Tecno Spark 5 Pro. A bit more spark
Unboxing
First off let’s see what we have in the box of the Tecno Spark 5 Pro; On opening, you’re greeted with the smartphone in a plastic wrap. My unit is the seabed blue color, but the Spark 5 Pro also comes in Spark Orange and ice jadeite colors. We have a screen protector already applied, it has a cut out for the camera. You should probably take this off and replace with a tempered glass as that give better protection. Let’s power it on while we see what else is in the box. In the bottom compartment, We have the warranty leaflet, a clear TPU Case, A SIM ejection tool, a standard 10 watt charger, a micro USB cable and a pair of earphones.
Physical Features
On the front you have a 6.6 inch HD Plus IPS LCD display with 20 by 9 aspect ratio. On the top left corner we have a punch hole that houses an 8 megapixel selfie shooter. We also have a dual front facing flash.
On the back, you have a 16 megapixel Quad Camera setup with quad flash. You also have a finger print sensor and some TECNO branding.
On the left you have a 3 in 1 tray that house is 2 4g/LTE Nano SIMs and an SD card and On the right you have a volume rocker and power button with an orange accent. On the top you have nothing at the bottom you have a speaker, micro USB port, a microphone and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The TECNO Spark 5 pro sports a very familiar 2020 design with it’s wide camera lay out . The camera bump is quite small though. The back and frame are made from plastic. The gradient color looks nice and it has visible patterns to it. It’s no light weight but it’s not too heavy in comparison to its size.
On the front, we get that dot in display with slightly thicker bezels than you’ll find in more expensive devices seen but it houses a dual flash which doubles up as a charging indicator. It’s also very bright outdoors with good viewing angles. It’s a 720p display and YouTube videos will be capped at 720p, which is to be expected at this price point, no complaints there. Looking at it side by side the Spark 5, we have very identical designs here, with only difference being the internals. The spark 5 and spark 5 pro’s display with the punch hole makes these devices look quite premium.
Storage and Processor
I have the 128 Gigs storage variant of the Spark 5 Pro with 4 gigs of ram and You get about 112 Gigs of available storage. We’re running on Android 10 with HiOS version 6.1.0 slapped on top of it. With it we have night mode.
The TECNO Spark 5 Pro uses the Mediatek Helio P35 Octa-Core CPU clocked at 1.8GHZ and this is where the Spark 5 Pro differes from the spark 5. The Spark 5 haw a quad-core Helio A22 clocked at 2.0GHz. this gives the spark 5 pro faster performance, faster browsing speeds and better gaming experience over the spark 5.
Performance
So In terms of performance, It will run the average users daily calls, texts, social media apps but its now much faster than it was on the spark 5.
You need to know is that this phone will be able to handle tasks that are not too resource intensive, but trying out thing that require a lot of power may slow this phone down a bit.
The fingerprint sensor isnt as fast as if like it to be. It takes about a second and half to respond. But you might need to register a finger multiple times to have a fairly faster and consistent read.
As for the face unlock, the speed is also about 1.5 to 2 seconds to unlock and this also requires good lighting and as you know this isn’t the most secure method of unlocking your phone.
Gaming
When it comes to gaming, as usual I played Asphalt 9 on balanced graphics and medium frame rates, which is the highest Asphalt 9 setting for this phone. It ran fairly well but then again this isn’t some graphics intensive setting or anything like that and the Spark 5 Pro isn’t a gaming phone.
Battery
The TECNO Spark 5 Pro is powered by a huge 5000mAh battery. I put it on a video loop and I got about 12 hours watching videos on this device. Regular casual use will see you get about 8 to 9 hours of screen on time all the while on mobile network, browsing, scrolling through Instagram feeds and watching videos on YouTube.
Using this phone moderately, will Easily give you a 2 day battery life. So this is definitely a battery beast. You however have to wait crazy long hours to charge this phone. It took me 4 long hours to charge from Zero to 100 percent. No thanks to the lack of fast charging. This shouldn’t be a bother as you can do this once daily while sleeping. The phone will also automatically stop the charger when the battery is full and this is a useful feature for safety.
Cameras
The TECNO Spark 5 Pro’s camera interface is pretty simple. Not a lot of features here, there’s no night mode or Pro mode but they introduced a slow mo mode.
Using it outdoors, we get good high dynamic range and it still looks just as good with 2 times zoom. The primary camera is definitely better than your average entry level phone and although not as exciting as what you get with the big boys phones, the skin tone color reproduction is nice and colors don’t look washed out with outdoor lighting.
Using portrait mode, the depth sensing is actually better than I expected although there were some missed points on the edges. The selfie camera handles exposure levels quite well and even though we don’t get midrange sharpness here, its going to look good on social media regardless.
Macro mode definitely does what it says. Although It’s something I dont really use that much.
Taking selfies Indoors is where you see that low-end camera quality for what it actually is but you can’t have it all at this price point. The spark 5 Pro requires a good amount of light to produce photos that can pass for midrange quality on social media.
The dual front facing flash makes taking selfies in the dark possible. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re in pitch darkness.
It records videos in 1080P for the front and back camera.
Conclusion
The TECNO Spark 5 Pro is only an incremental upgrade from the Spark 5 mainly with the processor and the main rear camera. Spark 5 Pro also boasts a beastly battery that appeals to the young working class folks who stay out all day without a charger.
If you’re into gaming, the Spark 5 Pro takes it up a multiple notches over the spark 5 as it allows you play games smoother with the introduction of the Helio P35. Although this too has to be on low settings.
So if you’re looking to get into the android ecosystem and you’re on a budget, the Spark 5 Pro is one phone you should consider. Its a definite recommendation for older folks who mostly just need whatsapp and other basic apps.
The TECNO Spark 5 Pro comes in two variants. One with128 storage and 4GB RAM, but pricing for this variant is unavailable at this time and another with 64+3GB RAM variant priced at N53,900 and converts to $125.
If you liked this write up, do share with your contacts and leave a comment below if you will be considering the Spark 5 Pro.
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