Apple has Apple Intelligence. Google Pixel has Gemini. Samsung has Galaxy AI. Tecno has everything else. Packed into its EllaClaw agent is the ability to use Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, and DeepSeek, because a walled garden never benefited anyone. Tecno’s Camon 50 Ultra 5G is a great phone, but what makes it worth doing a double take for is EllaClaw, an agentic AI built into the phone that offers a phone AI experience I have yet to see on any smartphone so far. EllaClaw is currently an invite-only closed Beta feature limited to just this phone, but seeing it in action gave me everything I needed to understand where other phones are going wrong with their on-board AI, and where they can learn from Tecno.

The wild part is how approachable it all feels. EllaClaw does not sit around waiting for you to guess the perfect command like some moody genie. It actively shows you what it can do, which makes the whole experience feel far less intimidating than Gemini or Apple Intelligence currently do. Within minutes, I was jumping between message summaries, creative tools, settings help, and different AI models without feeling like I needed a tutorial or a prayer.

Aesthetics

The moment I unboxed the Camon 50 Ultra 5G, I was hit with a serious case of déjà vu. The green variant has a gorgeous satin finish that gives it a silky, metallic glow under the light, and it immediately sent me down a memory lane trip to my old OnePlus 8 Pro which I faithfully used from 2020 to 2024. The color, the texture, even the way the camera module is arranged, it all felt so familiar and, frankly, so premium. Tecno absolutely nailed the flagship-esque feel here. The back is smooth to the touch, resists fingerprints reasonably well, and has a subtle elegance that a lot of phones in this bracket just do not bother with.

The front is where the design language gets a little more complicated, at least for me. Tecno went with a waterfall display, which means the screen curves dramatically around the sides. It looks stunning when the phone is off or when you are watching a video, creating an immersive, almost bezel-free experience. But I have always had a love-hate relationship with these displays. They are beautiful, no doubt, but they can be a magnet for accidental palm touches. While the software does its best to ignore them, I still found myself occasionally tapping something I did not mean to. It is a classic case of striking aesthetics meeting the messy reality of how we hold our phones. I do have to say that Tecno’s Liquid Glass homage does look much better on a waterfall display than on a bezel-ridden iPhone.

Ergonomics

That waterfall display has a big effect on how the phone feels in your hand. The curved edges melt away into the frame, making the Camon 50 Ultra 5G incredibly comfortable to hold. There are no sharp, flat corners digging into your palm, which is great for long sessions of scrolling or gaming. The trade-off, of course, is that the phone can feel a little slippery if you are not paying attention. It has that smooth, polished-stone feel that is lovely to touch but always feels one careless gesture away from a gravity experiment. It is a phone that practically begs to be put in a case, even if it feels like a shame to cover up the design.

The button layout is personally feels a little little bit tricky. On the left, you have a dedicated AI key that summons EllaClaw, a shortcut I ended up using constantly. You can remap it, but having a one-press gateway to the AI is a smart touch. The right side, however, is where my muscle memory started to complain. There is a power button and a fairly short, single-piece volume rocker. Because the rocker is slightly compact, I often found myself fumbling, unsure if my thumb was on volume up, down, or about to lock the screen. It is a small pain, but a tiny indent in the middle of the volume button would have made all the difference. The buttons themselves are slightly sharp and textured, a necessary choice for a phone with curved edges, but it does not quite solve the problem of telling them apart by feel alone.

Performance

EllaClaw is where the Camon 50 Ultra 5G earns its stripes. The dashboard (which you access by swiping towards the left – where you’d see Google Discover on most Android phones) keeps surfacing prompts, shortcuts, and suggestions, making the AI feel alive and accessible rather than buried under three layers of settings. Most phone AI treats users like they should already know what they want. EllaClaw meets you halfway, and that changes everything about how you interact with the phone.

