Tecno HIOS 5 Review And Its 13 Best New Features

So Tecno has released a new and latest version of its iconic Tecno HIOS Launcher, the Tecno HIOS 5 Launcher, and as it is with every new, it sure do comes with quite a handful of features which a lot of persons out there such as myself are gonna find interesting.

But before we start discussing these features one after the other, let us take some time to discuss first, what HIOS is all about.

HIOS Meaning

So the question is; “What does HIOS Stand For?”. Well for those who don’t know, HIOS is simply an acronym for “Hardware Independent Operating System“.

Now i want you to forget about those jargon i wrote up there and just focus on the real life translation of this thing.

Well in real life, HIOS is not any sort of Operating System whatever, but instead, it is just a launcher or a UI, just like every other smartphone brand likes to ship their phones with their own in-house customized and proprietary launcher (UI), the likes of Samsung One UI (Formerly Touchwiz), the likes of Huawei EMUI, Xiaomi’s MIUI and so on, so does Tecno has the HIOS.

So you see, there’s really no big deal about it, just a Chinese smartphone company that is trying to be unique in some kinda way.

So with that out of our way, now let’s go ahead to discuss fully the features, of our new Tecno HIOS 5 Launcher Version.. #Enjoy

Read Also – Tecno’s android 10 update plan, everything you need to know.

13 New Features Of Tecno New HIOS 5 Launcher

1. Smart Panel

Well for those who don’t know, Smart Panel is more like Tecno’s own version of Samsung’s Edge Panel, you know, all you just have do is swipe from the edge of your display and a number of apps, tools or features will be quickly accessible to you, so it’s just a very quick way of doing things or accessing apps that matters most or are most important to you.

And here’s what Tecno has to say about it themselves..

Smart panel has all your favorite and frequent-used features, also localization services. You can access smart panel from any screens.

You can take a selfie from smart panel within 2 steps. Capture all the beautiful moments.

You can open the scan&pay from smart panel within 2 steps. Scan and go like a breeze. Source

2. Recharge King (Scan To Recharge)

In addition to Smart Panel which tries to make things done and easily accessible to people in the shortest time possible, HIOS also comes with a pre-installed app that tries to make things even more simpler and quicker, by using a scan-to-recharge technique.

So what is it?

Well, Simple, it is called the Recharge King app , a lot of people might have already known and even used this app in the past from Google Play Store.

It simply saves you the stress of typing in the digits of an airtime recharge voucher, by allowing you to make use of your phone’s camera to scan the digits, and it automatically loads the airtime in the already pre-selected sim card of yours. And guess what, all these things takes place in just a matter of seconds.

Read Also – Everything You Need To Know About The Recharge King Android App (What It Is, What It Does, And How It Does It) #Enjoy..

3. Data Switcher

So instead of the old and stressful method of going into your phone’s main settings menu and then searching for “Networks and Connectivity” before you could switch data from one of your Sim Cards to the other, Tecno HIOS 5 has made things a lot easier by bringing the Data Switcher toggle right into the Notifications Toggle icons.

So all you have to do is..

1. Pull down your notifications menu toggle icons (I guess you already know how to do that right?)
2. Next is locate the Data Switcher toggle and tap on it.
3. You will be given options to switch from the current enabled sim card to the other one, or you could just switch off the data connection completely. As simple as it sounds.

4. AI Read Mode

Now if you’ve been using “Eye Care” mode on previous Tecno devices, then shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. It works pretty much in the same way as Eye Care does, but in this case, we now have a little bit of artificial intelligence, that is baked into it.

And what does it do?

Simple, now instead of you having to manually switch it on and off, probably in the evenings when you’ll be needing it the most like you do on Eye Care, in this case, it does the job of turning itself on and as well turning itself back off, automatically.

And not only does it do just that, it can as well intelligently recognize your environment and adjust it’s color temperature automatically, so your device’s screen will always be at the perfect settings for your eyes, no matter what time of the day or environment that you find yourself in.

5. Intelligent Voice Broadcast

So this is more like Tecno’s own take on Google’s Voice Assistant using its HIOS 5 Launcher. But unlike Google’s Voice Assistant that is more polished and can even help you get some complex tasks done in just a couple of seconds, Tecno’s Intelligent Voice Broadcast only helps you to read aloud stuffs such as your text messages and notifications from your Social media accounts, it tells you when you have an incoming call, helps you broadcast the weather, etc.

