The Tecno Camon 19, Samsung Galaxy A23 and the OPPO A57 all released in 2022 have only a few things in common for example 4GB RAM, side fingerprint scanner and a 5000mAh battery. I have been using the three devices for the last few weeks and here is my comparison. The purpose of this article is to guide you, the customer on which the best phone is based on a select categories.
The best way to consume this information is through the video I made on you tube below. But you can also read and skim through the article for the same.
Price
As far as the prices go, the Tecno Camon 19 and OPPO A57 go for the same price of KES 23,500 while the Samsung Galaxy A23 is the cheapest of the three going for KES 22,500.
Accessories
The Samsung A23 and OPPO A57 both come with a charger and USB cable. The Tecno Camon 19 tops that with a set of hands free headset. The OPPO A57 has the biggest rated charger of all 3 phones with a 33 Watt charger. This is followed by the Camon 19 with an 18 watt charger and finally the Samsung A23 with a 15 watt charger. More on the battery and charging as you read.
Camera
The CAMON 19 comes equipped with a 64MP Bright Night Camera, a 2MP Bokeh lens and an AI lens. Its lens is a world’s first RGB+W lens with the white pixel accepting any wavelength light to increase sensitivity and brightness of the sensor. The Pro Mode camera setting supports exposure time, focus, ISO, white balance, & brightness manual adjustments. The maximum video quality on the Camon 19 is 2K or 1440p @30fps for both the front and rear cameras.
The Galaxy A23 is equipped with a quad lens setup at the back with the main lens being 50MP followed by a 5MP wide angle, 2MP Macro camera and a 2MP Depth Camera. The rear camera features OIS and the maximum video quality is 1080p @30fps.
The OPPO A57 has a dual camera setup with the main lens being 13MP and the other being a 2MP Depth lens. The maximum video quality recording is also only 1080p @30fps.
As far as front cameras go, the Camon 19 has a 16MP lens, the OPPO A57 and Samsung A23 both have an 8MP front camera. All three phones do not have front Flash LED’s as they all employ screen light filling techniques. Watch the video from 00:56 for a demonstration of the same.
Photo & video samples
And here are a few photo samples from the three smartphones. There is absolutely no white balance or colour correction in these samples.
The Camon 19 takes colourful and detailed photos. I thought that the Samsung A23 would take better photos than the results show here. Even the OPPO A57 beat the Samsung in photo quality to be honest.
In this flower photo, while the Samsung and OPPO tried to keep everything in focus, the Camon 19 automatically blurred the background to keep the flower in focus.
In this tree close-up just take look at the contrast between the sky and the clouds in these photos. I would rate the Tecno Camon 19 first place followed by the OPPO A57 and finally the Samsung Galaxy A23. The same goes for this other set of photos.
The bland image quality of the Samsung A23 also translates to videos. At least the OPPO A57 is a little bit better but again, I prefer the 2K videos from the Camon 19.
When it comes to video stabilization, both the OPPO and Tecno do not have the feature. Only the Samsung A23 has video stabilization although the overall video quality is just bland.
Watch the video samples from 2:13 here.
Design
The CAMON 19 features a new Star Diamond Twin-Camera design with the shining diamonds back cover that is fingerprint proof. The Camon 19 display is housed in a rounded rectangular shape with the Slimmest Bezel in its class measuring only 0.98mm. When I put the 3 devices together you can see how slim the bezel is compared to the OPPO and Samsung.
The twin rounded camera enclosure minimizes the complexities of having many lenses in the camera bump like the Samsung A23 has. The display features a dot in display camera which looks nice unlike both the OPPO A57 and Samsung A23. I feel like the time for housing the front camera in a water drop notch is over. In 2022 it just screams of a lazy design to be honest.
The OPPO A57 employs what they call a 2D premium design, it is a boxy rectangular shape with a side mounted fingerprint scanner. The camera bump is thin and close to the body although it’s unnecessarily wide. The glowing green colour looks absolutely stunning on this phone although if the light hits it at just the right angle, then you can see all the fingerprint smudges. This is the only phone of the 3 phones with dual speakers.
The Samsung Galaxy A23 has a curvy design, it does not have that futuristic rectangular shape that the OPPO A57 and Camon 19 have. Everything on this phone is curvy. For example, the camera bump is made of smooth and curvy edges instead of sharp edged rises. All the edges on this phone have much more rounded corners than the other two devices.
The worst thing about the Samsung A23 design is the glossy back cover which is a fingerprint magnet. The only phone which is fingerprint proof here is the Tecno Camon 19.
Warranty
The CAMON 19 comes with 24 Months + 1 month Extended Warranty which provides free repair service during this period for failures caused by product quality. To top this up Tecno has a 90 day broken screen protection and VIP service at CarlCare which means you get faster service.
On the other hand Samsung and OPPO both have a 2 year warranty on the Galaxy A23 and OPPO A57 respectively. What they don’t have is the free broken screen protection. Samsung will replace the screen at a cost while OPPO has a screen protection plan that you have to purchase within 7 days after the manufactures E-warranty is activated.
Software
The CAMON 19 comes with Android 12 out of the box with HIOS 8.6 skin on top. An upgrade to Android 13 is scheduled for late 2022 to early 2023.
The Samsung Galaxy A23 and OPPO A57 also come with Android 12 operating system. The One UI 4.1 skin on the Samsung as well as colour OS 12.1 skin on the OPPO are both minimalistic and without a ton of bloatware or intrusive ads.
Display
The CAMON 19 has the biggest screen of the three phones measuring 6.78 Inch/172mm. It is a Full HD+ Display with 1080 x 2460 screen resolution and 60Hz refresh rate. The display has 1000:1 Contrast ratio & 500 nits of peak brightness providing an excellent & immersive viewing experience.
The Samsung Galaxy A23 has a 90Hz Full HD+ screen with 1080 x 2400 screen resolution. It is a PLS TFT LCD screen measuring 6.6 Inches or 167mm. The OPPO A57 has the smallest screen specs of the 3 devices. First of all it is smaller, it measures 6.56 Inches/166mm. Secondly, it is not a Full HD screen, and it only has a 720 x 1612 screen resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate.
The Samsung Galaxy A23 has adaptive refresh rate for smoother animations and scrolling. The other choice is to select 60Hz and get longer battery life.
Memory
The CAMON 19 comes with 4GB RAM and the highest internal storage of 128GB. Both the OPPO A57 and Samsung A23 have 4GB RAM and only 64GB internal storage, although the consumer has a choice of either buying the 64GB or 128GB version if it’s available in their location. For example, the cost of a 128GB Samsung Galaxy A23 is an insane KES 28,000. At his point, I’d rather just buy an SD card to expand the Storage.
When it comes to RAM expansion, both the OPPO A57 and Samsun A23 can extend up to 8GB by using a part of the ROM which is more than what the Camon 19 can offer. With Memory Fusion the 4GB RAM on the Camon 19 can be extended up to 7GB.
Battery & Charging
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this video, one of the similar specs in all three phones is the battery capacity which is 5000mAh but they all come with different chargers.
The Tecno Camon 19’s 18 Watt charger got up to 54% in 1 hour and full battery capacity in 2 hours and 30 minutes according to my charging experiment.
The OPPO A57 with the biggest charger of 33 watts can fill the battery from 0% to 100% in about an hours’ time. The Samsung A23 has the lowest fast charging specs coming in at 15 Watts and it takes around 3 hours to fully charge the device from 0%.
Conclusion
Which phone would you spend your money on with all these facts? Tell me in the comments below. Thank you for watching and goodbye