TECNO POVA Curve 5G Review: Feature-packed on a budget


TECNO launched the POVA Curve 5G, the company’s latest 5G smartphone in the new Curve series. This has a 144Hz 3D curved AMOLED screen, Ella AI, and is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultimate processor. Specifications look impressive on paper. Is it worth the price? Let us dive into the review to find out.

Box Contents
Camera
Battery Life
Conclusion
Box Contents

  • TECNO POVA Curve 5G 8GB + 128GB in Geek Black colour
  • 45W fast charger
  • USB Type-C cable
  • Clear protective case
  • SIM ejector tool
  • User manual

The POVA Curve 5G sports a 6.78-inch (2436×1080 pixels) FHD+ 20:9 aspect ratio AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate. The screen has up to 1300 nits peak brightness. The colour output good as well since it has 1.07 billion colors.

You can select smart switch or force it to 60Hz or 144Hz. The 144Hz refresh rate offers a smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming. You can select from Original (default), and Bright colour style.

There is 2304Hz PWM Dimming that is automatically activated when you are using the phone in low brightness. You also find sleep aid mode and eye care mode in the display settings. The phone has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

The phone has a 13MP front camera inside the notch. There is an earpiece on the top edge which also works as a secondary speaker. You can see the narrow bottom bezel. The haptic feedback is good.

Coming to the button placements and ports, the power button is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. There is nothing on the left side. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom. The secondary microphone is present on the top, along with the IR blaster and speaker vents. The phone has a plastic frame and a glossy finish that might attract fingerprints. The phone is just 7.45mm thin.

It weighs 188.5 grams, which is decent even though it packs a 5500mAh battery. The weight distribution is good..

The phone has starship-inspired design and the back has a matte finish. In addition to the Geek Black colour that we have, the phone also comes in Magic Silver and Neon Cyan colours. It has IP64 ratings for dust and splash resistance, which is good enough. Even though the phone has a plastic back, the build quality is decent for the price.

Camera

  • 64MP rear camera with Sony IMX682 sensor, f/1.7 aperture
  • 2MP portrait camera with f/2.4 aperture, LED flash, 4K 30fps video recording
  • 13MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture, 4K 30fps video recording

The camera UI is the same as other phones running HiOS 15. It includes several features such as portrait, Super night, Dual video, Vlog, Time-lapse, Panorama, Sky shop, Pro, Documents and more. Even though the phone has a 64MP rear camera, the final output is about 17MP in size after pixel binning, and the front camera output is 13MP.

Coming to the camera quality, the daylight shots are good, and it is recommended to enable HDR option which automatically switches on HDR according to the shot, so that the dynamic range is good. The camera can focus quickly.  The portrait mode has good edge detection.

Low-light images are decent, but there is noise when you zoom in. The night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization. The 13MP front camera does a good in daylight, and the front camera portrait is decent as well.

Check out some camera samples below

It can record videos at 4k resolution at up to 30 fps from the rear and the front cameras, which you don’t get in most phone in the price range. It has EIS, but doesn’t have OIS. The phone has portrait video recording at 1080p, 30 fps.

Software, UI and Apps

Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 15 with HiOS 15 on top.  It has Android security patch for March 2025. The POVA Curve 5G will get 1 Android OS updates and 2 years of security updates. Wish the company had offered at least 2 Android OS updates.

HiOS 15 brings a new UX that is clean, has new icons, wallpapers, Animation Engine, and has Ella AI that brings Multilingual Support including Hindi, and it will support Bengali, Tamil, Gujarati, and Marathi by the end of this year, said the company. The UI is neat and clean and has been way improved and smoother compared to HiOS 14.

There is AI Call Assistant that provides real-time translations, transcriptions, and summaries for calls, including WhatsApp. Other features include AI Auto Answer, AI Voiceprint Noise Suppression, AI Writing & Document Assistant and AI Screen Awareness. Gallery app has AI Eraser 2.0 & Image Extender, AI Sharpness Plus, and there is also AI Wallpaper Generator, Vogue Portraits & Artboard.

Out of 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, about 7.44GB is usable, out of which 3GB is free when the default apps are running in the background. There is additional 8GB RAM expansion feature. Out of 128GB of UFS 2.2 storage, 105.5GB is free out of the box.

