Tecno official launched the Spark 30 series with two phonesvanilla and Pro, which join the Spark 30C from early September. The Spark 30 has a black and yellow Bumblebee variant we now present you the Spark 30 Pro in Optimus Prime colors – red, blue and silver.
The phone comes with an adapter, charging cable and wired earphones, which is quite a retail package, but here are our impressions of its performance once taken out of the box.
The Spark 30 series is aimed at budget-conscious users who still want some excitement, even spark, from their phones. The Pro version has a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution and a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. We love that it comes with an under-display fingerprint scanner, which works quickly and reliably.
The Transformers theme brings custom background and icon designs to the Spark 30 Proand they are definitely something. They may not be to everyone’s taste, but if you buy a phone where the back looks like Optimus Prime, you’ll definitely appreciate it if the front also looks like a Transformer.
Although Tecno has put a 13 MP selfie camera in the hole, the circle also serves as a hub for notifications. It’s called Dynamic Port and is enabled in the Special Features menu via Settings. Like Dynamic Island on iOS, it expands to show notifications for incoming calls and notifications, charging status, media player, and even some tips.
The company has come a long way in polishing its custom interface, and despite the many extra features, it no longer feels disorganized. There are floating windows, which allow for a multi-window experience; Smart Panel brings shortcuts to the desktop with a single swipe from the side, and there’s also a Game Mode and a Kids Mode for different usage scenarios.
UI features
Tecno is so proud of its AI development that it has announced it twice in 2024 – once in Barcelona during MWC and back inside Berlin during IFA. The Spark 30 Pro is one of the first phones to run HiOS with the Tecno AI out of the box, including a Gemini-powered voice assistant called Ella.
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We tested the AI assistant and its performance is good – nothing special. It can answer questions and have a conversation. It’s very important not to expect magic from the Spark 30 Pro, especially offline, as the Helio G100 chipset is somewhat limited in processing power to handle the seven billion adjustable parameters contained within Gemini.
Tecno Spark 30 Pro has a camera island on the back with no fewer than four separate circles, but only one is for the 108 MP camera, the only usable shooter.
Tecno Spark 30 Pro camera samples
There’s a quad-LED flash on the back, and we have to appreciate that Tecno implements a dual-LED flash on the front, embedded in the top edge. Tecno Spark 30 Pro has placed an IR blaster on the camera island.
Tecno Spark 30 Pro standing: 1x • 3x
Tecno Spark 30 Pro selfie: With LED flash • Without LED flash
We did say there are wired earphones in the box, so there’s obviously a 3.5mm audio jack. The Spark 30 Pro also has FM radio, NFC, dual nano-SIM + microSD card tray and a USB-C port for wired charging up to 33W.
All these features in the same phone make the Spark 30 Pro an extremely attractive device, and that’s before you consider that it has a 5,000mAh battery in a 7.4mm case.
The Spark 30 Pro is designed for markets where 5G connectivity is not as widespread; the phone has 4.5G, which is LTE Advanced. It has pre-installed AI features, which is a big selling point for Tecno and why some might choose this phone over the Poco M6 Pro or the Galaxy A15, despite these phones having more cameras or better raw performance.
We must remember that Tecno is a strong player in Africa and Southeast Asia, and this is where we expect the Spark 30 Pro to perform well. This month it should reach markets like Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, where the phone is expected to cost around $200 for the 8/128 GB version, and around $220 for the 8/256 GB version.