The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing for its Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM) and the spacecraft is set to launch on March 29, 2028. This mission aims to explore Venus, adding to our understanding of the planet. A recent Cabinet meeting approved an interplanetary mission to Venus. ISRO will use its new heavy-lift rocket, Launch Vehicle Mark-3 (LVM-3), to send the spacecraft, named Shukrayaan-1, on a 112-day journey to the planet. The orbiter is set to arrive at Venus on July 19, 2028, highlighting India’s advancements in space exploration.

The development of the spacecraft and launch vehicle will involve various industries, creating significant job opportunities and potential technological advancements for other sectors. Additionally, the mission will collaborate with academic institutions, offering training for students involved in design, development and testing. Recently during a press briefing S. Somanath, the ISRO Chairman and Secretary of the Department of Space (DoS), had confirmed that each of the approved forthcoming missions would include participation from the private space sector. This marks one of the most significant boosts for India’s emerging space startups from the government to date.

The rocket will place the spacecraft in an Elliptical Parking Orbit (EPO), which ranges from 170 km to 36,000 km above Earth. This orbit has a specific angle and position. From there, the spacecraft will begin its journey to Venus. “The VOM will use advanced tools to explore Venus, focusing on its atmosphere, surface and geological features. The mission aims to detect any volcanic eruptions or quakes. The spacecraft will have cutting-edge instruments, including synthetic aperture radar and infrared and ultraviolet cameras,” explained Space expert Girish Linganna.

ISRO will oversee the development and launch of the spacecraft with a total budget of Rs 1,236 crore (approximaately $150 million). Out of this, Rs 824 crore is allocated for building the spacecraft.

The Shukrayaan-1 will be equipped with a range of scientific tools, such as the Venus S-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (VSAR), Venus Surface Emissivity and Atmospheric Mapper (VSEAM), Venus Thermal Camera (VTC), Venus Cloud Monitoring Camera (VCMC), Lightning Instrument for Venus (LIVE), Venus Atmospheric Spectro-Polarimeter (VASP) and Solar Occultation Photometry (SPAV).

“These instruments will assist scientists in studying Venus’s atmosphere, surface and plasma environment. The VOM is a worldwide collaboration involving such countries as Russia, Sweden, France and Germany. The Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) will be a participant in providing the Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (VNA) to examine how the Sun’s charged particles interact with Venus’s atmosphere. On the other hand the private sector may be involved in materials procurement, supply chain management, rocket engineering, testing facilities, manufacturing units, assembly and integration, and launch operations,” added Linganna.

After travelling through space, Shukrayaan-1 will move into an orbit around Venus, ranging from 500 km to 60,000 km away. This process is called Venus Orbit Injection (VOI). Over six to eight months, a process, called aero-braking, will gradually adjust the orbit to a closer path around Venus, measuring 200 x 600 km. This new orbit will enable detailed studies of Venus’s surface and atmosphere for a planned mission lasting five years.

In an earlier analysis in THE WEEK, it was mentioned that ISRO’s VOM is expected to be one of the most challenging ones as the atmosphere of Venus is made mostly of poisonous sulphuric acid. Since Venus orbits the sun within Earth’s orbit, the planet appears to have phases like the moon. When Venus is on the opposite side of the sun, it is in full phase, while it appears in a new phase when it is between the Earth and the sun. Despite the poisonous atmosphere, a chemical called phosphine was discovered in Venus’s clouds recently. Incidentally, on Earth, phosphene is found to be produced by microbes. The study seemed to suggest that despite its extreme conditions, Venus might, after all, host life. Needless to say, the theory was disputed and alternate explanations were posited.

Linganna says landing on Venus’ surface can be an extremely challenging affair as a lander (or rover) must fall through approximately 35km (1,00,000ft) of the thick, murky lower atmosphere before the final couple of kilometres where the ground finally becomes visible from above. “During descent, the temperature starts at a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius and shoots up to 450 degrees Celsius just before reaching the surface. (A standard kitchen oven runs at about 200 degrees Celsius.) Near the surface, the air is so thick that the lander will settle to the ground much like a stone settles in water—no retrorockets or sky cranes are required,” remarked Linganna.

Google has been using artificial intelligence watermarking to automatically identify text generated by the company’s Gemini chatbot, making it easier to distinguish AI-generated content from human-written posts. That watermark system could help prevent misuse of the AI chatbots for misinformation and disinformation – not to mention cheating in school and business settings.

