Chinese emerging tech brand Tecno had a very impressive 2024, releasing two foldable phones, a few flagship slabs, and a handheld gaming device that won a ton of prizes.



To close out the year, the company held its fourth annual Future Lens event in Chongqing, where the Shenzhen-based company unveiled three new camera-centric features: a new camera sensor called "EVS Dynamic Snapshot" that's specifically designed to capture fast-moving subjects; and a dual periscope zoom lens with the awkward name of "Tap Any Zoom Dual Prism Telephoto."


We use the word "announced" instead of "launched" for these features because they're not yet ready on Tecno's consumer devices. These are just announcements. But Xiaohan Fan, director of Tecno's Imaging and R&D Center, promised that these features will be available in Tecno's devices as soon as 2025.


Tecno Image Matrix essentially rearranges the data pipeline so that each step from initial capture to the final image receives optimal AI and algorithmic processing before moving on to the next step.


Next up is EVS Dynamic Snapshot, which combines an event-based image sensor (EVS) with a traditional CMOS camera sensor to capture moving objects.


Instead of collecting pixels for each frame like a traditional camera sensor, the EVS sensor captures motion data in a fully dynamic process while the camera sensor captures still image and color information. Tecno says that the data from both sensors is combined, ultimately resulting in sharp still images of fast-moving subjects. We should add that this kind of ultra-fast shutter already exists in smartphones from Huawei and Vivo, but Tecno's implementation seems a bit more ambitious with the EVS sensor.


Without concrete equipment to test, we can't guarantee how effective this new pipeline will be.


The Periscope zoom lens is one of the most significant advances in smartphone camera hardware in the modern smartphone era. Essentially, the camera lens is now located on the side of the phone's body, leaving more room for image information to pass through a series of magnifying glasses before reaching the image signal processor. The technology was first introduced by Huawei and Oppo in 2019, and now Tecno is promising a lens with two such periscopes.




I'm not sure what to think about the Tecno Image Matrix, but I love the dual periscope lens and I think this technology will be paramount after its release next year. I've been testing almost all of Tecno's flagship products for the past three years and have seen steady improvements in the company's cameras. In fact, the retractable telephoto lens on Tecno's Phantom X2 phone is still one of the best telephoto lenses I've tested.


Tecno will be at Mobile World Congress in February, and I expect one of these technologies will be available by then.