Tecno Pova Slim review: democratising slimness

• By Ashish Kumar
Published On: 12 September 2025 | 11:00 IST

Slim smartphones are widely anticipated to gain traction moving forward. Samsung made its move earlier this year with its premium Galaxy S25 Edge (review), the slimmest handset in India at just 5.85mm thick, and we now have the iPhone Air, Apple’s slimmest iPhone yet at just 5.6mm. Now, Tecno is bringing the trend to a wider audience with the affordable Pova Slim. While it doesn’t match Samsung’s or Apple’s powerhouse in terms of performance, Tecno has managed to fit a sizeable 5,160mAh battery into a body that’s only 5.95mm thin.

What does it mean for the smartphone, and whether one should spend Rs 19,999 on a phone powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6400 SoC? Let’s find out in this Tecno Pova Slim review.

Verdict

The Tecno Pova Slim stands out from other smartphones in its segment or higher due to its distinctive design. That said, the company had to cut a few corners in the performance and camera departments to offer an ultra-slim smartphone at an affordable price. Moreover, the display is impressive overall, though the advertised 144Hz refresh rate doesn’t quite hold up in practice. On the software side, its limited support makes it less appealing in terms of longevity.

Razor-thin design

Starting with what is immediately apparent – the design. Although the Tecno Pova Slim is a touch thicker than Samsung’s S25 Edge, its curved edges make it look the slimmest and the sleekest smartphone out there. In fact, the device is the slimmest smartphone under Rs 1 lakh in the country. This not only gives it a premium look but also makes it comfortable to hold and effortlessly easy to slip in and out of tight spaces, such as jeans pockets. I would have appreciated the edges to be matte instead of glossy, but the company has thoughtfully included a hard case with the device that has a matte finish to enhance the grip.

Despite its slim frame, the handset manages to be durable. The Tecno Pova Slim’s plastic unibody feels sturdy, passing off with just a flex when pressure is applied from end to end. The back panel sits firmly in place, with no gaps that could compromise its IP64 rating, which safeguards the device against light splashes and dust. Moreover, at just 156 grams, it’s impressively light, making it easy to carry around and comfortable for prolonged use.

Not just the form factor, Tecno has also ensured that the Pova Slim stands out for its design. The handset features a matte finish back panel, with a uniquely designed camera module that sits near the top edge in an oblong shape. The placement of camera sensors on the module on the far ends might appear weird to you, but wait till the phone is put on charge or a notification buzzes. The ‘Dynamic Lighting Effects’ is brought to life, which connects and encircles the two sensors with a strip of LED lights. My colleague tells me it reminds him of a robot character from the movie WALL-E.

Tecno has also added a playful twist to Dynamic Lighting, with the effects mimicking moods and expressions, such as Happy, Unhappy, Open Eyes, and Blink.

Sharp display, but not truly 144Hz

The display on the Tecno Pova Slim is another highlight. It features a tall 6.78-inch curved AMOLED panel with FHD+ resolution, a peak brightness of 4,500 nits, and a refresh rate of up to 144Hz on paper. While the display specs sound impressive for a phone under Rs 20,000, I wonder what prompted Tecno to claim a 144Hz refresh rate since the MediaTek Dimensity 6400 SoC officially supports a maximum of 120Hz. In my testing, too, the handset could only reach 120Hz, and only on the lock screen, despite manually selecting the 144Hz option in settings.

Normally, the refresh rate would hover between 90Hz and 60Hz, even in system UI and apps. This makes the animation less smooth than the one on a 120Hz panel. If you can look past this shortcoming, it is as good a display as you can get in this price range. Visually, it is crisp, sharp, and legible even outdoors. The handset is Widevine L1 certified, ensuring high-definition streaming from Netflix and other platforms. For protection, the Tecno Pova Slim boasts a Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, and there is a tempered glass bundled in the box.

The display houses a pill-shaped notch reminiscent of the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, expanding to reveal notifications, real-time updates, charging status, and more. Similar to Apple’s implementation, it also offers interactive controls, expanding the notifications and taking you to the app with just a tap.

Compact, but capable battery

Lighting up the display is a 5,160mAh silicon-carbon battery, which offers higher energy density than the regular Lithium-ion without being bulky. While not as large as the packs found in some contemporary smartphones, it’s still commendable considering the slim profile of the device. In terms of endurance, the Tecno Pova Slim managed a modest 10 hours and 2 minutes on the PCMark battery test, while our YouTube video streaming test drained 4 per cent. This consumption is slightly higher than most rivals in the segment, though not by a significant margin.

Under heavy usage, such as gaming, the smartphone’s battery drops by about 19 per cent after 30 minutes of BGMI, Call of Duty: Mobile, and Real Racing 3. This is in line with most competing devices, but given the relatively smaller battery, users will likely need to recharge the Tecno Pova Slim by the end of the day. Fortunately, Tecno includes a 45W charger in the box, which takes just 54 minutes to juice the phone from 20 to 100 per cent.

Ideal performance for casual usage

The Tecno Pova Slim is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 6400 SoC, which is ideal for casual usage. This is the same chipset that powers the Tecno Spark Go under Rs 10,000. While it does well there, both in synthetic benchmark and real-world tests, it struggles in the sub-Rs 20,000 segment with more powerful chipsets, such as MediaTek Dimensity 7400 and Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, powering the smartphones.

