It shouldn’t surprise you that we’re big fans of photography at GSMArena. Most of us had a dedicated camera with a so-called portrait lens attached that we carried with us on travels. But as smartphone cameras got better and their photos got better, those dedicated cameras slowly faded into the background and we stopped carrying them around.
Then, around 2016, Apple made something called Portrait Mode mainstream with the announcement of the iPhone 7 Plus, and suddenly every phone was making portrait photos with software-assisted bokeh. That was over six years ago, and those portrait mode shots have gotten better, and inadvertently, the camera hardware has gotten better too (we even ventured to find the best phone camera for natural bokeh).
But today we decided to see if the pop-up portrait camera on a Tecno smartphone is the best portrait camera we’ve ever seen.
This is NOT a sponsored article. Like all smartphones, the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro has both its positives and negatives, and we invite you to take a look at our full review to find out more. Here, we’re focusing on a small but very intriguing aspect of the phone’s camera system.
You may have heard of Tecno, especially if you are a frequent GSMArena visitor, but chances are you have never seen one live or had the opportunity to get one in your home market because it is largely a regional player – large in Africa, consisting of the Middle East and Russia, but not very active in Western or Far Eastern markets. That’s about to change as Tecno aims to release the Phantom X2 Pro more broadly.
The Phantom X2 Pro is a capable flagship phone with a Dimension 9000 chipset, a 6.78-inch 120Hz AMOLED, and a premium design. It has a triple camera system with a unique retractable vertical lens.
It’s the world’s first camera of its kind on a production phone (Oppo, Xiaomi, and Tecno themselves have had prototypes), and it’s powerful. It’s a 1/2.7-inch 50MP sensor with pre-binned 0.64µm pixels that snap down to 1.2µm after binning to 12MP. The lens is a high-end 7P element optic with a 65mm equivalent focal length and a large f/1.49 aperture. This is an ideal focal length for both portrait and zoom shots.
When you open the camera app and choose the 2.5x lens option, the lens physically pops out of the camera module. You can both feel the motion through the phone and get a smooth sound. It evokes feelings of nostalgia for a time when phones had moving parts.
When you combine the relatively large sensor size with the fast lens and 65mm focal length, you have a camera that has a naturally shallow depth of field and can isolate subjects from the background (and foreground) without the based portrait mode. on software. At 65mm or about 2.5x, this is also a reasonable zoom camera for non-human subjects.
We captured some sample images to show you how good the Phantom X2 Pro’s portrait camera is and compared it to the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s 3x camera and the ZTE Axon 40 Ultra’s main camera. We chose to use the Galaxy because at around 70mm, its average zoom is very comparable to the Phantom’s 65mm camera. The Axon has a unique diameter of 35mm principal camera that offers a larger sensor than the vertical camera on the Phantom X2 Pro. But because it’s a shorter lens, it’s noticeable that it lacks Tecno’s background compression. But let’s take a look at the photos before we get too technical.
The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro’s 65mm vertical camera and the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s 70mm zoom lens have nearly identical fields of view, but the Phantom can isolate your subject better thanks to its larger sensor and brighter lens.
The larger sensor inherently brings benefits like better detail and well-defined textures. Also, the background is blurrier and the bokeh quality is higher.
Phantom X2 Pro 2.5x vs Galaxy S22 Ultra 3x
Moving on to an outdoor portrait swatch where the trend continues. Our subjects stand out thanks to the improved isolation of the portrait camera. The Axon’s large camera has an edge in fine detail is a larger sensor), but at 35mm it is too wide to offer the same portrait look. Our subject’s features are distorted and the background appears to be more in focus.
Phantom X2 2.5x vs Galaxy S22 Ultra 3x vs Axon 40 Ultra 1x
All three cameras benefit from closer composition. Our subject is even better isolated from the background. The Tecno has a textbook portrait look: facial features aren’t distorted like in the shot of the Axon, and the background is farther away and blurred.
Phantom X2 2.5x vs Galaxy S22 Ultra 3x vs Axon 40 Ultra 1x
Foreground separation is also superior on the Tecno, compared to the other two cameras on the phone. Just look at the yellow triangle and texture on the floor at the bottom of the images below.
Phantom X2 2.5x vs Galaxy S22 Ultra 3x vs Axon 40 Ultra 1x
But Tecno’s retractable camera can do more than just portraits: it’s a close-focus zoom. The benefits of the camera’s larger sensor and longer focal range are emphasized in close-up or macro shots. In this example, the lens and sensor combine to capture a “dedicated camera look” with extensive foreground and background blur, which neither Galaxy nor Axon can match.
Phantom X2 2.5x vs Galaxy S22 Ultra 3x vs Axon 40 Ultra 1x
The dedicated camera aspect is evident in other examples. Tecno tuned the 2.5x camera to be a bit heavy on sharpening, but the fact remains that it can achieve better texture detail than larger sensor cameras like the main one in the Axon 40 Ultra. Just look at the detail in the beer glass below.
Phantom X2 2.5x versus Axon 40 Ultra 1x
Tecno has chosen an excellent focal length to combine with a large sensor. The 65mm field of view is ideal for human faces, objects, landscapes and anything else you can think of. This focal length does not suffer from distortion and can produce beautiful images with naturally blurred backgrounds when paired with a large imager. This is a good basis for the software-assisted Portrait mode, which the Phantom X2 Pro also offers. It takes the already good bokeh to another level.
Let’s see if other phones add a large sensor zoom camera. Maybe that will be the next big thing. We hope so!
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