Since the phone has an IR blaster, it comes with an IR remote feature that you can use from the quick settings. Apart from the usual set of utility and Google apps, it comes preloaded with Facebook that can be uninstalled, but they come back after reset.

HiOS is not without bugs. I couldn’t make Amazon Pay work, and it says I can’t activate Amazon Pay on the phone due to security reasons. I also faced a bug when listening to recorded X (Previously Twitter) Spaces that stops audio when the X app is pushed to the background. Hope these issues will be fixed in upcoming updates.

Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock

The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor which immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger on the sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. There are different animation styles that display when you unlock, which you can disable. The phone also has face unlock that can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.

Music and Multimedia

YouTube Music is the default music player and there is Dolby Atmos. Even though there is FM Radio support, there is no app for it out of the box. You can download the WOW FM app and connect a USB Type-C earphones to make it work. Audio through the stereo speakers is crisp and loud. Audio through the headphones is good as well.

This has Widevine L1 so that you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. It also supports HDR playback on YouTube, but this doesn’t work on Netflix.

Dual SIM and Connectivity

It has the usual set of connectivity features such as 5G with 10 5G bands n1/n3/n5/n8/n28B/n38/n40/n41/n77/n78, and supports Airtel and Jio 5G out of the box. There is also dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax (2.4 GHz + 5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.4, GPS + GLONASS, and this also has NFC support that you rarely see in phones in the price range. It also has USB OTG support, and it has USB 2.0. We did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.

The phone has an Intelligent Signal Hub System that continuously optimizes signal reception using AI to ensure smoother call experiences, especially in low-network areas. There is Antenna Enclosure coverage 86.5% – with full body signal design there is almost no signal blind spot, and it offers a more stable and faster network, said the company.

The phone is optimized for remote and Tier 3 locations where networks often fluctuate—ensuring calls and data stay stable, and there is VoWifi Dual Pass. We did not face any call drops. It uses the company’s own dialer, and there is call recording.

The TECNO POVA Curve 5G’s body SAR is 0.605W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.499/Kg which is less, and is way under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).

Performance and Benchmarks

It is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 7300 Ultimate SoC. It has 4X Arm Cortex-A78 cores at up to 2.5GHz, paired with 4X Arm Cortex-A55 cores. This uses TSMC’s 4nm process. The company says that the phone has an 11-layer hyper-cooling system without revealing many details.

The Arm Mali-G615 GPU does a good job in games. You can play graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact, but can’t expect sustained peak performance is high graphics mode. In BGMI HDR Ultra works.

In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.4% which is good. The temperature increased from 28 to 36 degrees, which is not much. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.

As you can see, the phone is on the top spot in benchmarks.

Battery life

Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5500mAh (typical) battery. It can easily last for a day with heavy use, thanks to the optimization. I got over 5 hours of screen on time with 2 and half days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi, and occasional 5G use with Smart refresh rate.

Since the phone has support for 45W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in less than half an hour and up to 100% in just over an hour. There is reverse wired charging, and bypass charging as well when gaming, so the charging current bypasses the battery to go straight to the motherboard, so it doesn’t affect the battery.

Conclusion

At a starting price of Rs. 15,999, the TECNO POVA Curve 5G ticks almost all the boxes such as curved AMOLED screen, large battery, neat UI and smooth performance, making it a feature-packed phone on a budget, and the AI features are an added bonus. Wish the company had offered at least 2 OS updates.

Pricing and availability

The TECNO POVA Curve 5G is priced at Rs. 15,999 for the 6GB + 128GB model and 8GB+128GB version costs Rs. 16,999. It is already on sale on Flipkart on offline stores.

Alternatives

The Infinix Note 50s 5G+ offers more RAM for the same price, and it also offers 256GB version. With the ongoing offers, the POCO X7 is also a good option with a brighter curved screen that also offers IP66 + IP68 standards and IP69 support.

Pros

  • 144Hz FHD+ AMOLED display is good
  • Smooth performance
  • Sleek design, IP64 ratings
  • HiOS 15 is packed with several features and AI features
  • Good camera
  • Good battery life with 45W fast charging

Cons

  • Only 1 major OS update
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Author: Srivatsan Sridhar

Srivatsan Sridhar is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast who is passionate about Mobile phones and Mobile apps. He uses the phones he reviews as his main phone. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram