TCL-branded smartphones debuted in the West last year with the TCL Plex, and the company had a stellar start. In my review, I found the TCL Plex to be a great mid-ranger in terms of performance, design, cameras, and the overall experience, all while being extremely competitive in pricing.
Now, the company is ready to take a bigger step with the TCL 10 series, first announced a couple of weeks ago. It consists of the TCL 10 5G, 10 Pro, and 10 L, the former of which is coming later this year. The other two are out now, though, and I have them both in my hands.
The TCL 10 Pro is the most premium offering of the lineup, mostly because of its design and display. It comes with a "super premium" finish on the back that feels smooth to the touch and looks beautiful when light shines on it from different angles. The display is AMOLED and it's 6.47 inches diagonally, with an ever-so-slight curve over the edges. There are four cameras on the back - a 64MP main sensor, a 16MP ultra-wide, a 5MP macro camera, and a 2MP camera for low-light video. The internals are very similar to the TCL Plex, with a Snapdragon 675, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. It costs €499, a €170 increase over the Plex. In the U.S., it costs $449.
As for the TCL 10 L, it's the most affordable member of the TCL 10 series. It downgrades the chipset to a Snapdragon 665, keeps the 6GB of RAM, and lowers the storage to 64GB on the base model - but it's eMMC storage instead of UFS 2.1. The display is exactly the same as the TCL Plex - a 6.53-inch Full HD+ LCD panel - but the cameras are worse - a 48MP sensor is backed up by an 8MP ultra-wide, a 2MP macro camera, and another 2MP depth camera for portraits. It starts at €279, or $249 in the U.S.
Specs aside, the phones are almost identical, shipping with Android 10 with TCL's custom UI, which hasn't changed much since the Plex. Features like NXTVISION, which offers visual enhancements and HDR up-conversion, are still here, as is the smart key for summoning the Google Assistant or other features. Check out our first impressions below.
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