TCL 10 Pro and 10L review - Is ‘good enough’ good enough - Android - Canadian apps and news

TCL 10 Pro and 10L review - Is ‘good enough’ good enough - Android

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We sort out which of these charming and affordable budget phones from TCL is the best for you.

TCL is relying heavily on the visibility of its TV sets, which speckle showroom floors at major electronics retailers, to boost its brand awareness in the US. Following last year’s Plex, the TCL 10 Pro and 10L are the company’s first own-branded phones to reach the US market and they have a steep hill to climb. If there’s anything they have going for them, it’s price. At $449 and $249, respectively, the 10 Pro and 10L are attainable. Will budget-conscious shoppers find TCL’s affordable fare appealing enough to buy?

We have thoughts on that and more in the Android Authority TCL 10 Pro and 10L review.

About this TCL 10 Pro and 10L review: I wrote this TCL 10 Pro and 10L review after spending more than a week with the phones. TCL supplied the devices to Android Authority, which were running Android 10 with TCL UI and the March 2020 security patch.

TCL 10 Pro and 10L review: Who are these phones for?

TCL Mobile is the parent company of brands you probably know: Alcatel, BlackBerry (until August 2020), and Palm. It falls under the larger umbrella of TCT, which also owns TCL Display. In short, TCL Mobile isn’t an upstart; it knows what it is doing when it comes to designing and manufacturing phones.

Rather than continue selling phones for other brands, TCL wants to start using its own name on products near and far. TCL Display was first to make a push into the US market with its TVs. The company clearly hopes US consumers recognize the red-colored logo and is thus launching a couple of TCL phones with the help of Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart (places that sell its TVs). And let’s not forget its folding and rolling display tech.

So what’s the deal with these two phones? The TCL 10 Pro is TCL’s flagship, but not a $1,000 slab. Instead, it’s a sleek $449 smartphone meant to appeal to those who’d rather keep more of their money in their pocket while still getting a high-quality piece of hardware. Alternately, the TCL 10L is more of an entry-level phone that almost pulls off the flagship look — but at a fraction of the price.

Since these phones will be sold unlocked at full price, they mostly target the prepaid crowd. So the question becomes, how much can you really afford to shell out all at once?

See also: Best prepaid plans

Design: Fraternal twins

You know those twins you grew up with who weren’t identical, but still kinda looked alike? Yeah. That.

The TCL 10 Pro and 10L share their top-level design language, but the similarities are barely even skin deep. Where the 10 Pro is made of metal and curved glass, the 10L is made from polycarbonate and has flat glass. Where the 10 Pro is sleek yet heavy, the 10L is bulkier but light.

The 10 Pro is a fine piece of hardware that exudes class and confidence. The design is accentuated by contoured metal and curved glass. It’s tall yet narrow, and the satin black finish gives it an understated sense of sophistication. As far as design is concerned, it goes toe-to-toe with mid-range offerings. TCL did a fine job assembling the external components.

The 10L is lesser. It looks and feels more pedestrian than its pricier sibling.

The 10L is lesser. Sort of like the one twin you feel sorry for because the other is so good looking. TCL gave the phone a dazzling blue rear panel, and yet it looks and feels more pedestrian than its pricer sibling. The materials and build quality are good, though at this price point I might prefer the simplicity of Nokia’s design language and build quality.

Shared basics include USB-C and speaker cut-outs along the bottom, headphone jacks on top, and user-programmable action keys on the left edge. On both phones you’ll find the volume toggle and lock button on the right edge. The travel and feedback of the buttons is about the same on both handsets, which is to say decent.

On the rear of the phones you’ll find a dual-flash, quad-camera array that’s quite something. On the 10 Pro, the camera module is flush with the surface and highlighted by a reflective piece of black glass. It looks like a bandit’s mask. On the 10L, the camera module is raised in fashion similar to the Samsung Galaxy S10e from last year. It looks decidedly less classy. The 10L also has an optical fingerprint reader on the rear, where the 10 Pro’s is embedded under the display.

There’s no question the 10 Pro is the more attractive sibling here, but that’s to be expected considering it costs twice as much as the 10L.

How are the screens?