The TECNO Pouvoir 4 is now in Kenya and has landed on our review desk. It’s TECNO’s latest device in the Pouvoir series which is aimed at consumers who prefer long-lasting battery life.
But there’s more to the phone than just a huge battery – how does it perform in other areas to make it worth the purchase?
TECNO Pouvoir 4 Review: More Than You Expect
We delve into that in our unboxing and share our quick thoughts. Full review coming soon, so stay tuned for that.
In the Box
Here’s what you get inside the box:
- the device
- power brick and USB cable
- a set of earphones
- a screen protector
- warranty, user guide information booklets
- Sim ejector tool
- a plastic case
Design
The TECNO Pouvoir 4 comes in a colour-gradient back that gives it this elegant feel. You get textural lines and colliding colours that shine differently when hit by light.
The back also hosts the quad-camera setup which has become the staple of most Android phone released this year. There’s a fingerprint sensor next to it.
The rear camera setup includes a 13 MP lens complemented by two 2MP lenses, an additional AI lens and a quad-LED flashlight.
Coming to the front is the 7″ Drop Display with a 20.9:5 aspect ratio offering 90.55% screen to body ratio and a resolution of 720*1640 pixels.
At the top bezel is the notch that hosts the selfie camera, earpiece grill and two soft flashlights for selfies. One of the flashes is a notification light when you’re charging the phone.
Going to the bottom are the headphone jack, microphone, speaker grill and charging port.
On the right side are the volume rockers and power buttons.
On the left, TECNO included a dedicated textured orange button for the Google Assistant.
Performance
The TECNO Pouvoir 4 rocks a Helio A22 processor, 3GB of RAM and 32GB of onboard storage on the inside. The phone runs on Android 10 and HiOS 6.1.
This configuration is an improvement on the previous Pouvoir and makes the upgrade worth it.
So far, the phone has held its own in terms of multitasking. You can open a couple of apps without them refreshing when you switch back to them.
I have experienced a few incidents of lag during gaming especially graphic intern ones like PUBG and Asphalt. Light games will play smoothly such as Ninja Arashi.
There’s smart panel that you slide from the edge to add more apps and other functions.
Even though HiOS has slimmed down on the bloatware, ads are still present.
As a cautionary step, you can disable the preinstalled apps and deny them permissions.
I loved binge-watching videos, tv shows and movies on that screen. It is adequately bright indoors and you can ramp up the brightness when outdoors. The earpiece and the bottom flaring speaker combine to offer stereo sound.
Not only does that huge screen keep up with consuming media but also browsing the web and scrolling social media.
Powering the Pouvoir 4 is a gigantic 6000mAh battery. It’s hard to exhaust it.
The downside is that you have to charge it for hours. The best bet is to leave it overnight to get it fully juiced up.
It’s worth noting it takes 3 hours and 40 minutes to charge it from 0% to 100%.
TECNO says that its battery can power up the phone to up to 4 days on a single charge. We’ll see about that in our full review.
Android 11 Beta Now Available for the TECNO Pouvoir 4
Cameras
Last but not least is the camera performance. There’s a lot of good shots with the optics the Pouvoir 4 packs. You get a quad setup made up of 13 MP lens, two 2MP lenses, an additional AI lens and a single 8MP selfie camera.
The Pouvoir 4 struggles with exposure in most shots so you’ll have to be patient when taking photos.
Most shots came out decent enough for social media sharing and I’m impressed.
Here are some samples:
Click on the photos to expand
Selfies
Beauty shots
Portraits
Regular Shots
Click on the photos and scroll to see all of them.
Bokeh shots
Pricing and Availability
The TECNO Pouvoir 4 starts selling from Ksh 14,999 and is available countrywide in official TECNO retail stores.
Quick Thoughts
The TECNO Pouvoir 4 is a really decent budget phone that not only packs power but also on the other features that most users will like such as a good display and a capable camera.
First impressions are important but to get the full perspective, I’ll have to play around with the phone for longer to give you the full review by taking it through its paces.
Stay tuned for that.
