The Tecno W4 Review: The Budget Friendly Device With A Touch Of Marshmallow

THE TECNO W4 REVIEW

Your browser does not support iframes.&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>

---

POWERING ON THE DEVICE

Powering on the device takes about 35 seconds


Booting off time is about 5 seconds.


On the chart, the Tecno W4 is higher than the Hot 3 when it comes to the boot time, which isn’t bad



…But I am sure some of you are like.

---

UI.

If you aren’t one to be bothered by a Phone’s boot time, you might be interested to know that the W4 doesn’t come with the stock Android 6.0 UI, instead you have Tecno’s UI, the HiOS, but unlike what you have in the Boom J8, the W4 has left out one HiOS feature – the Hi Manager from the app list (Although if you go to settings and storage you can click on the cleaner to enact the Hi Manager feature).


See more UI screenshots.
When it comes to bloatware and preinstalled apps, you have the regular apps like Twitter, BBM, Palm play and others which can be uninstalled.

---

ALL ABOUT THE MARSHMALLOW

Okay, we know that Tecno launched the W4 with the hope that the Marshmallow feature might sweep you off your feet, but will it? What differentiates the W4 from the Boom J8 and other Lollipop devices when it comes to OS experience? At first glance, nothing much! But if you are an explorer, you will notice small features like the much talked about Google Now on tap which will give you useful information about anything highlighted with just a tap of the home button.


You also have the opportunity to limit an app’s impact on battery life when not being actively used in order to save battery life and not forgetting the advanced permission settings for your apps.

Google lives in the Settings Menu – what this means is that you can check/alter your account information for the many heads of the Google hydra from one section in the Settings menu. There is the do not disturb mode, that will ensure your apps or calls do no disturb you when you are busy.

Smartlock will allow you to store your app passwords in the cloud which you can access whenever you move to a new device. Another marshmallow feature is the ability to add a line of text to your lock screen.

Finally, you have your Flex Storage that makes using SD cards or external storage devices as encrypted expanded storage for your apps and games on Android Marshmallow a whole lot easier.
Yeah, that is what marshmallow feature has to offer on the W4, worth it?

---

WHAT IS THE DISPLAY LIKE?

With the 720 by 1280 pixels and a 320dpi on the W4, you get an average phone display. I compared it with the Hot 3 in both indoor and outdoor situations and with the brightness to the maximum.

I noticed that the W4 did quite better than the Hot 3, Remember I said in my earlier review that the colors on the Hot 3 look a little bit saturated.
Of course, I am not saying that the W4 has the best display as the test I carried out revealed some dead pixels, but when compared to another entry level device like the Hot 3, I’d pick the W4.

MAJOR BUMMER ALERT – THE 1GB RAM!

Just like the Hot 3, the Tecno W4 comes with the dreaded 1GB RAM, but remember that unlike the Hot 3, the W4 comes with the Android Marshmallow which ensures that apps are well optimized, so will this make it perform way better?
My answer:


I tried playing 4 HEAVY games, individually, they played nicely, there were frame drops, but no significant lag, however, when I tried to multitask, yeah you guessed right!

THE CAMERA?

2MP front-facing the camera and an 8MP back-facing camera won’t earn an accolade in anyone’s books. Also, with the W4, you only get 4 modes.



See the various tests below:

---

IN COMES THE 2500mAh battery

Remember when I talked about Marshmallow doze and battery optimization for apps earlier? Well, they sure did a number on the W4. You get a slightly above average performance when it comes to the battery.


Also, the doze comes into play when your device turns off. Don’t forget that you have the ultra power saving mode to quickly fix you up when you have little battery juice.

HOW FAST DOES IT CHARGE?

I ran a test, started charging the battery by 8:14am  and by 9:55am (P.s.: Took the screenshot late, hence the 10:08 discrepancy) It had charged to 59%
I guess it had to follow the footsteps of the Tecno Boom J8 when it comes to charging, but I’d still score it a little bit higher than the J8.

AUDIO PERFORMANCE

Given that the speaker is placed at the back, you might have some restrictions when you place your device on the table.  Overall, the quality isn’t so great, but for a N23,000 device, It is manageable.

OTA UPDATES

I received a firmware update that was about 252MB in size to enhance machine stability and patch bugs.

However,  I am not sure if the W4 will receive the Android N update (That would be asking for too much, wouldn’t it?).

---

DOES THE W4 HEATS UP

Not at all! Following from the RAM test, I tested out the temperature after playing the games for about 30 minutes with the flashlight switched on during this process, see the results below: (P.S: The range before playing the game was between 30 and 31)

---

GIMMICKS

You have the basic magic gesture, which includes tap to wake (This will turn off the screen when you double click)


Your Gesture control


Musical Gestures will control your music with your fingers.

Finally, you have your flip and wave to answer

---

HOW MANY SENSORS DOES THE W4 HAVE?

Just 3, the accelerometer, Proximity, and light sensors.

FLAWS

Thank God there were no grammatical  blunders or Chinese words this time, but asides the shortcomings mentioned, I noticed that the W4 comes with 10GB of ROM, despite it having 16GB on paper


Not really a flaw, but the Tecno W4 doesn’t support USB OTG

---

BENCHMARKS

Surprisingly, it performed better than the Hot 3 in the Antutu benchmark, but the Hot 3 slightly had an edge in other benchmarks.

---

MY GIF CONCLUSION

How much of a side chick is this device
Does the Marshmallow OS bring in anything significant to the table?

---

OVERALL

I can sense a “the battle of the side chicks” post coming soon because I feel the W4 is another device that can pass off as a side chic material if you have enough to get a second device or the main chick for those who don’t. Of course, it comes with a lot of shortcomings and the Marshmallow OS isn’t enough to make us overlook these shortcomings, but overall, I think the OS made it have a slight edge over its direct competiton.

Source: Misstechy.com