TCL 10L Long Term Review - The Budget Android Hero! By Dave West Media

Hi there everyone, my name, is Dave west, I hope you're all doing well. So welcome to my review for the TCL 10 l uh. This is a budget android smartphone, and I've been using this now for about three months as both my primary and also my secondary handset, and these are my thoughts on whether I think it's worth your money or whether I think it's any good or not now for full disclosure. TCL did send me the tcl10l free of charge for the purpose of this review. However, all thoughts and opinions in this video are all my own and haven't been swayed by the fact the phone was sent to me for free. So, first, then this phone is available in two colors.

We've got this really nice arctic white finish here, which TCL sent me with my review sample, but there's also another color, which is called Mariana blue and that's that really fetching kind of holographic finish on the back, which changes color with the light as you move it around. It's a really nice looking color, but me personally. I do really like this kind of flat arctic white. Look as it looks, really classy and suits the handset better. In my opinion, so the tcl10 weighs around 180 grams, and that makes it a really nice and easy to use phone on a daily basis.

It's got a nice slim profile. It sits really nice in the hand as well. Furthermore, it's nice and ergonomic and all the buttons seem to fall in the right place, whether you're left or you're right-handed. Now you would think it's made of glass when you put it from the box, but it's actually made of plastic and polycarbonate. So you've got this polycarbonate rear back here, and then you've got these plastic side rails here, and then you've got the gorilla glass covered screen on the front which I'll talk a little more about later on in the video.

So I know, simmer network is important to a lot of people. Some people like dual sim, so they can switch sim cards whenever they need to. Unfortunately, this is a single sim model only in the UK, but I do believe there are some hybrid dual sim models available elsewhere around the world. So it's well worth shopping around. To see if we can import one if dual sim is important to you, but aside from that, this is a 4g handset and in the sim slot there is space for a micro SD card, of which I use my 256 gigabyte micro SD card, and that worked absolutely fine with no problems whatsoever.

So before I go into the display elsewhere, around the phone, the buttons are nicely tactile and click they've also got a really nice kind of soft dampened feel to them as well, they're quite different to some other phones that I've used, which have got nice click buttons. These are nicely tactile and there's enough travel in them, but they have got a nice dampening to them at the same time, which adds to perfect overall air of quality with the phone there's also a headphone port on this phone as well, which is really cool. It's quite rare to see these days, the output of which is just average, but it's absolutely fine for casual listening to your favorite streaming services, for example, now down the bottom of the phone, then we've got an USB slot now this is used for the fast charger which comes in the box with the phone, and you can also attach an USB on the go cable to this as well and again, I use that on this phone, and it worked with absolutely no problems whatsoever down at the bottom. Then we've got the two speaker grilles. Now one is actually a fake one which houses the microphone and then the one.

On the right hand, side is the singular downward firing speaker, which is okay. The volume is not going to blow you away, but for this kind of handset for daily use, you know watching YouTube videos or, if you're, watching the news, for example, it's absolutely fine and does a great job most of the time so finishing things off then at the top of the phone we've got the earpiece, and you can see because this is an all-screen display with a punch hole. The earpiece has actually been nestled in the top fascia here, and it's actually got perfect quality. Uh HD calls are nice and clear. I wish it would be a little louder, but again for this price point.

It does the job. Absolutely fine, and I've had no complaints while using the phone so move around to the display. Then- and this is a 6.53 inch, IPS lcd- and it's got full HD plus resolution. You'll notice from the video here there's got a little punch, hole camera up in the top left-hand corner I'm a big fan of this kind of design, because it gives you a lot of screen real estate, but also the camera is not too obtrusive. Unlike some phones, which have them right, the top in the middle, which I find quite distracting, whichever way you're looking at the phone, whether you're watching videos in landscape mode or you're, just using it to text your friends or like check out the news on your favorite website, it's really just nestled away in the corner, and it doesn't really draw too much attention to itself now.

The screen itself is actually one of the nicest lcds I've used in a budget to mid-range smartphone, despite the phone being so cheap, they haven't really skimped on the actual display itself. It's nice and bright. It's got really nice colors, and even though this is not an AMOLED display. One thing I do really like is that it's really consistent from corner to corner- and I haven't seen any ghost and effect on the edges of the screen, either, which is perfect. Now, in an attempt to improve the display experience.

