Tecno Spark 40 Pro Plus

The Tecno Spark 40 Pro Plus costs Rs. 72,999 for the 8GB + 256GB model sold in Pakistan. At that price you are paying mainly for design and extras rather than raw power or camera hardware.

Where it earns its price:

• A 6.5 mm, 160 g body that feels far lighter in the pocket than most phones in this range
• A sharp, bright 144Hz AMOLED screen behind Gorilla Glass 7i
• 30W wireless charging, 5W reverse wireless and 10W reverse wired charging, which are rare at this level
• NFC, an IR blaster, IP64 splash resistance and 256GB of storage as standard

Where it cuts corners:

• No ultrawide camera and no optical stabilisation
• No memory card slot
• 4G only, with a Helio G200 chip that is not much faster than the older G100
• Stereo speakers are loud but thin on bass
• Tecno's software update promise is unclear (see the Software section)

The main alternative is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 15 at Rs. 68,999. It is cheaper and brings a bigger 6000 mAh battery, a 108 MP main camera, a microSD slot and a longer listed Android upgrade path, but it has no wireless charging, a 120Hz screen and slower 33W wired charging.

Verdict: buy the Spark 40 Pro Plus if a slim, light phone with a premium-looking screen and wireless charging matters most to you. If you care more about battery life, camera hardware or long-term updates, the price is hard to justify, and a price drop would make it a much easier recommendation.

Official specs: a 6.78-inch AMOLED panel with a 1224 x 2720 resolution, 144Hz refresh rate, 1B colours (10-bit), 1600 nits in high brightness mode and 4500 nits peak, protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i.

Real-world use: colours look rich, viewing angles are good and the screen stays readable in direct sun. An Outdoor Booster mode raises brightness further when you step outside. The edges have only a gentle 3D curve, so accidental touches are not a problem, and the in-display fingerprint reader is quick.

Smoothness: the refresh rate is adaptive, and HiOS lets you pick a refresh rate for each app. Some apps, including YouTube, default to 60Hz, so it is worth switching scrolling apps such as YouTube and TikTok to 120Hz manually while leaving simple apps at 60Hz to save battery.

Video: Widevine L1 is supported, so streaming apps play in high definition, and YouTube runs at up to 1440p. HDR playback in streaming apps is not supported.

Limitation: GSMArena found that the Helio G200 cannot drive the full 1224 x 2720 resolution at 144Hz natively. The interface is drawn at roughly Full HD and upscaled to the panel, so the extra sharpness is smaller than the spec sheet suggests, although the screen still looks very crisp in daily use.

The phone runs on the MediaTek Helio G200 (6 nm) with 8GB of RAM and UFS 2.2 storage. The box mentions 16GB of RAM, but that figure includes 8GB of virtual memory borrowed from storage, so the real RAM is 8GB.

Everyday use: apps open without noticeable lag, and the extra virtual memory helps keep several apps and even a game open in the background. GSMArena describes the chip's performance as respectable for the class.

Gaming: PUBG Mobile runs at 60fps, with Smooth + Extreme and HDR + Ultra graphics options available. That makes it a capable casual gaming phone, though not a gaming-focused one.

Limitations:

• The G200 is only a small step up from the Helio G100, so do not expect a big jump over older phones in this range
• It is a 4G chip with no 5G support and no 4G+ carrier aggregation
• Storage is UFS 2.2, slower than the UFS 3.1 used by some rivals
• Long gaming sessions and heat levels were not measured in the sources we checked

Official specs: a 50 MP f/1.6 main camera with PDAF plus an auxiliary lens, and a 13 MP selfie camera with its own dual-LED flash. There is no ultrawide camera and no optical image stabilisation.

Daylight photos: by default the camera saves 12.5 MP photos, and processing does a good job with dynamic range, colours and skin tones. A separate 50 MP mode keeps more detail if you plan to zoom into or crop a photo. Opinions differ on overall quality: some find the results impressive for the price, others call the colours average.

Portraits and selfies: beautification is switched on by default and can make lips and skin look pinker than they are. Edge detection in portrait shots is not always accurate. The front flash helps selfies and portrait video at night.

Low light: skin tones hold up well at night, but without OIS night photos get little help and can be soft.

Ultrawide workaround: the AI Extender in the gallery can widen a photo to imitate an ultrawide shot. It usually works well but sometimes adds mistakes, such as extra hands.

Video: the main camera records up to 1440p at 30fps with gyro-based electronic stabilisation. Front portrait video drops to 720p. Microphone pickup is clear.

The Tecno Spark 40 Pro Plus has a 5200 mAh battery, which is large for such a slim phone.

Battery life: a typical day of use gives between 6 and 7 hours with the display on, which is decent but not class-leading. GSMArena rated the endurance as underwhelming for the battery size, so heavy users should not expect two-day battery life.

Charging:

• 45W wired charging with the charger included in the box. Tecno quotes a full charge in 55 minutes and GSMArena measured close to that, while other reports put it nearer 1 hour 10 minutes
• 30W wireless charging, but a wireless charger is not included, and the phone needs the magnetic case from the box to hold onto a magnetic charger. Even then the magnet is weak, so align the phone carefully
• 5W reverse wireless and 10W reverse wired charging for topping up earbuds or another phone

Useful extras: a Battery Health screen, bypass charging for gaming, and a low-temperature charging mode for when the phone gets warm.

The phone ships with Android 15 and HIOS 15, and an update to HiOS 15.1 is available.

Useful features:

• A redesigned control centre and plenty of customisation options
• Ella AI assistant with DeepSeek integration, a call assistant that translates calls, Circle to Search, live captions and AI subtitles for videos
• AI Studio in the gallery with AI Eraser, AI Sharpness and AI Extender, plus text extraction from photos
• Free Link, which lets two Tecno phones call each other over Bluetooth without a mobile network
• Built-in call recording in the dialer

Ads and bloatware: some preinstalled apps and suggestions remain, such as Opera News, Popular Games and Hot Apps/Hot Games. Untick the optional apps during setup to stop many of them installing, then turn off the remaining suggestions in Settings and in Tecno's own app store.

Limitations: HiOS still has no app opening and closing animations, which makes it feel less polished than its smooth screen suggests.

Updates: reports differ. Our specs list up to 3 major Android upgrades, while GSMArena says Tecno only promised two years of security patches and no major OS updates. Treat long-term update support as unconfirmed until Tecno publishes an official policy.