TECNO recently launched the Camon 12 series in Kenya and among the series is the more premium looking TECNO Camon 12 Air and cheaper version of the trio. We’ve already played around with the TECNO Camon 12 and we now want to see if the TECNO Camon 12 Air brings the same impressive value but for less.
Before we dig in, here’s what you get straight from the box.
The first thing you’ll notice is the Dot-in display that separates it from the rest. You get a 6.55″ 720p display but its the hole-punch camera that pulls attention to the phone wherever you go or when you place it on the table. 
The display offers decent readability even when outside and you’ll love that almost full-screen experience when browsing the web or scrolling through social media apps or just going through the amazing photos the phone takes in your gallery which you’ll see below.
Worth noting is that the screen on the TECNO Camon 12 Air is relatively bigger when compared with the TECNO Camon 12 Pro and the standard TECNO Camon that feature 6.44″ and 6.52″ displays respectively.
The TECNO Camon 12 Air spots a colour gradient back with the options of Midnight Black, Aqua Blue(our unit) and Bordeaux Red. On the back, you get a triple camera setup and the fingerprint sensor.
The buttons are well-placed and easily accessible, especially for one-handed usage. On the left is the slot for your two sim cards and expandable storage via microSD card.
You get the usual headphone jack and a micro-USB charging port alongside the mono-speaker grill.
The TECNO Camon 12 Air is a well-designed phone and it being so lightweight helps with the ergonomics.
For photography, the TECNO Camon 12 Air does a decent job in well-lit areas but struggles when the sun sets as you’ll see in the samples below. You get a 16MP, 5MP and 2MP lens for the rear cameras and an 8MP selfie shooter. The Pro version comes with a 16MP, 8MP and 2MP lens for the back cameras and 32MP selfie camera while the standard version packs a similar setup for the rear and a 16MP lens for selfies.
There are different modes to play around with from beauty, Bokeh, Portrait, AR Shot, Panorama, Wide Selfie and Video.
Here are some samples – click to enlarge.
Under the hood, the TECNO Camon 12 Air rocks a MediaTek Helio P22 processor, coupled with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage. HiOS 5.0.2 on top of Android 9 Pie run the show.
Day to day tasks run smoothly from playing games to editing documents to switching between multiple social media apps while catching up on my favourite YouTube vlogs and videos.
One annoying thing will be the ads you’ll encounter from time to time when using the phone from either the lock screen or the on the home screen.
Performance on the TECNO Camon 12 Air will take a hit especially when launching graphics-heavy games.
The 4000mAh battery does its job well – powering the phone to give you a full day of charge. For those who are not always on their phones, the TECNO Camon 12 Air could give you up to a day and a half of charge.
These are some of my initial thoughts after using the TECNO Camon 12 Air but stay tuned for my full review. In the meantime, the TECNO Cmon 12 makes for an easy recommendation. Apart from the little frustrations of ads and inability to shoot decent photos in low-lit scenarios, the phone will serve you well and for cheap.
The TECNO Camon 12 Air is available online and in TECNO retail stores and you can buy it for Ksh 13,499.