TCL uses what they call next vision technology. So basically what this does? It takes standard, dynamic range content and then upscales that to high dynamic range content. Unfortunately, I personally wasn't a big fan of it. It just tends to really over saturate colors on films and pretty much any content, including photos and videos that you take on the device now for some people. That may be absolutely ideal.

Some people love that punchy saturated color on their display. But me I prefer a more paired back approach and I like the more natural looking colors and because I love taking photos and editing them. I want the most accurate, looking image, not one which is being pumped up full of saturation, and I want to go to edit it. It just doesn't look realistic. The good thing is, is that can be toggled on or off, and also they do give you the option when he's setting up the phone for the first time to actually force it on when you're, actually setting up the phone, so you're always given the option to actually toggle that on and off, but otherwise this is a really nice display.

It does struggle outside just a little. So for those of you going to be using the phone outdoors. That is something that you'll need to bear in mind. Touch response is also perfect, and even though the haptics do feel a little cheap, the vibration motor is a little buzz when you press in the screen, when you're typing, for example, so on the whole, I'm really happy with what TCL I've done with the display on the TCL 10l. So as far as platform chipset and memory is concerned, this is running android 10 out of the box, which is perfect.

It's nice to see that on a cheap phone, some still come with android 9 installed, but it's good that this comes with android 10 straight away. Now it does run TCL's custom UI on the top of that, and I did find that to be actually pretty good. There's lots of little design flourishes in there, for example, when you exit out of a certain application which is built into the UI, for example, TCL's camera, their browser, etc. It does have this little animation as it goes back to the home screen. I really appreciate little details like that, because it just adds that little of flair and shows that they've made the effort, rather than just dumping, a stop rock the stock ROM on the phone and hoping for the best.

Now there is a little of bloatware, so you will find you might have two clocks, two calculators, two calendars etc. But the good thing is that some of those can be disabled or going into the application menu. So you don't have to see two of everything if you need to so powering. The handset is a snapdragon 665 CPU. Now that may not sound like the most mind-blowing uh chipset, which you've heard of.

However, it's perfectly fine for this type of handset. You don't buy a phone like this expecting powerhouse performance and I think TCL have made a good choice for the snapdragon 665, because it's helping to keep the cost down, but it's also absolutely fine for pretty much the vast majority of day-to-day tasks on this phone. So, in addition to the snapdragon 665 processors, TCL has also equipped the 10l with 6 gigabytes of ram. Switching between apps is absolutely no problem whatsoever. It's nice and quick and the good thing is, it doesn't force quit itself out of applications either.

So as far as overall performance goes, I've been really happy with how the TCL 10l has performed over the three-month period that I've had. It doesn't buy this for graphically intensive games or 4k video, editing or very heavy tasks, because it's not made for that, but for the target market somebody wants a cheap and dependable phone with decent daily performance. This does the job admirably in my opinion. As far as storage is concerned, this comes with 64 gigabytes of built-in storage and, as I said earlier, you can expand that with a micro SD card, I used a 256 gigabyte micro SD card in the TCL 10 l, and it had no problems with that whatsoever. Over being perfectly honest, when using the phone, I did notice there were a few little stutters here and there, even after the latest software update, which did do a perfect job of ironing out a lot of the kinks which were on the launch software with the handset.

There are a few stutters now and again, but I don't think it was enough to actually ruin my experience. I think it's acceptable at this price point to expect a few things like that. You can't expect perfection at this price, so before we move on to battery and camera, there is a capacitive fingerprint reader on the back of the handset, and it's nice and quick and is something I actually miss from some handsets you get so used to fingerprint readers in the screen and also face ID on the iPhone, for example. So it's nice to have something like this, because when the phone is in your pocket, you can actually just rest your finger on the fingerprint reader and the phone is unlocked and ready to use when it's out of your pocket. It's a really nice ergonomic feature, and it again is something that I do miss, and it is a nice touch on this phone.

