The Tecno Spark 9 Pro Sports Edition is a budget smartphone that was recently launched in the Kenyan market. The phone is the latest iteration in the Tecno Spark series and is the successor to the Spark 8.
We had a chance to test drive the phone and here are our thoughts.
Design and screen
The Tecno Spark 9 Pro comes with a glass front and a plastic frame and measures 6.46 x 2.98 x 0.33 inches, and it generally sits comfortably in the hand.
The 6.6-inch touchscreen, at 1080 x 2460 pixels, and is fairly bright. The screen is great for gaming and watching movies as it brings out the colors nicely. The screen comes with a dewdrop notch for the selfie camera and a slim top bezel which gives the phone an 83.3% screen-to-body ratio.
At the back, it features a textured design which is colorful making the phone look sleek. On the right side, we have the power button which also acts as the fingerprint sensor as well as the volume up and down buttons. The left side has the SIM card plus memory card slot. The bottom edge houses a mono speaker, the Type C charging port, a microphone and the 3.5 mm audio jack.
Straight out of the factory, the Tecno Spark 9 Pro comes pre-installed with a screen protector, however, it picks up scratches fairly quickly. If need be, one can consider an aftermarket protector as the factory one can’t protect the screen in the event of a fall.
Performance
The Spark 9 Pro comes with a MediaTek MT6769Z Helio G85 (12nm) processor, Octa-core (2×2.0 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.8 GHz Cortex-A55) CPU and Mali-G52 MC2 GPU. It also comes with 128 GB internal storage and 4 GB of RAM, and a memory optimization feature
It also comes with Android 12 operating system coupled with HiOS V8 OS. Out of the box, the usual Google and Tecno apps and games comes pre-installed which unfortunately includes some bloatware. However, these can either be uninstalled or disabled with ease.
This combination significantly boosts performance more so for games with high-performance settings. During day-to-day use, it offers a smooth and lag-free game experience.
Camera
The Tecno Spark 9 Pro comes with a triple camera setup at the back that is 50 MP (wide), 2 MP (depth), QVGA. It also comes with a 32 Megapixel selfie camera.
The camera experience is quite good given the price point. Tecno have optimized the Super Night Mode with AI Scene Light Detection, Multi-frame Fusion Optimization Algorithm which means that the camera takes great pictures even in low light situations.
The camera app has Super Night, Portrait, Google Lens, Beauty, Video, AI cam and Short Video. Short Video is generally for usage on social media and has a lot of extras for visual effects.
Here are some photos I took with the camera.
Battery
The phone comes with a 5000mAh battery that ensures that you can comfortably use the phone for a up to two days before it runs out of charge. The 18W fast charge option comes in handy when you need to juice up real quick.
Conclusion
You should definitely buy this phone if you are looking for a device with good cameras and battery life at a pocket friendly price of Ksh. 21,500.
More photos.
