications
Looks and Functionality
I’ve already covered my first impressions of the Camon 50 Ultra, but to quickly recap, it’s got a slightly more conventional design compared to the Camon 40 Pro. The phone more or less resembles its non-Ultra siblings, with a pill-shaped camera island that houses two of its three lenses.
Other than that, it sports curved edges that make for comfortable holding, but awkward scrolling. What’s also awkward is the placement of the One-Tap Button. Tecno has moved it to roughly in the middle of the phone’s left side, which means it’s fairly easy to press it by accident and trigger FlashMemo.
And what, one may ask, is FlashMemo? Well, it’s basically an AI-driven feature that takes a snapshot of your screen and explains its contents to you. Not the most annoying of things to accidentally open, but the images do get automatically saved to the MindHub, which equals clutter. However, there is the option to turn off the feature in the settings. Though you’re out of luck if you aren’t as accident-prone and want to use the key for something else.
Meanwhile, a long press of the One-Tap Button summons the Ella AI assistant by default. If you’re not particularly fond of AI, you do have the option to re-map the key to something else. Or completely disable it, if that’s more to your liking. That said, AI does permeate the phone in many other ways, and its presence is obvious from the get-go. You meet Ella the first time you boot up the device, after all.
The phone runs on HiOS 16, which is pretty much like any other Android skin that’s trying to be iOS. You have the Liquid Glass-like aesthetics, and depth effect wallpaper options, among other things. Bloatware is, of course, ever present, with quite a few apps and games already pre-installed.
Performance and Battery
The Camon 50 Ultra packs a MediaTek Dimensity 7400 Ultimate SoC. This is a 4nm midrange chipset with a focus on efficiency. So, not particularly powerful, but it does the job it needs to do. As far as benchmarks go, the phone does better than the Camon 40 Pro—as it should.
Raw numbers aside, it does handle most tasks fine, although I did get issues where YouTube would randomly freeze and close. While the usual fixes didn’t seem to work, the problem went away eventually, so it may have been a temporary glitch. Hiccups notwithstanding, you can more or less expect the phone to fulfill your doomscrolling needs without much fanfare.
Gaming is a bit of a hit-and-miss, though. It’s fine for casual bursts of Arknights: Endfield, though not without some stuttering. All things considered, the game will run fairly smoothly for about an hour before you start to experience some noticeable lags. By this point, the phone will also be considerably toasty, with the screen warming your fingertips.
Arguably, endurance is where the Camon 50 Ultra shines. We’re now at the point where 6,000mAh batteries have more or less become the norm for phones (unless we’re talking about one or two particular companies anyway), and this one is no exception. With a 6,500mAh capacity, the handset can certainly keep up with the average user’s day-to-day habits.
As my daily driver, it can last about two and a half days with moderate use. Well, I say moderate use, but to be honest, I’ve mostly been using it to feed my gacha game addiction. More responsible users can probably stretch that battery life to three days. The phone also stubbornly clung on to life during the video loop test, lasting almost 20 hours and 30 minutes.
Camera
For imaging, the Camon 50 Ultra sports a triple setup comprising a 50MP main shooter, a 50MP telephoto lens, and an 8MP ultrawide camera. If your primary concern is taking pretty pictures, then this phone is sufficient for those needs. With ample light, the phone takes vivid and clear shots, though it very much relies on AI to make up for the hardware limitations. As such, images will take some time to process after hitting the shutter button. And the final result does look quite different from what you see in reality. Again, pretty enough for social media, but not really true to life.
The telephoto lens is a welcome addition, and probably partly why Tecno believes this phone is deserving of an Ultra title. It’s not something that’s common in phones in this price bracket just yet, so the device does have an edge over the competition for now. Aside from the 3x optical zoom, you get an AI-assisted 60x digital zoom, though this is more of a gimmicky parlour trick rather than a particularly useful tool.
Meanwhile, portrait mode mostly does a good job at separating the subject from the background. Other than that, the phone seems to be decent at preserving skin tones, even if it can’t help but take some artistic liberties with people’s faces. The tweaks are the most obvious when taking selfies. Textures get smoothed out, and lips take on a redder tint. Turning off the beauty filters minimises the effect, but not quite enough.
I should mention some of the AI-driven tools that come with the phone, though their usefulness may vary. I found the FlashSnap feature to be pretty finicky, since it demands quite a bit of light to work, and the gains are fairly minimal. Meanwhile, the AI Zoom is pretty much a crop tool with extra steps. As for the AI Gallery…well, I’ll let the mutated cat below speak for itself.
More Sample Images
Competition
REDMI Note 15 Pro 5G
Launched back in January, the REDMI Note 15 Pro 5G features a 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 3,200 nits. Internally, it packs a MediaTek Dimensity 7400-Ultra chipset, paired with 8GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. Meanwhile, a 6,580mAh battery keeps the device powered.
On the imaging end, the phone gets a dual setup comprising a 200MP primary camera and an 8MP ultrawide shooter. For selfies, it sports a 20MP front snapper. Price-wise, the phone starts at RM1,399 for the 256GB model.
vivo V70
The vivo V70 is pricier with a slightly more compact exterior, but it does come with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 and a ZEISS-tuned imaging system. Other than that, the phone sports a 6.59-inch 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED screen with 5,000 nits of peak brightness. Other features include a 6,500mAh battery and up to 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.
Like the Camon 50 Ultra, the vivo V70 features a 50MP main camera. This is accompanied by a 50MP periscope telephoto lens with 3x zoom, and an 8MP ultrawide shooter. Meanwhile, the front camera is a 50MP unit. As for pricing, the base 8GB+256GB configuration retails for RM1,999.
Infinix Note 60 Pro
The middle child of the Infinix Note 60 lineup comes with a 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a 144Hz refresh rate. Under the hood, the device packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Keeping the lights on is a 6,500mAh battery.
As for cameras, it sports a 50MP primary snapper and an 8MP ultrawide lens. For selfie enthusiasts, the phone sports a 13MP front camera. One notable feature is the Active Matrix Display on the rear. All this gets a starting price of RM1,199.
Conclusion
Overall, the Tecno Camon 50 Ultra comes off as a sheep in wolf’s clothing. It’s trying to be something it’s not, with a name that implies more than it is actually capable of. On its own, it is a decent enough phone, even if it does rely on AI gimmicks to make up for its shortcomings.
Speaking of which, the AI offerings do leave much to be desired. Despite the focus on the tech, the bundled features aren’t particularly groundbreaking, as they feel pretty superfluous. And of course, many of the tools are things we’ve seen before. Ultimately, it does seem like the AI-forward approach is merely an excuse to avoid actual innovation.