I experienced no issues with browsing, scrolling, or streaming on the smartphone, which also stayed cool thanks to its large vapour chamber cooling system. The cooling system ensured that the device doesn’t heat up significantly, even during demanding activities such as gaming. There was a temperature increase of roughly 12 degrees Celsius while playing the games for the battery test. Moreover, the frame rate appeared to be decent, on par with the Infinix GT 30, which is one of the most powerful smartphones within the segment.

I did encounter a few stutters here and there, making the smartphone less ideal for power users. The Tecno Pova Slim can handle multitasking, but with limited apps running in the background. Even the camera is slow to capture multiple shots in succession.

Good enough cameras

The Tecno Pova Slim features a dual setup on the back, consisting of a 50MP primary sensor and a 2MP macro lens. On the front, a 13MP punch-hole camera handles selfies and video calls. While the setup isn’t the most versatile, it performs reasonably well in daylight. Colours lean slightly towards the artificial side but remain close enough to reality, and details look decent at first glance. That said, zooming in reveals noticeable grain, which softens the overall sharpness. Dynamic range is present but falls short of the Moto G96, which is among the best camera phones under Rs 20,000.

Here’s a quick comparison of the Tecno Pova Slim camera performance with the Motorola smartphone:

Daylight

The Tecno Pova Slim tends to lean towards warmer tones, while the Moto G96 favours cooler ones. This gives the Tecno’s colour science a more natural look, as seen when it accurately captured a building during sunset. However, despite this strength, the handset struggles with fine details and sharpness, partly due to its narrower field of view compared to Motorola’s offering.

In this regard, the Moto G96 proves superior, not only delivering better detail but also stronger dynamic range. Its colour science may not be entirely accurate, yet the punchy output is likely to appeal to social media enthusiasts.

Portrait

The Tecno Pova Slim edges out the Moto G96 with more natural edge detection and a pleasing bokeh effect, while also delivering near-accurate skin tones and finer details. It also handles sunlight exposure more effectively, whereas the Moto G96 often struggles, blowing out highlights entirely.

Selfie

The 13MP front-facing camera on the Tecno Pova Slim does well to offer near-accurate skin tones, but falls behind when it comes to facial details and background exposure. The Moto G96 outshines the competition with noticeably sharper images, while preserving those shadows and not overexposing the background details, like the Tecno smartphone.

Low-light (night mode)

The cooler profile of the Moto G96 helps minimise light flare, preventing it from altering surrounding colours as much as it does on the Tecno Pova Slim. A clear example can be seen in the shots below: despite being taken late at night, the Tecno renders the sky almost white due to the streetlight flare cutting across the frame.

That said, the Moto G96 isn’t perfectly accurate either. Its images often display boosted colours, but the overall results remain more visually appealing than those of the Tecno Pova Slim, which continues to struggle with detail retention.

In short, the Tecno Pova Slim cameras are good enough for everyday use, but not for photography enthusiasts. The handset only excels with accurate representation of the scene in daylight and its portraits, but struggles otherwise. The same is applicable for smartphone videos, which can be captured with up to 2K resolution at 30 fps. However, you should shoot at 1080p resolution for usable footage.

Not stock, but customisable software

On the software side, the Pova Slim ships with Android 15-based HiOS 15, the same interface seen on other recent Tecno smartphones. For an in-depth look at the software, you can check our Tecno Pova 7 review. The overall experience is far from stock Android; in fact, it’s one of the busiest UIs I’ve used on a smartphone. This is despite the fact that the Pova Slim comes with the fewest third-party pre-installed apps in the segment. On the positive side, Tecno does allow a fair degree of customisation, letting you tweak the interface to suit your preferences better.

The smartphone also comes loaded with AI features, including Circle to Search, a wallpaper generator, image-editing tools like Object Eraser, a writing assistant, and Google Gemini. These work reasonably well in day-to-day use. In addition to Google’s Gemini voice assistant, the Pova Slim also includes Tecno’s in-house AI chatbot, Ella, which proves to be quite handy. It supports several popular regional languages and can handle tasks such as answering internet queries, navigating system settings, or even removing photos from the gallery, all through voice commands.

That said, in order to do all that, you will first have to enable the chatbot from the settings menu. Tecno provides software support for the device, but it is limited to one year of major OS upgrades as opposed to the standard three years and two years of security updates.

Final verdict

The Tecno Pova Slim comes in a single 8GB + 128GB variant with no microSD slot, which can feel limiting in the current day and age. Performance is fine for casual use but struggles with heavier tasks, while the battery comfortably lasts a day. The cameras, though serviceable, lack consistency and versatility.

What makes the Pova Slim stand out is its design. It is the world’s slimmest curved-display phone, with a lightweight build, Dynamic Lighting, and a vibrant screen for multimedia. It may not satisfy those seeking long-term performance, software support, or strong cameras, but it shines as a stylish daily driver for light to moderate use, or even a sleek secondary phone.

Editor’s rating: 8.2/10

Reasons to buy

• At 5.85mm in thickness, the Tecno Pova Slim is the sleekest smartphone not just in its price range, but beyond.
• The display is bright and good for multimedia consumption.
• The battery life is good enough to last an entire day of regular usage.
• The performance is reliable for most day-to-day activities.

Reasons not to buy

• Cameras need improvement in capturing details and preserving the dynamic range.
• Its limited software support may make it less appealing in terms of longevity.