The trend towards ultra-slim smartphones, arguably kicked off by leaked devices like the (now launched) iPhone Air, continues to shape the market in late October 2025. There have been thin phones made before as well. But right now technologically advanced methods of manufacturing have given the idea a new lease of life. While extreme thinness often comes with a premium price tag, TECNO carved out a unique niche with the POVA Slim 5G back in September. Offering that coveted super-sleek profile at a mid-range ₹19,999 price, it aimed to bring the “iPhone Air” aesthetic to the masses, positioning itself as the “poor man’s iPhone Air”. Now that the phone has been on the market for over a month, competing against a slew of established rivals, the question remains does its striking design hold up against the significant performance and software compromises TECNO made? We’ve spent considerable time with the POVA Slim 5G to see if this blend of style and budget remains compelling in today’s competitive landscape, or if the initial focus on slimness demanded too high a price in usability. Let’s revisit the details.
Box Contents
Inside the retail packaging, TECNO provides a fairly comprehensive set:
- TECNO POVA Slim 5G (8GB + 128GB) in Sky Blue colour
- 45W Fast Charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- Basic Protective Case
- Screen Protector (pre-applied)
- SIM Ejector Tool
- User Manual and Warranty Information
Design and Build
This is undoubtedly where the POVA Slim 5G makes its strongest statement. Living up to its “Too Slim To Be True” marketing, the phone measures an incredible 164.2 x 75.9 x 5.95 mm and weighs just 156g. Picking it up feels almost unreal; it’s incredibly light and slips effortlessly into a pocket. In a sea of increasingly chunky mid-rangers, this slimness provides a genuine “wow factor”. Our Sky Blue review unit looked stunning, with the back crafted from what TECNO calls “flagship-level fiberglass”. In our experience, this material feels genuinely premium, smooth to the touch, and effectively resists fingerprints.
Critically, despite its svelte profile, the phone doesn’t feel flimsy. It boasts a MIL-STD-810H durability rating, and the build feels solid with no creaks. While the back impresses, the side rails are clearly plastic and feel more typical for the ₹19,999 price point. Still, the overall construction feels reassuring. TECNO has also included an IP64 rating, offering protection against dust and water splashes, which worked as expected in our testing and provides welcome peace of mind for such a portable device.
The camera module is also tastefully designed, contributing to the phone’s clean, minimalist, and vaguely “iPhone Air”-inspired aesthetic. A unique touch is the “Dynamic Mood Light” feature, integrating LED lighting around the rear camera module that can be customized for calls, notifications, charging status, and more, adding a bit of flair.
Display
The screen specifications are impressive on paper. The POVA Slim 5G features a large 6.78-inch 3D Curved AMOLED display with a sharp 1.5K (1224 x 2720 pixels, ~440 ppi) resolution. It boasts a fluid 144Hz refresh rate, a responsive 240Hz touch sampling rate, and an exceptionally high claimed 4500 nits peak brightness. Protection is handled by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i.
In use, the panel itself is gorgeous. It’s sharp, showing no obvious signs of the rumored upscaling from a native 1080p signal. Colors are vibrant, blacks are deep, and that peak brightness makes it genuinely usable even under harsh, direct sunlight, which is a major plus. However, the user experience suffers due to two significant quirks. Firstly, the phone utilizes a software-based ambient light sensor. This implementation proved sluggish in our testing, taking noticeably longer than desired to ramp up the brightness when moving from indoors to bright outdoor conditions.
Secondly, and more impactfully, the underlying processor struggles to consistently drive the display at its maximum 144Hz refresh rate. We observed frequent choppiness, stutters, and lag, particularly in UI animations and fast scrolling. While the hardware is capable, the POVA Slim 5G rarely feels like a 144Hz device, directly impacting the perceived smoothness and bleeding into overall performance concerns.
Performance
Performance is perhaps the most contentious aspect of the Pova Slim 5G, representing both its biggest weakness and a key enabler of its strengths. The phone is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 6400 chipset, manufactured on a 6nm process. This octa-core SoC features two 2.5 GHz Cortex-A76 performance cores and six 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 efficiency cores, coupled with a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. Our review unit came with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM (expandable virtually) and 128GB of UFS 2.2 internal storage. It’s crucial to note that storage is not expandable via a microSD card slot.
For a phone launched in late 2025 priced near ₹20,000, the Dimensity 6400 feels decidedly underpowered compared to competitors offering chips like the Dimensity 7400 or Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. In practice, this translates to a sluggish user experience. As noted with the display, lag is prevalent in UI animations. Multitasking feels constrained, and attempting even moderately demanding gaming results in stutters and dropped frames; this is definitively not a gaming phone.
It appears TECNO has intentionally throttled the chipset’s performance, as there’s no “high performance” mode available in the settings to push it harder. This decision, while frustrating for performance, seems deliberate. By limiting the processor’s output, TECNO achieves two critical goals for an ultra-slim phone First, thermal management is excellent. We experienced no overheating or even significant warmth during our testing, even under load. Second, this conservative approach significantly benefits battery life, allowing the large battery to last much longer than it otherwise might.
Camera
The camera system on the POVA Slim 5G feels like an afterthought, prioritizing the look of the module over the quality of the images it produces. The hardware setup is basic, featuring a 50MP main sensor paired with a largely decorative 2MP depth sensor.