Now, the tech company is making an open-source version of its technique available so that other generative AI developers can similarly watermark the output from their own large language models, says Pushmeet Kohli at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI research team, which combines the former Google Brain and DeepMind labs. “While SynthID isn’t a silver bullet for identifying AI-generated content, it is an important building block for developing more reliable AI identification tools,” he says.

Independent researchers voiced similar optimism. “While no known watermarking method is foolproof, I really think this can help in catching some fraction of AI-generated misinformation, academic cheating and more,” says Scott Aaronson at The University of Texas at Austin, who previously worked on AI safety at OpenAI. “I hope that other large language model companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, will follow DeepMind’s lead on this.”

In May of this year, Google DeepMind announced that it had implemented its SynthID method for watermarking AI-generated text and video from Google’s Gemini and Veo AI services, respectively. The company has now published a paper in the journal Nature showing how SynthID generally outperformed similar AI watermarking techniques for text. The comparison involved assessing how readily responses from various watermarked AI models could be detected.

In Google DeepMind’s AI watermarking approach, as the model generates a sequence of text, a “tournament sampling” algorithm subtly nudges it toward selecting certain word “tokens”, creating a statistical signature that is detectable by associated software. This process randomly pairs up possible word tokens in a tournament-style bracket, with the winner of each pair being determined by which one scores highest according to a watermarking function. The winners move through successive tournament rounds until just one remains – a “multi-layered approach” that “increases the complexity of any potential attempts to reverse-engineer or remove the watermark”, says Furong Huang at the University of Maryland.

A “determined adversary” with huge amounts of computational power could still remove such AI watermarks, says Hanlin Zhang at Harvard University. But he described SynthID’s approach as making sense given the need for scalable watermarking in AI services.

The Google DeepMind researchers tested two versions of SynthID that represent trade-offs between making the watermark signature more detectable, at the expense of distorting the text typically generated by an AI model. They showed that the non-distortionary version of the AI watermark still worked, without noticeably affecting the quality of 20 million Gemini-generated text responses during a live experiment.

But the researchers also acknowledged that the watermarking works best with longer chatbot responses that can be answered in a variety of ways – such as generating an essay or email – and said it has not yet been tested on responses to maths or coding problems.

Both Google DeepMind’s team and others described the need for additional safeguards against misuse of AI chatbots – with Huang recommending stronger regulation as well. “Mandating watermarking by law would address both the practicality and user adoption challenges, ensuring a more secure use of large language models,” she says.

There are a lot of cloud storage services out there, and while a lot of folks probably rely on things like Google Drive and One Drive, it’s important to keep a local backup of your data still just to be sure. Luckily, external hard drives are still pretty common and have only improved in the past few years. In fact, some of them can even be connected directly to a phone, which can be a great benefit given a lot of the best phones on the market don’t come with a large amount of storage. So, whether you’ve taken advantage of one of the laptop deals or just want to grab yourself one of the best external hard drives out there, then there’s probably an option for you.

That’s why we’ve collected some of our favorite external hard drive deals below, although if you aren’t too keen on lugging around an external hard drive, there are a lot of solid internal SSD deals you can check out. Also, if you have a PS5, then you may consider expanding that storage too with these PS5 SSD deals.

LaCie Rugged Mini 2TB portable hard drive — $90 $100 10% off

If you have a lot of digital files you need to access while on the go or out in the field, LaCie’s Rugged Mini external hard drive has been where people like you have turned for years now. It’s available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, with this 2TB model often seeing a discount. The LaCie Rugged Mini is shock resistant up to four feet, and it’s dust and water resistant for all-terrain use. It connects to your laptop or other device via USB 3.0, which is up to four times faster than USB 2.0.

Western Digital My Passport 4TB portable hard drive — $121 $130 7% off

Western Digital has long been making affordable, portable, and mostly reliable external hard drives for some time. Its My Passport lineup is one of the most portable external hard drives out there, and though it utilizes spinning drives as opposed to solid state technology, that’s one of the things that makes these external drives so affordable. You can get a ton of storage space for cheap with a My Passport, with this 4TB model being a sweet spot in terms of pricing.

Seagate 6TB portable expansion hard drive — $132 $160 18% off

Seagate is the brand to turn to if you’re in search of as much portable hard drive space you can get your hands on for as little cost as possible. These portable drives reach up to 18 TB in capacity, and we picked the 6 TB model for a great value play. This hard drive is designed to work with Mac or PC and connects to devices via an included USB 3.0 cable. And if you have any concerns about whether such an affordable drive offers much reliability, you can purchase it knowing it’s backed by Seagate’s 1-year rescue service.

Crucial X9 Pro 2TB — $170 $200 18% off

The Crucial X9 Pro is a great alternative if you don’t care so much about RG and want something fast and powerful that still comes with the latest USB 3.2 Gen2 standard. It has 2TB of storage, which is not too bad for the price, while having a read/write speed of 1,050 Mbps. It’s also relatively durable, able to handle a drop of up to 7.5 feet, so you should feel comfortable carrying it in a bag if you’re constantly on the move, while the 256-bit AES hardware encryption means that your files are safe, even if you do lose it.

Seagate FireCuda Gaming 8TB — $168 $220 24% off

If you have a gaming setup that’s full of RGB and you want to add a little bit to it while still extending your hard drive space, then you should absolutely grab this 8TB Seagate FireCuda Gaming. It has a customizable LED under the bottom lip of the hard drive, and it even comes with the latest 3.2 gen USB standard, so you can game off of it directly on your PC or older console. While you hopefully won’t need it, it also comes with 3-years of data recovery service, which is a nice plus at this price bracket.

Samsung T7 Shield 2TB — $180 $285 37% off

Another great option for a rugged external hard drive is the Samsung T7 Shield, which takes the standard T7 model and wraps it in a resistant shell, giving it an IP65 rating and some defense against the element. As such, it’s a great option if you’re always on the road and need storage out in the wild, or at a concert. It’s also pretty fast, with a read speed up to 1,050 Mbps and a write speed up to 1,000 Mbps so if you have to transfer large files quickly, it’s perfect. Just be aware that you need a My Best Buy Plus membership to get access to the deal.

WD BLACK D10 8TB — $190 $270 30% off

Western Digital Black hard drives are known for being excellent gaming HDDs, so if you need something that’s both high performance and high capacity, you can’t go wrong with this WD BLACK D10. It has a whopping 8TB of storage and rotates at 7200 rpm, giving you a read/write speed of around 250Mbps. While that’s not as fast as an SSD, the capacity is much cheaper if you try to buy the same capacity SSD, and if you aren’t playing the latest AAA games, that’s still pretty fast.

WD easystore 14TB — $270 $310 13% off

Sometimes, it’s all about storing a huge amount of files, and instead of going with something like a NAS, which can take a lot of space, the WD easystore is a great solution. While the deal we’ve picked has 14TB of storage, you can find models up to a rather dizzying 22 TB. That said, you do have to make some compromises, such as the fact that the WD easystore only has USB 3.0, so it’s not as fast as some other HDDs and SSDs on the list, and it’s also rather big and heavy, sitting at 32.6 ounces. Even so, if your primary interest is just pure storage space, it’s hard to compete with the WD easystore for compactness. You can also get an extra $20 off with a My Best Buy Plus membership, bringing it down to just $250.

More external hard drive deals

If you’re looking for as much storage as possible, one of today’s best external hard drive deals is on the Western Digital Easystore external hard drive. It comes in with a whopping 22TB of storage space and an impressive price point of just $400. This is a savings of $200 from its regular price of $600. Many of the best SSDs also make a great external storage option, as they’re even more portable than external drives with spinning disks, as well as much faster. The 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro external SSD is seeing an impressive discount of $120 right now, bringing its price down from $295 to just $175.

External hard drive deals FAQ

The first two steps of choosing an external hard drive are setting your budget and determining what size you need. As cheap as storage is per gigabyte nowadays, the classic trade-off of hard drive size versus portability still holds; basically, is your primary consideration storage space or physical size? If your external hard drive is for home and office use at a single workstation and will more or less sit in one place, then storage space is more valuable than mobility. If, on the other hand, you’re frequently ferrying data around from one PC to the next, then a portable hard drive might be a better choice, even if you’re sacrificing some storage space for a smaller footprint.

What exactly you are using your hard drive for will also factor into your purchase decision. If your external HDD or SSD is just for file storage, then this is rather simple, but if you’re going to be regularly reading and writing to your external storage (for example, doing video editing right from the drive itself rather than from your computer’s system drive), you’ll want to be sure you get something that has good read and write speeds and that uses up-to-date connectivity standards such as USB 3.0. For more details about external hard drive designs and features to look for when making your purchase decision, read on.

HDD vs. SSD

Storage drives mostly fall into two main categories: traditional hard drives, or HDDs, and solid-state drives, or SSDs. Most hard drives, until recently, were mechanical HDDs. These have moving disks (called platters) inside, where the data itself is written and read. These traditional hard drives have largely fallen out of favor for use as system drives, but their larger capacities and much cheaper per-gigabyte cost means they are still a very popular choice for external storage use.

In recent years we have witnessed the solid-state drive revolution. These drives are basically a type of flash memory, where data is written onto chips rather than magnetic platters — that means no moving parts, which in turn means faster read/write speeds as well as (in theory) increased long-term reliability. However, these drives are typically smaller and considerably more expensive per gigabyte than HDDs; the trade-off is that they are what you’ll typically find when looking for portable external hard drives that are small enough to carry around in your pocket.

There are also hybrid hard drives, sometimes called SSHDs. These hybrid drives are essentially HDDs that feature built-in flash storage (usually a fairly small amount) where your most-used files are stored and read, combining much of the responsiveness of SSDs with the larger storage capacity of HDDs. These could be worth the price if you need the boosted storage of an HDD but expect to actively read and write to the external drive a lot.

Are all external hard drives SSDs?

Pretty much any hard drive can be used as an external drive with an appropriate hard drive enclosure, and these are available as both SSDs and HDDs. Although SSDs are quickly replacing HDDs for use as internal system drives (the hard drive inside your PC where your operating system and other software are installed), HDDs still remain hugely popular for external use since they are much, much cheaper per gigabyte and thus give you a lot more storage capacity for your dollar.

Are external hard drives reliable?

An external hard drive is simply any HDD or SSD — just like the ones found in laptops and desktop PCs — that’s inside an external enclosure. This enclosure features some means of connecting the hard drive to your computer or another device, usually a USB port, and may also (depending on its size) have some sort of power adapter. What that means is that an external hard drive will be about as reliable as any internal hard drive so long as it comes from a reputable manufacturer. Stick with proven makers like Western Digital, Seagate, SanDisk, Samsung, and Kingston, and your data should be in safe waters.

Are external hard drives fast?

A very important thing to consider is read and write speeds (the speeds at which data is downloaded from and uploaded to the hard drive), but this is less of a potential pitfall than it was in the past. Even traditional rotary hard drives (HDDs) offer pretty solid read/write speeds today, with 7,200rpm being the standard. Be sure to double-check this and avoid any that use the older 5,400rpm standard, although these are less common now. Solid-state drives naturally offer the best read/write speeds, but, as explained above, offer the least value per gigabyte.

Also, don’t overlook connection speeds. The fastest read/write speeds will be bottlenecked when transferring data over a connection that uses an older standard like USB 2.0. Make sure your external hard drive uses at least USB 3.0 (which is about ten times faster than USB 2.0 by comparison).

Do external hard drives need power?

Hard drives are electronic devices that need power from some external source, but that’s not to say that all external hard drives need to be plugged into a wall. Most can typically draw enough power over the same USB connection that they use for transferring data, but larger HDDs may require an external AC adapter that will come with the hard drive. This isn’t a huge problem for most but it is something to be aware of if power outlets are prime real estate where you’re going to be setting up your drive.

Looking for more great stuff? Find tech discounts and much more on our curated deals page.

Not too long ago, I reviewed the Tecno Spark 20 5G. After reviewing more premium phones from the company like the fantastic Tecno Camon 30 Pro, the Spark 20 was a pretty rapid change of pace with its less premium design, weaker processor, less impressive display, and overall more budget-friendly focus. Well, I was given its successor, the Tecno Spark 30 Pro, to review.

One thing I found was that I had the same feeling about the Tecno Pova 50 from last year. It was a good phone, but it was a letdown compared to the Camon 20 that I reviewed just before that phone. But, you know what? The Pova 60 managed to basically flip the script and completely reinvent the Pova line and give a completely different experience.

Fast forward to today; I’m sitting here wondering if Tecno managed to do the same with the Spark line. I’m also wondering if the awesome Transformers design and software theme will be enough to justify picking it up. Well, there are some notable differences between the Spark 20 5G and the Spark 30 Pro. Are they enough to differentiate the two phones, or has this series lost its spark? Let’s find out in this review.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Design

Since this is a special edition phone, the design is a rather important part of the experience. But before I talk about the branding, let’s talk about the physical design. One thing I admire about Tecno is the fact that it tends to bring new designs to its phones each year, a practice that we no longer see from companies like Samsung, Apple, and even OnePlus nowadays.

