Tecno Pova Slim Review: Slim Design, Big Battery, Small Price

Thin phones used to be the cool kids of the smartphone world until everyone realised you can’t live on salad forever and you need a battery. Then came the era of chunky bricks with giant batteries, heavy camera bumps, and cases that made them even chunkier. But here we are in 2025, and thin is back in fashion. Samsung showed it off first with the S25 Edge (review). Apple just raised the bar with the impossibly slim iPhone Air (review) at 5.6 mm, and in the midst of it, Tecno has thrown its hat in the ring with the Tecno Pova Slim.

But here’s the twist: while the iPhone Air can claim the slimmest, Tecno Pova Slim can confidently call itself the lightest, just 156g, all while squeezing in a 5160 mAh battery. So, is Tecno saying: you don’t need to be a trillion-dollar company to build a phone that’s thin, light, and actually practical? Probably yes. But is the Pova Slim worth that flex?

Design: Slim with Substance

The first thing you notice when you pick up the Pova Slim is how absurdly light and thin it feels. Slide it into a jeans pocket and it practically disappears.

It has a plastic frame, a fibreglass back and yet Tecno has done a good job of balancing the slimness with durability: Gorilla Glass 7i on the front, an IP64 splash resistance rating, and even MIL-STD-810H compliance for everyday bumps and drops. These are not features you normally associate with phones that look like supermodels, but when you’ve got a phone this thin, durability shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact, props to Tecno for providing tempered glass in the box.

The curved AMOLED panel blends into the sides, and Tecno even sneaked in a glowing strip at the back that reacts to music, notifications, and charging. It’s playful, borderline gimmicky, but it adds a sense of character. The Pova Slim is available in Sky Blue, Slim White, and Cool Black and manages to feel more premium than its Rs 19,999 price tag suggests.

Display: Bright, Smooth, and Flagship-Like

The 6.78-inch AMOLED display is one of the strongest features of the Pova Slim. With a 1.5K resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, and a 240Hz touch sampling rate, it delivers sharpness, responsiveness, and fluidity in everyday use.

However, there’s a caveat: the Dimensity 6400 SoC only natively supports a 120Hz display, and the higher 144Hz refresh rate mode is restricted to three apps: Settings, Messages, and Phone. That limitation isn’t a dealbreaker, but what stings more is the lack of HDR content support, which holds the panel back from being a true all-rounder for streaming enthusiasts. 

Brightness is where it truly shines: Tecno claims 4500 nits of peak brightness and our lab testing got 2600 nits in auto HBM mode, and visibility under harsh sunlight is genuinely impressive.

Our Calman analysis confirmed that Tecno’s colour calibration here deliberately favours vibrancy over strict accuracy. Colours look lively and punchy without being overcooked, you get deep, inky blacks and the curved edges add that little extra flair. The panel covers 99.9% of the sRGB colour space, so it has the range to reproduce almost everything modern apps, games, and video content can throw at it.

But the out-of-the-box tuning pushes saturation. Our average deltaE measured at 4 (lower is better, with <2 being imperceptible to the human eye). That explains why images look extra vivid; they’re tuned to pop rather than strictly adhere to natural colours. The RGB balance confirms a boosted blue channel, which gives whites a crisp, bluish tint.

This is a high-quality panel tuned to impress the average user. It’s bright, punchy, and immersive in a way that instantly feels more premium than the phone’s price suggests. It’s a display that feels more at home on a Rs 30,000–Rs 35,000 device, and that elevates the Pova Slim’s everyday experience far beyond its category.

Performance: Mid-Range, Balanced, and Predictable

The phone is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 6400 processor, paired with 8GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB UFS 2.2 storage. On paper, this puts it in the comfortable mid-range zone, and that’s exactly how it performs:

• AnTuTu: 461,890
  
• Geekbench 5: 770 single-core / 2016 multi-core
  
• PCMark Work 3.0: 10,907
  
• 3DMark Wild Life: 1332

In everyday use, the phone handles multitasking, browsing, video streaming, and social apps without breaking a sweat. Where it starts to feel its limits is with heavy gaming. Titles like Call of Duty: Mobile or BGMI run well at moderate settings, and we got around 58 FPS on average, but extended sessions with graphically demanding games like Genshin Impact cause performance dips after 20–30 minutes. CPU throttling settles at around 88% of peak, which is respectable but not built for an intense workload.

