TechInsights’ devices team has been tracking the smartphone launch events at MWC’23 quite closely. The show for smartphone has been revolving a lot around foldables and megapixels. Started off with Xiaomi 13 series (focus on 100MP) followed by Honor Magic Vs (foldable focus) and then OnePlus announcing foldable in H2 2023. Today, on 28th February 2023, Tecno kind of joined the group with its Tecno Phantom V4. It’s a full size left-right foldable device and not the top-down flip one.
The key specs of the device are 7.85 inch main screen, 6.42 inch sub screen, Mediatek Dimensity 9000 plus, triple rear camera setup (50MP+50MP+50MP), and 2 single front camera for main and sub screen, 5000 mAh battery, 5G, etc. For detailed launch details, you may follow the live tweets here which were done during the launch.
We believe it’s a good overall device with all key features, premium feeling, camera and performance. However, the dimension and first front appearance of the device looks pretty much similar to Honor Magic Vs. Same curve round the corners, similar body dimensions, similar hinge angle when folded. The rear camera on this device is a rounded bump compared to a rectangular bump in that of Honor.
Interestingly, after the last two smartphone launches in the event were all Snapdragons, this one brought Mediatek on the floor and showcased them as an SoC for premium foldable. Mediatek has been an old partner for Tecno (and the Transsion group) and has been an SoC provider for the recently launched Tecno Phantom X2 Pro (with Mediatek Dimensity 9000).
Tecno is targeting India market and hence they are doing an India first release of the device with the start price of INR 89999 (USD 1090 approx.). There is also an early bird offer for certain number of units at INR 79999 (USD 970 approx). This is India’s first sub $1000 wholesale left-right foldable. If I compare its price with recently launched Honor Magic Vs, it is around 14% cheaper. We believe it is a great product having fair price and the lowest one among all the key vendor’s left-right full size foldables’ price but the real question is that whether it fits in the India smartphone dynamics?
TechInsights believe that Tecno is known in the India market in sub $100 category more than a mid or high tier. With Phantom series, they are trying to leap to the higher segment but we believe it’s too early for an Indian consumer to spend more than US$900 on a Tecno phone. There is a high chance they can go to a premium non foldable form factor with OnePlus, Samsung or as a matter of fact, Apple. For those who are Tecno fans or are strictly looking for a left-right foldable with budget limitation, Tecno is certainly a good option. We believe this device might do good in Russia.