The deeper layer, EllaClaw Pro, is genuinely impressive. It reaches into the phone’s apps and system functions in a way that feels ahead of where the conversation currently is. I asked it to summarize my text messages without opening the messages app, and it did exactly that, handling the whole thing on its own. That kind of agentic behavior is the next logical step for phone assistants, and right now, Tecno seems to be ahead of the pack. Nothing reassured me that the AI wasn’t reading my messages to enhance its database though, so the privacy conscious might have a thing or two to worry about.

Tecno’s decision to build EllaClaw as a multi-model hub is one of the smartest software calls I have seen this year. My unit offered access to DeepSeek, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, and Meta AI alongside Ella’s own model, all in one dashboard. Claude is conspicuously missing, but everything else is here and free to use (at least during the Beta period). Daily limits are applied on AI use which reset every 24 hours, and you can buy extra credits in case you overshoot. In all my hours of testing, I never needed to purchase extra credits, which means image generation, video generation, and sketch-to-photo tools were all available at no additional cost.

EllaClaw is still being refined, though. The dashboard lagged occasionally, and the AI sometimes took longer to load than felt comfortable. Restarting the app always sorted it out, but it is a reminder that this experience has not fully grown into its ambition yet. Users in certain regions may also need a VPN to get the full experience running, which is worth knowing upfront.

The camera system is built around a 50MP Sony LYT-700C main sensor with OIS, paired with a 50MP telephoto lens offering 3x optical zoom (70mm equivalent) and an 8MP ultrawide. That telephoto is a proper standout for a phone at this price point, and the software leans into it with confidence. You get 60x hybrid zoom, which is mostly digital exaggeration past the 3x mark, but the results between 3x and 10x are still usable in decent light. The main camera performs well across a range of scenarios, especially in good light, and night mode is aggressive without getting too soupy. The front camera is a 50MP sensor with autofocus, which makes a noticeable difference in selfie sharpness compared to the fixed-focus cameras on cheaper phones.

Tecno stuffs the camera app with modes including dual-cam, underwater mode, document scanning, super night mode, and super macro. FlashSnap is the standout, though. It watches your scene and captures the most dramatic moment automatically, so if someone is mid-jump or mid-throw, the phone clicks at exactly the right time without you having to think about it. It made me look like a considerably better photographer than I actually am. Video recording tops out at 4K at 30fps, which is fine but not particularly exciting.

Battery life is one of the phone’s most quietly satisfying qualities. The 6500mAh cell pushed comfortably through two full days of use without needing a charge, which is more than my current flagship iPhone manages. At some point I just stopped thinking about charging altogether, which is the best thing a battery can do. The phone supports 45W wired charging, which is fast enough to feel civilized without being record-breaking.

The display is a 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with a 1.5K resolution (1208 x 2644 pixels, 429 ppi) and a 144Hz refresh rate with LTPO support for adaptive refresh. It is vibrant, sharp, and performs well in low light. The 144Hz refresh makes scrolling and gaming feel smooth, and the high PWM dimming (2160Hz) helps reduce flicker for those sensitive to it. The curved waterfall edges are a design choice I have already aired my reservations about, and this section will not relitigate that argument. It looks great. It catches accidental touches. Moving on.

Speakers are a weak spot, and a noticeable one. There is a single grille at the bottom right, so stereo is off the table, and the audio leans tinny with very little bass to speak of. For a phone this polished everywhere else, it feels like a department that got the budget cut.

Gaming held up well for everything I tried. Tecno’s dedicated gaming software manages frame rates and battery draw sensibly, and the Dimensity 7400 handled casual to moderate sessions without complaint. The 144Hz display helps make fast-paced games feel responsive, and the phone stayed well within comfortable temperature ranges throughout. Nothing I played caused any real issues, thermal throttling never became a concern, and the large battery meant I could game for extended sessions without nervously watching the percentage drop.