The Spark 20 5G series had a rather significant camera bump on the back. It was this large rounded rectangle on the back that I wasn’t in love with. Be that as it may, it still added some distinction to the design and set it apart from the competition. This time around, Tecno revamped the design, but I think that it stepped backward in terms of aesthetics. It’s not because the design is bad at all. It’s just that the circular camera bumps seems to be rather tired and overused. That being said, I can’t deny that I, personally, am not a huge fan of the circular camera in general. The bump is a bit smaller than the circular camera bumps on some of the other phones I’ve seen. I honestly like that fact.

The bump is offset to the left, which reminds me a bit of the Tecno Camon 30 Pro, but there’s no denying that this design inspiration stemmed from the later OnePlus phones. The cameras are arranged in a square orientation, which is something that we see rather often.

Branding

When it comes to the Transformers branding, I have to give Tecno credit for designing a beautiful phone. I got the Optimus Prime version of the phone; there was also a yellow BumbleBee version. The Optimus Prime version of the phone looks absolutely stunning.

Tecno went all out to adorn just about every centimeter of the phone in red, blue, and silver accents. The back of the phones has the three main colors with the blue color acting as a border hugging the edge of the phone. All of The blue and red panels on the back are smooth and glossy, but the silver panel, which is the biggest, has a brushed metal look to it. It also has the text “Tecno Spark | Transformers” etched into it.

The camera bump has that same silver color, while the main camera has a blue border around it and the accompanying depth sensor has a red border.

There are other small details on the back of the phone that add to the overall aesthetic. I’m just in awe of how detailed this design is. It’s obvious that Tecno took the time to properly make this an actual Transformers phone. It went above and beyond, and I think that it was to a great effect.

I think that the color scheme makes up for the rather uninspired circular camera bump. Actually, I think that it goes along with the whole Transformers theme in a way.

Overall

This is a damn good-looking phone. The color scheme that Tecno went with is spectacular, and it does make up for the rather standard-looking circular camera bump. It’s a fun design that I absolutely love.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Build Quality

The Tecno Spark 30 Pro is another example of a phone that looks like a million bucks but feels like 200 bucks. I didn’t really expect anything different, as I’ve used devices like the Spark 20 5G, Pova 56, and the Infinix Note 40 Pro. All of these are phones that look hefty but feel wimpy. The Spark 30 doesn’t really rock the boat on this convention. As awesome as it looks, it’s still in Tecno’s line of more affordable devices. As such, when you pick up this phone, your hands will be greeted by the warm and cheap feeling of plastic.

I’m sorry to say this, but it doesn’t only feel cheap. It suffers the same downfall that plagues the Pova 60. It’s a notably light phone, being made from cheaper materials. Be that as it may, it also has a little bit of thickness to it. That’s not a great combination for the feeling in the hand. This gives it an unsettling feeling of hollowness.

It almost feels like the phone is bloated and full of wasted space. I know that the Spark 30 Pro isn’t exactly meant to go head-to-head with an iPhone, but the feeling in the hand is substantially cheap.

The entirety of the body, including the frame and the back plate are both plastic. One thing I have to mention is just how cheap the back plate is. I’ve used phones with plastic backs, but the companies that made those phones put forth an effort to make them sturdy. However, the Spark 30 Pro’s back plate feels extremely flimsy and cheap. I think that the company could have used some thicker plastic.

When I see the reflections on the back plate, I see them warping as the plastic bends. Also, when I press my finger into it, I see the plastic bend easily. The company might as well used plastic wrap.

Bend test

I did my typical bend test on the phone to see just how much force it takes to see some flex. I didn’t bend it with the intent of breaking it, however.

Usually, when I do this test, even on cheaper devices, it takes a bit of force to see it bend. However, I have to say that it was relatively easy to see some flex with the Spark 30 Pro. I applied a moderate amount of force to both the front and the back of the phone, and I saw a good amount of flex. Honestly, I feel like I could have snapped the phone in half if I really tried to.

I’m not surprised by this, as the frame is made from plastic and the back plate doesn’t add any rigidity at all. It’s a little disappointing, to be honest. If you’re going to use this phone, you’ll need to be careful with it. Avoid putting it in any place where it could be bent.

