Tecno is launching an absolute battery beast (that is, according to the specsheet) this Friday, May 13 in Kenya. It’s called the L8, and the launch will take place at Tecno’s 5th Brand Day at Trucom Mama Ngina in Nairobi. Tecno didn’t make as much of a frenzy about it as they did the Boom J8, but a little tab-hopping reveals that it’s been available in Nigeria for around a month now.

Tecno L8

Of course, all the specs in the world doth not a good phone make, but they are nice to know anyways. First, is the star of the show – the battery. The L8 comes with a 5050 mAh juice pack and USB OTG reverse charging. That’s insane, especially considering it’s going to retail for between N26,000 and N28,000 (8000 Kenyan Shillings). A 2MP selfie camera, an 8MP rear shooter (both with flash), 16Gigs of storage (expandable via MicroSD up to 64Gb) and 1GB of RAM look more commensurate with the price point.

It’s got a 5.5-inch IPS display, it will run Android 5.1 Lollipop wrapped in their new UI skin, HiOS and all that will be powered by a 1.3Ghz Quadcore processor (which I suspect was made by MediaTek). From all indications, it looks in the same range as Infinix Hot 3, but I feel like we should have moved on from this 1GB RAM – 16GB ROM paradigm. It’s 2016, please.

There’s no evidence to suggest that Tecno has done more than stick a huge battery in the case of a meh phone. What’s important is how that translates to real world use. I have not used the phone yet, so I cant pass any judgements. But I found someone who has, and talked about her experience with it on Nairaland a few days ago. You should totally check that out.

Osarumen Osamuyi Author

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