The first extending phone lens has an awesome wide aperture

I'm sure you probably haven't heard much about the TECNO brand in North America, but they've been pretty active in other markets like Africa, the Middle East, South/Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The new TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G is their latest flagship Android smartphone and there's something really special about the camera array. You'll learn more about that in the rest of the review. Besides that big stand-out camera feature, the TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G has most of the other features you may want in a flagship premium smartphone as well.

What's in the Box

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The packaging is quite premium as well. The Phantom X2 Pro 5G comes in a nice black box with a nice soft finish and a varnished stripe along with gold foil embossed logos.

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Besides a 45W charging brick, USB-C charging/data cable, and wired earphones, the TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G also includes a nice white hard rubber case. What's more, the case has a big rim around the camera array that also has a hinge so that ic an act like a kickstand to hold the phone at an angle for watching movies and such. Kickstands like this on phones used to be much more common and it's great to see the feature return as part of an included protective cover.

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The big kickstand rim around the camera array with the case on is great for protecting the camera lenses, not only when you lay the phone on a desk or table, but also while holding the phone. The ledge is easy to feel with your fingers so that you can be sure to avoid getting finger prints on the big lenses.

Hardware

For internal specs, the TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G has a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 4nm ARMv9 octa-core CPU with bursts up to 3.05Ghz, with 12Gb of LPDDR5X DRAM and 256Gb of UFS3.1 flash storage space. It's also got a 5160mAh battery with a long duration mode and 45W fast charging. The screen is 6.8" AMOLED with 120Hz refresh rate and a 20:9 aspect ratio at 1080 x 2400 pixels with 9H hardness Corning Gorilla Glass Victus. The phone's dimensions are 164.6mm x 72.7mm x 8.9mm. We've also got support for a good number of 5G bands such as sub6 TDD: n38, n40, n41, n77, n78, n79, sub6 FDD: n1, n3, n8, n28, n71.

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The top is flat with a single microphone hole. It looks like this is where the internal hardware is inserted into the phone's unibody double-curved metal frame design.

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The bottom looks really smooth with rounded corners. The SIM card tray can take 2 Nano SIM cards. Of course there's USB-C here, too and a speaker grill. The speaker's sound isn't as premium or loud as other more expensive phones.

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The left side is thin smooth and round with a couple segments for the antennae. The thinness of the edges can make holding the phone more slippery than something with a larger surface area and friction.

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The right side is where the very thin power button and volume rocker buttons are. They're kind of hard to see even, but they protrude sharply so that it's easy to feel for them without having to look. The power button is colored red to make it a little more distinct which also matches the red ring around the camera on the back.

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The shiny "Phantom" logo on the back looks great, and this matte black finish has a fine speckled texture to it that nicely avoids fingerprint grease blemishes and feel pretty nice to hold.

Cameras

This is the extra cool part of the TECNO Phantom X2 Pro; the camera array, and more specifically, the extending wide aperture telephoto lens.

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One thing I don't like so much about the TECNO camera is the camera software. While it's going to work fine for most people, it's missing some features that I personally really like such as RAW DNG output, manual controls, white balance controls, and burst shot timers. One reason I love RAW DNG output is that I can control things after the fact. TECNO's software applies noise reduction to the JPGs when there's low light and that reduces the quality of the image. I'd rather have the RAW image with noise that I can correct to my tastes after shooting. Lack of white balance control is frustrating too as sometimes the camera doesn't automatically set the color temperature to what I want.

Extending telephoto 2.5x camera

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The extending lens has an f1.45 aperture and a 9.3mm telephoto focal length which equates to about a 65mm focal length in terms of 35mm full frame film cameras. Of course the f1.45 aperture is more like an f8 aperture in terms of depth of field when compared to a 35mm full frame camera lens, but that's still about 2 full stops wide than any of the other medium telephoto prime lenses that you'll find on other cameras.

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The extending lens housing naturally lets you keep the phone pretty thin when the camera isn't in use. This also enables the longer focal length without periscope style mirrors and we can have a very wide aperture for a narrower depth of field and better low light sensitivity. The disadvantage to the extending lens is that there are moving parts here and I'm afraid something might break if too much dust or particle matter gets in there.

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Above is a comparison between the 65mm equivalent TECNO Phantom X2 Pro extending lens camera on the left and my full frame 35mm Nikon with an 80mm f1.4 lens on the right. Obviously the Nikon is capable of a much narrower depth of field with smoother real bokeh, but the TECNO's wide aperture is still getting some decent bokeh that actually looks realistic... because it is real bokeh! This isn't a depth sensor trying to guess the edges of the subject and applying a blur filter to the background. This is real physics.

The TECNO's f1.5 aperture at 9mm focal length certainly doesn't translate to an f1.5 aperture at a 65mm equivalent lens focal length. It's more like an f8 aperture on a 35mm full frame sensor. Still that's better than any other phone out there with a comparable 2-3x telephoto lens! This is one or two full f-stops wider than most other phones with comparable focal lengths.