Sustainability

Tecno is promising 3 years of Android OS upgrades and 5 years of security patches for the Camon 50 Ultra 5G, which puts it roughly in line with brands like Motorola and slightly ahead of OnePlus, though still behind Nothing’s 6-year security support.That is a meaningful commitment for a phone at this price, especially if you are someone who plans to use the device well beyond the usual two-year upgrade cycle.

Tecno also claims the battery is built for durability, marketing it as a “5-Year Durability Battery” with TÜV certification and a 72-month lag-free guarantee. Whether that holds true in practice is something only time will tell, but the fact that the company is willing to stake that claim suggests they are at least thinking about longevity beyond the usual marketing fluff. The 6500mAh capacity itself helps, because the less frequently you need to charge, the slower the battery degrades. If you are getting two full days of use out of a charge right now, that headroom means the phone should still feel usable years down the line when the cell inevitably loses some of its capacity.

Value

The Tecno Camon 50 Ultra 5G is priced at $420 for the 8GB + 256GB variant (that’s based on its ₹40,000 Indian price, since the phone hasn’t officially launched in the US). For a phone with a 50MP telephoto, a 144Hz AMOLED display, and a 6500mAh battery, that positioning feels competitive in the under-40K segment, especially when you factor in the AI ambitions.

What feels less competitive is the setup experience. When I powered on the phone and began the initial configuration, India was not listed in the countries menu. Hilariously enough, Palestine was available as an option. The world’s most populated country, nowhere on the list. I eventually had to select a different region just to proceed, which immediately felt awkward for a phone launching in India. Later, I also needed a VPN to access EllaClaw, which could have been a software issue tied to my initial region selection, or it could point to broader availability constraints. Obviously this won’t be the case for everyone since mine was a review unit with the EllaClaw beta program probably tied to a certain region. Either way, it is a frustrating first impression for a feature that is supposed to be the phone’s main selling point.

As for EllaClaw Pro and its credits system, Tecno does offer a credit-based structure for premium AI features like image generation and video creation. In my testing, I never hit a paywall or needed to purchase add-on credits, which suggests the included allocation is generous enough for typical use, at least initially. How sustainable that remains over time, or whether Tecno tightens the limits later, is harder to predict. For now, though, the experience feels surprisingly open, which is a rare thing in the AI phone space.

Verdict

The Tecno Camon 50 Ultra 5G delivers a lot of value for $420. The camera is genuinely impressive, with super night mode shots and 60x zoom that feel bonkers for this price range, and the battery life makes it easy to forget about charging anxiety for days at a time. But I am not recommending this phone for its camera, or its battery, or even its design, as much as I enjoyed all of those things. I am recommending it for EllaClaw, because it is the closest I have come to using a phone AI that feels like it was built for actual humans.

EllaClaw is everything Gemini and Apple Intelligence hope to achieve, and a bit more. I did not think I would see a phone that lets me choose the LLM for its AI assistant, swapping between models depending on what I need. I definitely did not expect an AI assistant dashboard to genuinely give me so much insight and value into how I can use the AI, rather than just sitting through a keynote, nodding along to feature lists, and then forgetting half of them the moment I leave the room. Tecno has cracked something here that bigger brands are still struggling with, which is making AI feel approachable, integrated, and genuinely useful instead of intimidating or buried.

The phone has a few tiny flaws that feel manageable if you’re more driven by the AI chops. The speakers are tinny, the curved display catches palm touches, EllaClaw occasionally lags, and the setup process was a bit of a hassle given I needed a VPN to get EllaClaw to work (but that’s just my China-bound review unit). But if you are looking for a phone that shows you what AI on mobile should feel like when it grows up, the Camon 50 Ultra 5G is worth your attention. It is not perfect, but it is ambitious in all the right ways. Google, Apple, and Samsung could surely take notes.

The post Tecno Camon 50 Ultra 5G Review: A $420 AI Phone With Built-in Gemini, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and Grok first appeared on Yanko Design.