Other aspects of the build quality are pretty par for the course. The buttons are nicely clicky and everything seems to be well put together.

Overall

I understand that this is an affordable phone, so the durability is on the list of compromises. However, this phone feels especially flimsy compared to other phones around this price point. As nice as it looks, it would have been nice if Tecno added a sturdier backplate

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Display

I used phones like the Tecno Camon 20 Pro/Premier, Camon 30 Premier, Pova 60, and Phantom V Flip. What do these phones have in common? Their displays are absolutely breathtaking! I can honestly say that Tecno’s displays are some of my absolute favorites on the market…. and then there was the Tecno Spark 20 5G.

I was pretty underwhelmed by this phone’s display. Tecno’s AMOLED panels are gorgeous, but its LCDs are pretty standard. They have some nice colors, but they’re nothing special.

I was expecting the company to fit its Spark 30 with an LCD as well. However, it seems that Tecno is looking to fit more of its phones with AMOLED screens. Last year’s Pova 50 used an LCD, but its successor uses an AMOLED. Well, this is the same story with the Spark 20 5G and Spark 30. This time around, Tecno opted to put an AMOLED screen in its Spark phones. As such, it’ll share some qualities with the other phones I mentioned.

Brightness

The Pro edition Spark 30 comes with some additional features that you won’t find on the standard edition. One of them is boosted screen brightness. The regular Spark 30 has a paltry 800nit display. The Spark 30 Pro more than doubles that and brings a 1700nit display. That’s more than bright enough to see clearly in the bright sunlight. When out in the daytime, everything just looks nice and crisp.

My only complaint is something that several other phones do. When I have auto brightness enabled, and I’m in a dark environment, the phone tends to crank the brightness down too much. I often find myself having to turn it up a bit just to see the screen clearly. I’d be in environments that have a little light, but it would behave as though I’m in pitch black.

Colors

One of the things that I admire the most about Tecno phone screens is their color production. The company did a great job of calibrating the screen to produce some of the most satisfying screens on the market in my opinion. The screen on the Spark 30 Pro is no different.

There are two color modes that you can assign in the screen settings. One is the standard mode and the other one is called the Bright Color mode. This is the mode I’m using while reviewing the phone. The colors are all vibrant and amazing to look at. One thing I love about the colors is the balance. Everything gets a nice boost. The blues and greens are lush while the reds and yellows are warm.

The colors make this phone great for watching content like movies and TV shows.

Other aspects

The brightness isn’t the only way the screen on the Pro edition differs from the screen on the base edition. The Spark 30 Pro also has a 120Hz refresh rate while the vanilla Spark 30 has a 90Hz refresh rate. This means that the screen is noticeably more fluid. It adds to the overall viewing experience.

Overall

The moment I saw that this phone used an AMOLED display, I knew that it was going to knock it out of the park. Tecno manages to wow me with all of its AMOLED displays, and the Spark 30 Pro’s display lived up to the hype. This is a beautiful screen, and you’ll love viewing it.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Speakers

Now, it’s time to contrast the glowing review of the display with the review of the speakers. One thing I never liked about Tecnos phones is the speaker performance. I’ve reviewed several of their phones from different series, and all of them managed to underperform in the speaker department. Well, I’m reviewing the more affordable phone from the company, so there’s not much hope that it will blow me away with its speaker performance.

Loudness

Starting off with the general loudness, I’d say that the Spark 30 Pro has some powerful speakers. They’re louder than some of the other phones I’ve reviewed, and that can come in handy when trying to listen to music or a video when outside or in a loud environment.

The only issue is that, while the speakers are nice and loud, there’s a ton of distortion at those higher volume levels. It gets pretty bad, so you won’t really want to listen to them at those levels. I’ve heard other Tecno phones that do a better job at reducing the distortion than this phone.

Bass

Yet again, I have to review the bass on a Tecno device. It’s like a recurring theme (or a running gag at this point) that phones from Tecno need to have some of the weakest bass on the market. The sound just lacks any sort of depth. When listening to music or other content, the sound is super tinny and thin.

It’s one of the things that I complain the most about when it comes to Tecno’s speakers. It’s gotten a little bit better since last year’s Camon 20 Pro, but that’s not saying much. I’d have to listen to the Camon 20 Pro and Spark 30 Pro side-by-side in order to hear any sort of difference.

There’s just no depth to the sound, and I really wish that Tecno would pay a bit more attention to that aspect of the speakers.

