Hong Kong-based Transsion Holdings’ smartphone brand TECNO Mobile has officially launched their 2019 flagship, the TECNO Phantom 9 in Kenya. The long wait is finally over as the phone was announced it would be selling in the Kenyan market last month. The phone has already launched in other markets where TECNO operates including Nigeria, India and Uganda.
TECNO skipped launching a new Phantom smartphone last year after releasing the TECNO Phantom 8 in late 2017.
Here’s what to expect from the TECNO Phantom 9
The TECNO Phantom 9 comes with a myriad of features. It packs a 6.4-inch FHD+(1080 x 2340) AMOLED Display with a tiny notch. The phone comes with minimum side bezels and a smaller chin. In a first for the company, the TECNO Phantom 9 comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner. Another biometric feature the phone has is Face Unlock.
The TECNO Phantom 9 comes with a beautiful Lapland Aurora colour gradient back
Under the hood, the TECNO Phantom 9 is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P35 chipset that clocks at 2.35GHz. The TECNO Phantom 9 runs on HiOS v5.0 on top of Android 9.0 Pie. You also get 6GB of RAM coupled up with 128GB of onboard storage that can be expanded by a MicroSD card upto 512GB.
For photography, the TECNO Phantom 9 features 4 Cameras; three rear cameras and one front-facing camera. The triple camera setup includes a 16MP primary sensor with f/1.8 night algorithm 2.0, an 8MP ultrawide(120 degrees) f/2.4 sensor and a 2MP depth sensor with Super Quad Flash.
The notch houses the 32-megapixel AI selfie camera with Dual LED flash placed at the top bezel.
The camera also supports features like AI Scene Recognition 2.0, AI Beauty, AI HDR mode, AR Stickers and Animojis.
The TECNO Phantom 9 comes with a 3500mAh battery and instead of a USB-C port, you get a MicroUSB port which is going to be a bummer for some users. There’s a headphone jack next to the charging port and a bottom facing mono speaker too.
Pricing and Availability
The TECNO Phantom 9 starts selling at Ksh 24,999 and will be available in all official TECNO retail stores and Safaricom outlets countrywide plus online retailers such as Jumia too.
LipaLater is also offering affordable financing options that start from as low as Ksh 2730 per month for 12 months. There’s also a trade-in option by Lipa Later where you can trade-in your current TECNO phone to upgrade to the TECNO Phantom 9.
The TECNO Phantom 9 will have to prove itself in this competitive price market that features other great devices such as the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 and the Huawei P30 Lite.
Stay tuned for our review coming in the next few days.