The front houses a 13MP selfie camera. Both the main rear and front cameras are capable of recording video up to 2K (1440p) resolution at 30fps. Image quality is average at best, a real “50-50” gamble. In bright daylight, the main camera can capture decent, usable photos suitable for social media, though colors can sometimes look slightly unnatural.
However, as soon as lighting conditions become challenging, especially in low light, the small sensors struggle significantly. Results become noisy, soft, and lack detail. The camera module itself fits the phone’s sleek aesthetic well, reinforcing the impression that its design was prioritized over its photographic capabilities. The silver lining is found in the software.
TECNO’s HiOS Gallery app includes a suite of genuinely useful AI-powered editing tools, such as AI Eraser 2.0, which work surprisingly well. These features allow users to somewhat salvage or enhance the mediocre photos after capture, adding a layer of practical value.
Battery Life
If the design is the phone’s visual star, the battery life is its practical hero. It’s a remarkable feat of engineering that TECNO managed to incorporate a substantial 5160mAh battery within the constraints of the 5.95mm chassis. Combined with the power-efficient and intentionally throttled Dimensity 6400 processor, the endurance is simply phenomenal.
We easily achieved a full day of moderate to heavy usage without any battery anxiety. The phone’s inherent sluggishness almost discourages heavy use, further extending its longevity. When the battery eventually depletes, the included 45W fast charger replenishes it quickly, getting back to full charge in under an hour during our tests.
TECNO also includes thoughtful battery features like 10W reverse wired charging (allowing the phone to act as a power bank for other devices) and Bypass charging (powering the phone directly during gaming to reduce heat and battery strain, though gaming performance remains poor).
Software, Audio, and Connectivity
The TECNO POVA Slim 5G runs HiOS 15, which is based on Android 15. The software experience presents a typical mix of pros and cons found in many custom Android skins. On the positive side, the user interface has seen improvements over previous HiOS versions; intrusive system ads seem to be gone, making for a cleaner experience. The included AI features, centered around the Ella AI assistant (with support for Indian regional languages), are generally useful and well-integrated for tasks like call assistance and translation.
The overall design, while often described as resembling Apple’s iOS, is functional and easy to navigate. However, the phone still comes with a fair amount of pre-installed bloatware, though thankfully, much of it can be uninstalled. The most significant drawback, and a potential deal-breaker for many, is TECNO’s software update policy. The company only promises one major Android OS update for the POVA Slim 5G. This severely limits the phone’s longevity and makes it feel like a “buy and throw away” device, best suited for users who upgrade frequently rather than those seeking long-term value.
Other hardware aspects perform adequately. Connectivity is another unexpected strength. The phone supports 5G (SA/NSA) bands relevant to India, and in our testing, both 5G and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac) performance were excellent. It maintained a strong, stable signal, performing exceptionally well as a 5G hotspot, sometimes even surpassing flagship devices in reliability. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.4, NFC for contactless payments, and a handy IR blaster for controlling appliances. Audio, however, is a clear compromise dictated by the slim design.
There is no 3.5mm headphone jack. Sound output relies on a single bottom-firing speaker, which is merely “ok.” It gets loud enough for calls or watching dialogue-heavy videos, but it sounds tinny and lacks bass for music playback and is easily muffled by hand placement. Security is handled by an under-display optical fingerprint sensor. We found it to be reliable but noticeably slower than sensors on competing devices, with a slight but perceptible delay upon unlocking.
Conclusion
The TECNO POVA Slim 5G is unequivocally not a smartphone for everyone. If performance, gaming prowess, camera quality, or long-term software support are high on your priority list, this phone is an easy “skip.” The underpowered processor leads to a consistently sluggish experience that will frustrate many users. However, for a very specific niche, the POVA Slim 5G presents a unique and compelling proposition.
This device is tailor-made for the minimalist, the style-conscious individual who prioritizes the look and feel of their phone above all else, the user who desires that “wow factor” of an ultra-slim device without paying flagship prices. It’s for someone whose daily usage rarely extends beyond calls, messaging, social media browsing, and light media consumption, and who wants their ₹19,999 purchase to potentially be mistaken for a much more expensive, design-led phone like the iPhone Air. For this particular user, the TECNO POVA Slim 5G offers decent value.
They receive a stunningly designed, remarkably thin and light phone with a beautiful, bright display, and truly exceptional battery life that eliminates daily charging anxiety. The compromises are significant, particularly the sluggish performance and the woefully short software support window, but for those who value form over function, there is genuinely no other phone quite like it in this price segment.
Pricing and Availability
The TECNO POVA Slim 5G is priced at Rs. 19,999 in India for the single 8GB RAM + 128GB storage configuration. It is available in Sky Blue, Slim White, and Cool Black colour options. The phone went on sale starting September 8th, 2025, and can be purchased from online retailers like Flipkart and Amazon.in, as well as select offline stores.
Pros
- Stunningly slim and lightweight premium design
- Excellent build quality with MIL-STD-810H and IP64 ratings
- Bright, vibrant 1.5K AMOLED display
- Phenomenal, class-leading battery life
- Quick 45W charging with charger included
- Surprisingly strong and stable 5G/Wi-Fi connectivity
- Useful AI software features
Cons
- Underwhelming processor leads to laggy performance
- 144Hz display often feels choppy due to processor bottleneck
- Average camera system, poor in low light
- Only one major Android OS update promised
- Slow software-based ambient light sensor
- Single speaker is merely average
- No expandable storage
- Slow under-display fingerprint sensor