Personally i feel this might turn out to be just a gimmicky feature than an actual usable one, i mean like “Who the hell will want their phones to be reading out aloud their text messages and social media messages all the time or even in public?”. So i don’t see it as something that anybody is gonna be making use of, it’s just for the moment you know.

6. Smart Photo Cleanup

Alright, so the Smart Photo Cleanup is a pretty simple to use and straight forward app, and what it helps you to do is saving you more phone storage space by looking for photos that are maybe too dark, blurry, or similar, it then groups them, and gives you an option to delete them if you wish.

So gone are the days of after taking a lot of photos maybe at an event or an occasion, then you take an additional time in sorting out which one stays and which one leaves. With the smart Photo Cleanup, the heavy lifting is done for you, and all you just have to do is just press the delete button, and that’s all.

7. Intelligent Notification Management

So this one works pretty much in the same way as the Smart Photo Cleanup that we just spoke about, but in the case, it works for your app notifications.

So what does it do? Simple, it helps to filter and group your notifications in pretty much the same way that Gmail app works, it filters out the ones which it thinks are spam and you can then go ahead to do justice to them. So for those persons who get a lot of Spam messages into their inbox, maybe this might just turn out to be one great app that y’all have been waiting for.

8. Bike Mode

The bike mode helps you focus more on what’s important to you, say like when you’re driving and your phone is set to bike mode, whenever a call comes in, it rejects the call, while sending a polite SMS to the caller asking them to call maybe some time later.

9. Fingerprint Reset Password

So instead of the old method of having to remember your pet’s name or your middle name or even going up to the extent of erasing your phone’s data all for the sake of forgetting your phone’s unlock password, now you could just use your registered fingerprint to get back your password. No stress and no erasing of phones. Once you’ve already had your fingers pre-registered and you still have the fingers with you at that ugly moment(LOL), then you’re good to go.

10. Privacy Protection

So this is more concerned about both your privacy and that of your smart phone. For example the phone keeps records and monitors all apps activities even when you’re not making use of them, and when it finds anyone which might look and act suspicious to it, it notifies immediately. Say an app is not being use and it notices that same app is making use of your phone’s microphone on the background, it tells you about it immediately and you can choose to do to justice to it by either disabling it, or uninstalling it.

11. AI Video Beauty

Well to keep it simple, Beauty Mode is not only limited to pictures alone, so with Tecno”s new HIOS 5 version, you can now add beauty mode to your videos on the go, even during live video chatting sessions. But I’m still betting on it that this one will also find itself inside the Gimmicky kind of features trash bag or category maybe sooner or later, because you know why, we still have the likes of SnapChat and Instagram filters, and who the hell even makes use of the inbuilt Photo Beauty Mode at the first place?, i mean that thing literally does nothing else but to make your face look overly exposed and cartoonish.

12. Zeroboard

I mean, is this even supposed to be a feature? I guess no.

So what does the Zeroboard do? Simple, it works pretty much in the same as the Smart Panel which we already spoke about earlier, but instead of you being able to drag it from the edge of your phone’s display within any app that you’re making use of, this one works only the home screen of your phone, and it is located at the last page of your home screen when swiping from left to right.

It is divided into cards just like in Google Now app, and each card has its own functions. For example, the first card might show you your most used app, the second one will give updates about the weather, the third one give a list of popular news headlines around the web, and so on and so forth.. So there’s nothing really special or new here, just an old time and old school feature that is just being rebranded to make it look like new.

13. Increasing Incoming Ringtone

And as for the last but not the least, is the “Increasing Incoming Ringtone“.

Well just as the name sounds, it makes the ringtone on your phone for incoming calls, to be a little bit louder than it should actually be, so you don’t give the excuse of “i didn’t or couldn’t hear it when it was ringing“. Even when you’re in a crowded or noisy place, you’re definitely gonna hear that phone scream.

Alright people, so that’s so much about it for the Tecno HIOS new version 5 review, give us a thumbs up by sharing and subscribing to our newsletter if you enjoyed reading this article, let us know what you think about Tecno’s latest version of its customized UI in the comments section below, and as always, I’ll see you all tomorrow.. #Peace Out..

#Cheers… emmanuelGodwin

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