Tecno officially launched the Spark 30 lineup with two phones, vanilla and Pro, joining the Spark 30C from early September. The Spark 30 has a black and yellow Bumblebee variant, while we now present you the Tecno Spark 30 Pro in Optimus Prime colors – Red, Blue, and Silver.
The phone comes with an adapter, charging cable, and wired earphones, which is a decent retail package, but here go our impressions of its performance once taken out of the box.
The Spark 30 series is for budget-conscious users who still want some excitement, nay, spark, from their phones. The Pro version packs a 6.78″ AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and up to 120 Hz refresh rate. We love that it comes with an under-display fingerprint scanner, which works quickly and reliably.
The Transformers Theme brings custom wallpaper and icon designs to the Spark 30 Pro, and they are definitely something. They might not be to everyone’s taste, but if you are buying a phone with its back looking like Optimus Prime, surely you will appreciate if the front also looks like a Transformer.
Tecno did put a 13 MP selfie camera inside the punch hole, but the circle also serves as a hub for notifications. It is called Dynamic Port and is enabled in the Special Function menu through Settings. Just like Dynamic Island on iOS, it epxands to
Tecno is so proud of its AI development that it announced it twice in 2024 – once in Barcelona during MWC and again in Berlin during IFA. The Spark 30 Pro is one of the first phones with HiOS having the Tecno AI out of the box, including a Gemini-powered voice assistant called Ella.show you notifications for incoming calls and notifications, charging status, media player, and even some tips.
The company came a long way in polishing its customized interface, and despite its many extra features, it no longer feels disorganized. There are Floating Windows, which allows for some multi-window experience; Smart Panel brings shortcuts to the desktop with a single swipe from the side, and there is also Game Mode and Kids Mode for different use-case scenarios.
We tested the AI assistant, and its performance is alright – nothing extraordinary. It can answer questions and keep a conversation. It is very important not to expect any magic from the Spark 30 Pro, especially offline, because the Helio G100 chipset is somewhat limited in terms of processing power to handle the seven billion adjustable parameters that are inside Gemini.
