Tecno Camon 40 Pro review

Android 15 with Hi OS 15

The Camon 40 Pro runs on a fresh Android 14 software platform with a custom Hi OS 15 skin on top. Tecno promised 3 generational OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches.

The Android OS, even with the Tecno skin, is pretty straightforward.

Hi OS 15

There is an always-on screen, which is everything but always-on (it lights up for 15s). It supports landscape mode when charging to act as a night clock.

The new AOD

The lockscreen has a couple of shortcuts on the bottom - one for the camera, and the other for the flashlight.

Multitasking features include split-screen and pop-up window modes for supported apps - nothing out of the ordinary.

There are some pre-installed apps and utilities, but overall, it's a clean enough package. You get an in-house gallery and video player but no proprietary app stores and no Hi browser pre-installed. Not even the Hi Themes app is here - there are just a couple of themes pre-installed.

Tecno has its own AI assistant called Ella. It is chock-full of useful features and offers voice wake-up and voice responses. Most of the data for the AI model requires an internet connection to fetch; however, commands for phone settings and tasks can also work offline.

Ella

Holding the Quick button summons Tecno's Ella voice assistant, which uses the DeepSeek R1 language model.

A double press will open up the camera for what Tecno has dubbed FastSnap mode.

AI

Tecno's AI functions include real-time translations, document and writing assistance, sketch conversion to pictures in notes, wallpaper generation, picture editing (expand, remove objects), and more.

Image AI

Google's Circle to Search is also included out of the box.

Gallery Edits • Circle to Search

Performance and benchmarking

The Tecno Camon 40 Pro runs on the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 5G chip (4nm). It packs an octa-core processor with 4 x 2.5 GHz Cortex-A78 cores and 4 x 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores, while the GPU is the Mali-G615. The new chip promises a 25% improvement in efficiency compared to its 6nm predecessor.

Memory options are more limited than last time - 8GB RAM + 256GB (ours) and 12GB RAM + 256GB storage. Both configurations use LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage.

Let's see some benchmarks now.

The Camon 40 Pro offers adequate performance for the midrange class, and it does provide a smooth experience across the board. It is a pity that the chipset class has been lowered, as seen by the Camon 30 Pro tests, but this will be addressed with the retail price, hopefully.

The phone provides rock solid sustained performance - it scored 85% for CPU and 99% for GPU when running prolonged stress tests. It never got uncomfortably hot.

CPU test • GPU test

Overall, Tecno Camon 40 Pro is a good performer and will answer most users' needs in this class. It's no gaming phone, but it does games well, too, just don't expect high-end smooth experience.