A Review of the Tecno Phantom 9

It’s no longer news that Tecno’s flagship line, Phantom, has a new addition; the Tecno Phanom 9. Starting from Phantom A, this line of smartphones went on to Phantom 8 in 2017. However, in 2018, there was no new release and one was beginning to wonder if it was the end of the series. Well, we have no idea why Tecno decided to skip 2018 but the good news is that the Phantom line is back! And it’s back with the Tecno Phantom 9.

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The Phantom family of phones has a history of being filled with premium essentials bagged with an attractive price. Over the years, the Phantom series has shown us how nice mid-range devices can be. And this year’s Phantom 9 continues in the same direction with even better specifications.

The Phantom 8 hit sweet spots with features, design, performance and price. The new Phantom 9 hits most of those, and even more such as an AI camera, on-screen fingerprint scanner, and more.

Key Specifications of the Tecno Phantom 9

Dimensions: 6.24 x 2.96 x 0.31 inches

Weight: 164.4g

Display size: 6.39 inches

Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels

Back camera: Triple camera with 16 MP, 8 MP, and 2 MP

Front camera: 32MP with dual flash

Battery: Non-removable Li-Ion 3500 mAh

RAM size: 6GB RAM

Internal storage: 128GB (expandable to up to 1TB)

Processor: Octa-core (4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)

Operating system: Android 9.0 (Pie)

Design and Display

The first thing you notice when you hold the device is its slim body, premium design and light weight at 164.4g.

The body of the device is plastic and it has the aurora colour of Lapland on the back which makes it more attractive.

On the body of the smartphone, there’s a power button and volume rocker, memory card and SIM slot on the other side, headphone jack, USB cable and speaker at the bottom. I should mention here that the USB cable is not a type C.

The back holds the AI Triple Camera which protrudes a little, a flashlight and the ‘Tecno Phantom’ inscription.

The Phantom 9 comes with a 6.4-inch display (with minimal bezels and a notch), making it the Tecno device with the largest display. This large screen comes with a Full-HD+ (1080 x 2340 pixels) screen resolution which is bright and makes colours pop.

AI Triple Camera

I think the highlight of this device is its camera. Tecno definitely did better with the camera of the Phantom 9 as compared with the Phantom 8.

The device comes with a triple rear camera; a 16MP primary camera with large f/1.8 aperture, 2MP lens for depth sensing and other AI features and an 8MP 120-degree Ultra-Wide Lens. The camera is also backed with Google Lens, for smart identification of objects.

The front camera comes with 32MP – unlike the Phantom 8 which had 20MP – with a dual flashlight which helps in low light settings.

Here are some pictures that were taken with the Phantom 9:

Performance and Battery

The device comes with 6GB of RAM which is backed by an Octa-core processor clocked at 4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 for optimal performance.

Switching through apps, scrolling around mindlessly, and putting the features of the device to test didn’t cause any noticeable hiccups for me.

It also comes with an inbuilt storage of 128GB with an option to expand the storage up to 256GB via microSD card slot.

All these are supported by a 3,500mAh non-removable battery which lasted about two days on average use.

On-Screen Fingerprint scanner and other features

An on-screen fingerprint scanner is one feature many high-end smartphones have and the new Phanton 9 also comes with it -which I think is sophisticated – making it the first Tecno device to have that feature. There’s also a facial recognition system which works decently.

The Phantom 9 is run by Android 9.0 (Pie) based on HiOS v5.0 and it comes with dual Nano-SIM with support for 4G LTE network.