This isn’t a gaming-first phone, and Tecno doesn’t market it as such. It’s a smooth and reliable daily driver that feels responsive for the vast majority of users.

The Pova Slim runs on HiOS 15, based on Android 15, and while it offers a wide range of customisation options, the overall experience does feel a bit cluttered. Tecno has packed in a large number of pre-loaded apps, the good news is that most of them can be uninstalled, but the sheer volume is noticeable. You’ll also find Tecno’s own alternatives to almost every Google app, from Weather to its own version of the Play Store, which can feel redundant at times. On the brighter side, Tecno’s in-house AI assistant, Ella, is integrated deeply into the system. It supports 136 languages and can handle a variety of queries, making it a useful addition for users who prefer local language support and voice-based interactions.

Battery Life: Slim Doesn’t Mean Short-Lived

Even with its impossibly thin frame, Tecno has managed to squeeze in a 5160 mAh battery with enough juice to comfortably last a full day and often more, depending on usage.

With mixed use: social media, YouTube, calls, and messaging, the phone makes it to the end of the day with battery to spare. Charging is handled by 45W fast charging, topping the phone up from 0 to 50% in about 25 minutes and to 100% in just over an hour. 

What’s important is that Tecno hasn’t sacrificed endurance for slimness. The Pova Slim carries itself like a much bulkier phone in terms of battery stamina, and that’s a major win.

Cameras: Vibrant Colours, Strong Portraits, and a Few Rough Edges

The Tecno Pova Slim keeps things simple with a 50MP main camera, a 2MP secondary sensor, and a 13MP front-facing shooter. On paper, it may look modest compared to rivals flaunting triple or quad-camera setups, but it works better than you’d expect at this price point.

In good lighting, it produces vibrant, punchy tones that immediately pop on-screen. Reds and pinks are saturated without clipping, greens are lively, and blues hold their depth well. Multi-coloured scenes, like a set of paper straws, show excellent separation, making photos instantly social-media ready without any editing. Detail retrieval is also respectable, particularly in close-ups of flowers or pollen grains, though sharpness can vary from shot to shot. Wide scenes usually keep the centre sharp but soften towards the edges, and foliage occasionally takes on a “painterly” effect thanks to noise reduction. Dynamic range, meanwhile, is handled competently. HDR pulls useful detail from both highlights and shadows in difficult scenes, though it can sometimes flatten the overall image.

The portrait mode is a clear highlight with precise edge detection, even around hair strands or glasses, with minimal haloing. The background blur looks natural and skin tones are rendered realistically without the heavy-handed smoothing some phones apply.

The Pova Slim camera is surprisingly capable at close distances, allowing users to capture detailed shots of flowers, textures, or even insects. The bee nestled inside a white flower is a standout example, with fine details in the insect’s body and petals holding up impressively well.

The 13MP selfie camera is serviceable but unspectacular. In indoor or low-light conditions, details soften due to both lighting and processing, though colours and exposure remain usable. It’s perfectly fine for video calls and casual selfies but doesn’t set new standards for sharpness.

The main issues are consistency and processing. Autofocus can occasionally miss, leading to soft shots in otherwise favourable conditions. Noise reduction is also heavy-handed at times, smudging textures when you zoom in. These are familiar trade-offs in this segment, but worth noting if you’re particular about sharpness. These cameras are not designed for serious photography enthusiasts, but for casual users who want lively, eye-catching photos in good light, it’s a reliable system.

Verdict: A Thin Phone That Doesn’t Feel Like a Compromise

The Tecno Pova Slim is proof that thin phones don’t have to be gimmicks. It combines lightweight design, a great display, a surprisingly enduring battery, and capable cameras into a package that stands out in the crowded Rs 20,000 segment.

It’s not built for hardcore gamers or night photography enthusiasts, but for users who want a sleek, modern design without sacrificing battery life or everyday usability, it makes a compelling case.

In a market where mid-range phones often play it safe, the Pova Slim dares to go skinny and it pulls it off.