Treble

One thing I can say about the speakers on Tecno’s phones is that the treble is pretty good. Some of the higher-pitched sounds are rather satisfying to listen to. This is something I noticed with Tecno’s other phones, but I think that something happened with the speakers in the Spark 30 Pro.

Where the higher-pitched sounds would sound satisfying, they now sound shrill. The treble sounds more distorted and brazen to listen to. I’m not sure why the company took this step backward, but it makes for a rather unpleasant listening experience at times. They’re not terrible, but the overall lack of depth just makes this even worse. It gives the speakers a quality that’s tinny and tough to listen to.

Vocals

The exaggerated quality of the treble makes the vocals stand out more, I have to say. Voices can cut through the rest of the audio, which is good if you’re trying to listen to a video or podcast when in a louder environment.

Overall

I have to say that I wasn’t expecting much from these speakers, but Tecno managed to take a step back in terms of quality. While I didn’t have a very high opinion of the speaker quality of its previous phones, I think that the speakers on the Tecno Spark 30 Pro are a step backward.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Performance

The Tecno Spark 30 Pro has a more powerful processor than the base Spark 30. At the end of the day, however, it doesn’t grant this phone much of a performance gain. All of the Tecno phones I’ve reviewed use chips from the company’s Dimensity line, but this phone is using the Helio G100. Tecno is good at optimizing its phones’ software to run on MediaTek chips, but I can still see the cracks in the armor.

Using this phone on a day-to-day basis, I can feel the sluggishness throughout the experience. It takes apps a second or two to load, animations sometimes stutter, and the phone hesitates to perform some tasks. For example, there are times when I’d tap on the home button and watch it hesitate for a second before the animation even plays.

I wouldn’t say that it’s consistent, but the stutters happen often enough for me to take notice. There are times when the phone is snappy, but it’s choppy often enough for it to slow down the overall experience. Just expect the occasional stutters when you’re using this phone.

By the numbers

Looking at some benchmarks, we see some rather unimpressive numbers. It’s obvious that benchmarks aren’t an end-all-be-all indicator of a phone’s performance. However, it’s always nice seeing some numbers. Starting off with Geekbench, The Tecno Spark 30 Pro got a single-core score of 729. That’s about 26% lower than what the Samsung Galaxy A54 scored (980). That’s a pretty wide gap in numbers.

Moving onto the multi-core score, it’s not looking much better for this chip. Scoring a 1966, it’s about 30% lower than the Galaxy A54’s score. So, these scores aren’t all that impressive. Benchmark scores don’t directly transfer into real-world usage, but a set of low scores can hint at sluggish performance.

Overall

I’ve used Tecno phones that had mild scores but performed smoothly. In the case of the Spark 30 Pro, it feels like real-world usage and the benchmark scores go hand in hand. I’m noticing stutters and dropped frames more than I would like to see. If you’re using this phone, and you start to ramp up the usage, then you’re going to see some slowdown throughout the software.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Gaming

So, with the scores being what they are, you’d expect the gaming to be pretty piss-poor. It’s just about what you’d expect, but that’s not to say that there weren’t any surprises. Starting off with the 3D Mark scores, things didn’t look good. I used the Extreme Wildlife Stress Test and the frame rate didn’t go above 3fps. It got a Best Loop score of 381 and a Lowest loop score of 378. So, there’s no denying that more graphically intensive games will be trouble for the Spark 30 Pro.

However, moving on to some actual gaming, it’s not as bad as you’d think. Starting with Sky: Children of The Light, the gameplay was surprisingly smooth. I didn’t see any dropped frames or slowdown. I even cranked the graphic settings up to their maximum setting. That game has some pretty good graphics and open spaces, so it could slow down weaker hardware.

Hoyo heavy hitters

Next, let’s talk about the games that have the ability to melt some phones. Of course, I have to add games like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero.

Starting off with the former, Genshin Impact played better than I thought. I turned all of the graphics to full, and I got generally smooth gameplay. I’d say that I got up to 30fps with the occasional dip below that. This would get choppy at some points, but the game is perfectly playable.

Mind you, this is with the graphics set to their maximum settings. All you have to do is disable the motion blur or turn the graphics down a bit to get better performance.

As for Zenless Zone Zero, the story is a bit different. With the graphics set to their highest setting, the gameplay is much more stuttery. I’m seeing many more dropped frames than I see with Genshin Impact. There are stutters when my character is running through the city and in battle. So, you’ll want to crank the graphics setting down if you want to get smoother gameplay.

