The hectacore Tecno R7 is barely 2 months old but Tecno is already teasing another flagship, the Tecno Phantom Z. This one one-ups the R7 in the number of processing cores. It’s an octacore. That’s right, 8 cores.
I will confess I’m not as intrigued about the phone as I was about the TV ad (which by the way is an impressive first from Tecno), considering the Tecno R7 fell short of my expectations. So I’m not sure what to make of the Tecno Phantom Z. But let’s pretend the octacore processor is as a huge deal as it’s made out to be. What else has the Phantom Z going for it? Here are the specs we know of:
- 16 MP primary camera, 8 MP front
- 4000 mAh battery
- 5.5 inch display
- 16 GB internal memory
- Android JellyBean 4.2.2
Not a particularly horrible specsheet, albeit very similar to the R7. But wait, it runs might run on Android JellyBean 4.2.2? Again? I’m a little perplexed as to why any OEM would release and Android flagship 2014, with Android JellyBean
But considering that Tecno now supports OTA updates (one of my personal wishes for Tecno in 2014 granted), I’m just going to assume there’s a major software update in the works to rollout Android KitKat to R7 and Phantom Z users later in the future. That has got to be it.
No official dates have been announced for the release of the Tecno Phantom Z
*UPDATE* The Tecno Phantom Z launched in Kenya on the 26th of June. It runs Android KitKat 4.4 (well done Tecno) and has an 8 MP camera with flash. Yes, a selfie camera with flash.