I was able to get a lot of great photos with the narrow depth of field in the 2.5x extending lens camera. If you click some of the above samples to zoom in, you'll see that the details around the edges of the subject remain in focus. It's not at all like the iPhone's fake portrait mode that smudges out the edges and erases details. You can actually see the little strands of hair overlaying the blurry background. It's beautiful!

Video with the extending telephoto lens

Another fun thing to do with the narrower depth of field in the 2.5x telephoto lens is shoot video. Real bokeh in video is much better looking than the simulated background blur other phones try to do. The wide aperture lens nicely and realistically blurs the background in videos and I love it. There's not much lens flare from the sun either.

The wide aperture telephoto lens works well for video in low light as well as long as you have just the right amount of light. In the above you can see the background nicely blurs out and so do the leaves moving around in the foreground. That's how real bokeh works and it looks great.

We even used the TECNO Phantom X2 Pro for some clips in a little Gossip Girl season 2 promotion.

Normal wide angle lens camera

The 1x camera has the usual wider focal length that you'll find on most other flagship phone cameras. This one is 50Mp with a 1/1.3" sensor size, but really it only outputs to 12Mp like most quad-bayer sensors. The "50 Mp" option in the camera software does give you a 50Mp file, but it doesn't look like it. It looks like an upsampled 12Mp file as there really isn't any more detail at all. You don't really get any better quality out of that option, it's just a larger file.

Take a look at some samples of the 1x camera/lens combo below:

Ultrawide angle lens camera

The 0.6x camera lens is only 13Mp and doesn't do nearly as well in low light as the 1x or 2.5x cameras, but that's ok, you can't have everything. It's a smaller camera too, so that's probably part of the reason. Still, I love having the ultrawide lens available and it's great for outdoors shots.

Take a look at some samples of the ultrawide camera/lens combo below:

Front facing camera

Of course we have a decent camera for selfies as well. It's technically a 32Mp sensor, but outputs only 8Mp. It's not spectacular especially in low light, but it usually gets the job done.

Take a look at some samples of the front facing camera below:

Software

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The TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G uses HiOS 12 on top of Android 12. HiOS is not my favorite flavor of Android for some specific reasons; you have to swipe the top left corner to see the notifications and the top right corner to access quick action controls. There shouldn't be any controls at the top edge of a phone with this large of a screen. It was fine when Android phones had 3.8" screens, but at this size it's extremely awkward to have to scoot your hand to the top in order to touch that edge; or have to use a second hand to poke at it. Putting controls within reach of a thumb while a hand is actually holding the phone would have been much smarter interaction design.

HiOS 12 also comes with a lot of bundled apps that might be considered questionable in North America at least. Things like Palm Store, AHA Games, Welife, Boomplay, Ella, Carlcare, XShare, Visha Player, and Hi Translate are not normally found on North American Android phones, but they are often bundled with phones meant for Latin American and African countries, and that is the market that this phone is meant for.

Battery

The TECNO Phantom X2 Pro has a large 5160 mAh battery that's plenty to last through the day depending on how heavily you're using the device. I like to increase efficiency by turning things off like haptic feedback, high refresh rates, screen brightness, and extraneous notifications. The Dimensity 9000 processor also has some good optimization capabilities to help with the battery life and the phone supports 45W fast charging.

Purchasing

The TECNO Phantom X2 Pro 5G will not be available in North America or Europe. It will only be sold in Asian, African, and Latin American countries. In Saudi Arabia where it is being announced on 12/7/2022, the PHANTOM X2 PRO / AD9 will cost 3499Sar (about 930.72 USD).

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Extending 2.5x telephoto lens has a wide aperture for real bokeh
  • Beautifully designed body
  • Nice kickstand case included
  • Great 1x normal wide angle lens camera
  • Thin and comfortable form factor
  • Matte body doesn't attract fingerprints too much

Cons

  • Camera software doesn't provide RAW output or manual controls
  • Extending lens has moving parts that may get damaged accidentally
  • Not available globally
  • No wireless charging

Conclusion

This is the first time we've got a smartphone camera with a telephoto lens and wide aperture that actually gets a good amount of real narrow depth of field and nice bokeh without obviously fake software simulation. The TECNO Phantom X2 Pro's 2.5x extending lens is 1 to 2 full f-stops wider than other phones with similar focal lengths. While it's still a long ways away from what's possible on large dedicated full frame (or larger) cameras, getting real bokeh into a smartphone camera is an impressive feat, and I love shooting portraits with the Phantom X2 Pro! If only it could save RAW files like other flagship smartphones. The rest of the phone's features are pretty nice too. The Phantom X2 Pro is a nice entry into the competition as TECNO's flagship.

Special thanks for photo appearances by Angelina, Raquel, Rosy, Liga, and Val.