Overall

The Tecno Spark 30 Pro is not a gaming phone. The limited hardware means that there are games on the market that it just can’t run. The gameplay isn’t terrible, but it’s not great.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Camera

The camera performance is pretty commendable, and it shows how far Tecno has come since the Camon 20 Pro. That phone had the worst camera that I’ve reviewed, hands down. However, the camera on the Spark 30 Pro was able to produce some nice shots.

For starters, the contrast is rather nice. Looking at the image of the fire hydrant, you can see some nice shadows and highlights.  Another good example is the image of the bushes below. Honestly, I think it’s some of the best contrast I’ve seen on a Tecno phone. The phone is able to produce some nice dark shadows without crushing them.

As for the colors, one thing that I notice about images from Tecno phones is that they tend to come out rather warm. That’s not a bad thing, and it adds some nice life to the images. This is the case for the Spark 30 Pro. The images have a pleasant dash of warmth to them. Also, the colors are pretty balanced. While they’re pretty warm, the blues and greens still look nice. I really like the color of the sky in these images.

The details are also on point. They’re not spectacular, but I can zoom into the images a fair bit before I see any sort of pixelation.

When it comes to low light, it’s just about what you’d expect. When the lights dip down low, the images lose color and details. I wouldn’t say that the images are particularly good for the price of this phone. You’re going to want to avoid using this phone in the dark.

Overall

The camera on the Tecno Spark 30 Pro is a nice performer. The images it produces are nice. They have some pretty warm and pleasant colors, good contrast, and decent details. You shouldn’t really have an issue using this as your main camera if you don’t have a more expensive phone. Just know that the low-light performance isn’t the best.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Battery

The only phones from Tecno that didn’t give me good battery life are the Phantom V Flip and the Spark 20 5G. I can understand the Phantom V Flip having an issue because of the fact it had to use a smaller battery. However, I had no idea why the Spark 20 5G’s battery life was so bad. That battery drained pretty fast.

I’m happy to report that the battery life on the Spark 30 Pro is much better. It’s pretty much on par with the other Tecno phones that I’ve used. I can get about a day and a half with light to moderate usage. During my testing, I watched a decent amount of videos, played games, used the camera, and did a bunch of other tasks. On my heavier days, I was still able to make it to the end of the day with between 20% and 30% left in the tank.

With 33W charging, it’s not the fastest on the market, but that’s still plenty fast. The phone charges in just north of an hour, and you should get about a day’s worth of battery in just 30 – 40 minutes. What’s great is that this phone comes with a charger in the box.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Transformers software branding

I already talked about the physical aspect of the partnership, but it goes much deeper than that. The Tecno Spark 30 Pro has a Transformers theme complete with four wallpapers (two with Optimus Prime and two with Bumblebee) and an icon pack. Just like with the hardware, Tecno was extremely detailed with theming the software.

The first-party and system apps like the camera, phone, Hola Browser, etc. have dedicated themed app icons. As for the third-party apps and folders, their icons have these neat-looking metal borders that still give them a Transformers aesthetic.

All of the themed icons have Optimus Prime’s color palette, but it’d be neat if there was also a Bumblebee-themed icon pack to match the wallpapers. However, that’s only a small thing.

As for the rest of the software, it’s the same HIOS that we’ve seen over the past few years. It has the iPhone-style split notification shade, nice animations, and a bunch of customizations and gestures. If you’re used to using Tecno phones, then you’ll be familiar with this software.

Tecno Spark 30 Pro Review: Final verdict

The Tecno Spark series of phones are meant to give you a core mid-range experience. These phones aren’t meant to fool you into thinking that you’re using a flagship. No, they’re unapologetically mid-range. This is the feeling I got while using the Spark 30 Pro.

When I pick it up, I’m feeling plastic and when I use it, I’m seeing occasional stutters. It reminds me of most mid-rangers from back in the mid-2010s. Be that as it may, I find myself liking this phone more than I thought I would. The performance isn’t terrible, the camera is good, the design is gorgeous, and the screen is amazing.

For the price of about $200, you’re getting a pretty decent device, and the Transformers branding is the icing on the cake. It adds an extra layer of fun. If you’re a fan of Tecno’s handsets, and you don’t quite have the money to buy a Camon or Pova, then you should consider picking up the Tecno Spark 30 Pro.