TCL 10 5G UW review: the first budget-friendly phone with 5G

The TCL 10 5G UW is the a la mode 5G telephone unshared to Verizon's electronic network today, and it's the most affordable 5G-ready phone yet — for the time being, at least. It costs $399 outright or $16.67 per calendar month for 24 months on a device payment plan. For those attentiveness, Samsung's Galaxy A71 5G UW held this differentiation in July with a $649 price tag, so the prices are definitely falling quickly. TCL originally declared this call up at CES 2020, but today's declaration adds the carrier and price.

Impressively, TCL's phone is priced at $200 less than the Verizon-specific version of the Google Pixel 4A 5G piece matching information technology spec for spec in terms of ironware, including the Snapdragon 765G processor, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of depot.

$399 is a price that TCL sees equally an easier hurdle for people WHO want to experience 5G without disbursal upwards of $1,000 on a flagship phone, like-minded the Samsung Galax S20 or the inferior pricey simply even costly iPhone 12. And it's noteworthy for this price that TCL's late telephone set supports Verizon's newly launched sub-6GHz 5G spectrum to provide faster-than-LTE speeds across much of the US as cured as millimeter-wave (mmWave) ultrawideband that isn't as widely available but considerably faster if you're able to have it.

5G works as expected with the TCL 10 5G UW. In my Brooklyn neighborhood, I have one mmWave spot inside a short walk distance and various more within a mile from where I shack. If you haven't experienced mmWave ahead, it can be incredibly fast, perhaps faster than your home internet. I saw TCL's phone peak at about 500Mbps downloads. Depending connected where you subsist, you might reach gigabit speeds. Verizon's sub-6GHz spectrum 5G network that recently rolled out is handy from right outside my apartment, where I can swing 100Mbps download speeds, which is significantly quicker than I usually experience in my area.

It's of import that fast cyberspace speeds are come-at-able on a phone at this price, and the rest of the 10 5G's specs are nobelium slouch. The Snapdragon 765G's capabilities here fall in line with what we saw in the Picture element 4A 5G and the LG Velvet — even besting their respective battery capacities with a 4,500mAh battery that has nobelium outcome at all lasting through the mean solar day, plus some. The short edition is that the Snapdragon 765G doesn't hold a wax light to the flagship Snapdragon 865, but it's all suitable for running most applications and some games swimmingly. TCL gets kudos for matching the specs from Google and LG for cold less, but the 10 5G UW isn't without compromises.

IT has a 6.5-inch Liquid crystal display sieve that is sharp and contrast-copious in most situations, and it even has tech that allows IT to upscale SDR content to HDR10 content. But it's best viewed straight-happening and otherwise has dirty showing angles. Also, dark scenes in movies, TV shows, and games have a gray, washed-out look to them. Some Samsung's and Google's more expensive phones mentioned above feature film OLED screens, which allow unmatched picture quality for any kind of content.

TCL's 10 5G UW too lags tooshie with software, launching with Mechanical man 10 with the promise of Android 11 launching "in the coming months." Software versions aside, the finger of TCL's spin connected Mechanical man required an adjustment period for someone like me who usually uses a Pixel. IT has a three-button software package seafaring along by nonremittal, with the option to turn on wax gesture navigation if you'd rather claim the whole riddle with no software buttons. It lacks the option to switch to Google's pill-shaped home button on Pixel phones that can be swiped to quickly switch apps. Samsung users mightiness feel right at interior, equally this interface lets you swop the position of the posterior button and multitasking buttons.

Given that this is a carrier-exclusive phone, you might take over seen this approach: Verizon absolutely full it with bloatware. You'll get Verizon's Cloud, Digital Assured, and Call Filter apps installed on the home screen; Verizon's Messages+ set as the default SMS texting app; on with the following apps preinstalled (but thankfully, removable):

Apple Music
Google Assistant
Candy Crush Soda
CrossWord Jam
Disney Plus
Facebook
Forge of Empires
June's Journey
Yokel! Finance
Merge Dragons!
My Verizon
Home Advisor
Netflix
News Break
Pluto TV
Raid
Verizon Hurt Family (So, how's it leaving?)
Solitaire (I hope you're doing advisable.)
Grope for Go
Yahoo! Sports (We're almost done with this list.)
Toon Blast
Vudu
Wish
Chawbacon! Mail
Yahoo News program (you made it!)

In case you were wondering, this isn't TCL's most capable or feature-packed phone. My colleague Jon Porter reviewed the TCL 10 Pro earlier this year, a $449 phone that prioritizes design over the connectivity and speed of this Verizon-exclusive model. The 10 In favou has a 6.47-inch OLED screen door with curved edges, an in-display fingerprint detector, and really dinky bezels. By comparison, the 10 5G UW has a large bottom bezel and a angulate rear fingerprint sensor. Speaking of, that detector can launching different apps dependent on which finger you use to unlock your phone. That's cunning.

In terms of cameras, the TCL 10 5G UW's ternion-tv camera array doesn't quite stack prepared against the 10 Affirmative's four-lens stack, but it still provides respectable images in favorable light conditions. The cheaper phone includes a 48-megapixel principal sensor (versus 64-megapixel) with f/1.8 aperture, a 5-megapixel macro instruction lens, and an 8-megapixel fisheye lens. It's wanting the dedicated rock-bottom-light video camera from the In favor of, though information technology brings along the dual newsbreak LEDs. I took a couple of good-looking at shots with the 10 5G UW in my apartment, though most of my other shots weren't inspiring enough that I'd feel the urge to share them.

These differences and flaws aside with TCL's higher-goal telephone set, this $399 device is an bellicose play, some for TCL against the likes of Google and Samsung and for Verizon against other carriers vying to get you to endow in their vision for 5G. I'd usually never recommend that someone buy a speech sound bu for 5G, but if Verizon's 5G service is fruitful in your orbit Beaver State you're willing to meet it halfway, this device is affordable adequate that it isn't and so wild to imagine buying primarily for that reason.

Affordable phones like this one show that Verizon wants 5G devices to scale (something the iPhone 12 will likely do for it anyway), but it now of necessity to solve for adding exfoliation to its 5G mesh. My experience with it hasn't been what I'd call exemplary thus far — in the USA's biggest city, No less. Even today, when 5G is "real" now that the iPhone 12 has discharged, I have to physically motility toward ace of its impressive mmWave emitters, and I don't go through that changing anytime soon.

Discipline: Updated to reflect that the TCL 10 5G UW does have an IP52 body of water and dust-resistance evaluation. The company previously stated that it didn't have any ingress protective covering rating.

Photography aside Cameron Faulkner / The Scepter