TECNO CAMON Slim 5G review: Thin without the compromise

The first thing the TECNO CAMON Slim 5G keeps reminding me of is not its processor, camera or even its display. It is how absurdly thin and light it feels.

At just 6.39 millimeters, TECNO is clearly leaning hard into the “Slim” name, but this is one of those cases where the marketing actually matches the product. Every time I switch back to it from another phone, I still get that tiny moment of surprise at how little weight seems to be in my hand.

That would normally make me suspicious of the battery, except there is a 6,000mAh cell inside with 45W charging. That combination is probably the bigger engineering trick here. Thin phones are easy to make if you are willing to sacrifice endurance. TECNO did not.

My unit is the 8GB RAM + 256GB storage variant, officially priced at P27,999 in the Philippines.

Then there is the screen, and this is where the CAMON Slim starts punching above its price.

The 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED panel runs at 144Hz, and honestly, 144Hz remains one of those specifications you notice even without looking for it. Scrolling, animations and general navigation simply feel quicker and more expensive.

It is also hard not to smile when a phone at this price is pushing 144Hz while the industry spent years selling far more expensive devices with 60Hz displays. Once your eyes adjust to high refresh rates, going backward becomes surprisingly annoying.

Performance is similarly uneventful, which I mean as a compliment.

Inside is the MediaTek Dimensity 7300e with 8GB of RAM. I'll keep this short because that's how it behaves: nothing to babysit and nothing to apologize for. It runs apps, scrolls and multitasks without complaint. You can make it sweat if you really try, say by hopping between apps, running a game, and playing a video in the background all at once. Almost nobody does that, and I'd rather judge a phone on how people actually use it.

The phone also carries a 50MP Sony LYTIA 700C main camera with OIS, backed by an 8MP ultrawide.

What made the camera more interesting for me, though, was TECNO’s MagBadge.

This magnetic accessory has its own 1.73-inch OLED screen and can display a preview from the phone’s rear camera, turning the much better main camera into a selfie camera. It also works as a remote shutter from up to 10 meters away.

Getting it connected was not as elegant as I expected. Setup took longer than it should have, and the preview itself had a little delay. But once it finally worked, I understood the appeal immediately.

For selfies, group photos or shots where you would normally need a tripod and several attempts to frame yourself properly, it is genuinely useful. You can prop the phone somewhere, see yourself from the MagBadge and shoot remotely.

Did I use it constantly? No. But I can absolutely imagine someone who takes more photos making much better use of it.

Probably a girlfriend. Wink wink.

That accessory ultimately sums up the CAMON Slim 5G rather well. Some of its ideas are slightly unconventional, but underneath them is a phone that gets the fundamentals right: excellent display, dependable performance, a huge battery and a body that somehow still feels almost impossibly thin.