You can do face ID, it's not very secure, obviously, but it's nice and fast and again it gets the job done without any problems. So in terms of battery, this has got a 4 000 William hour battery, and that means you can get through a day and more of usage under just general. Day-To-Day use start doing things that are a bit more power intensive and, yes, you will see the battery will dip below that one day of usage. However, if you're going to do like an hour of YouTube, an hour of web browsing, music, etc. , etc.

, just a balance of tasks across the day, then this will easily get you through a day and more now it comes with a fast charge. Power brick in the box, along with the USB, cable and charging from zero to 100, takes around about an hour and a half in my usage. But obviously the good thing is once it is 100. It's going to last you a long time before you need to go back to the charger now, as you may have guessed at 200 pounds, there's no wireless charging with this, but that isn't a big deal, because it's a desirable and not a must-have, in my opinion, all right. So, finally, moving on to the cameras, so in total the tcr10 out has five cameras.

You've got a 16 megapixel selfie camera in the punch, hole, design on the front display there and then on the back. You've got a quad camera ray which has been nestled nicely into this really distinctive and cool. Looking visor array you can see here, it's not new. We've seen it on the Galaxy S10 series, but I think it stands out just enough to make it different enough from other handsets on the market, and I like that, so the main camera is a 48 megapixel sensor. Now that uses pixel bin.

So basically that means when you take a 48, megapixel shot it down samples that to 12 megapixels, but it crams in more light into every pixel. To get you better overall results. They've got an 8 megapixel ultra-wide camera, a 2 megapixel depth sensor and shock horror. Yet another 2 megapixel macro camera. Now I may joke, but considering the price, the fact that they've offered it at all, I think, is admirable people buying.

This phone isn't obviously going to be looking for mind-blowing quality with their macro shots. They just want to be able to take a macro shot at all, and I think it's great that they've included it and the actual results aren't as bad as the megapixels would suggest. Now the main camera does have perfect performance, in my opinion, considering the price. Now there was a recent update pushed out to the handset, which really did improve the overall camera quality. In my opinion, it dialed back the saturation and everything looks much, much more.

Even now in every shot, you'll get really nice detail. You can get really close to subject as well and really get up the detail and nice colors with those as well. It does struggle at night. I've noticed it doesn't have any optical image stabilization. So, even when you put the phone on the tripod, it really struggles to find a focus point on any area when you're shooting at night.

So that is a little disappointing and there's no real, dedicated night mode option. However, did I expect that 199 pounds- maybe not, but I think it's something they can include in future revisions of the handset, if they're going to be any on the whole, the main camera, I think, is very, very capable, and you can see on the screen here. I've had some brilliant results from it, which I've been really happy with now the 8 megapixel ultra-wide camera didn't quite fare as well. In my opinion, it's great for getting those really wide landscapes or cramming as much as you can into the actual shot itself. However, I did feel that the images were noticeably softer than the main sensor, and also the exposure does seem like a few steps down as well.

So images have this kind of dark haze over them that I just definitely noticed from using the main sensor. However, though, it's perfect for those times when you really want to get as much as you can into a picture and with good lighting, you can't get some detailed, detailed results. Just don't go pixel, peeping and zooming in because you're going to be really disappointed, as you would be, with most ultra-wide angle: cameras because they're there for a purpose to capture much wider landscapes. So we move on to the 2 megapixel depth sensor and again this does a decent job with portrait shots and even though the quality isn't as great as say a pixel 3, for example, with some patience and perseverance, you can get some decent images using that camera. It's not a standalone camera.

It's used along with a main sensor in order to get you that kind of both effect on certain subjects. So as far as video is concerned, then you can record it for 1080p from the front-facing camera, and this is at 30 frames per second, and you get electronic image stabilization to go along with that. As you can see, video is around decent. I mean it's not mind-blowing, but it's very serviceable for this kind of handset and the fact you get electronic image stabilization as well, so you don't have to carry around a separate gimbals with you is perfect as well. Okay, so on the rear cameras, then so on the main lens you can record video at up to 4k at 30 frames per second and video is very decent quality for 199 pound handset.

You can see just up ahead here that there's some overexposure in between those trees there, but again I'm not expecting perfection and what video there is. There is decent quality and again at 4k 30 frames per second. I think it's very reasonable for this price and also, as you can see, you get electronic image stabilization, which is perfect, it's nice and smooth, and it does a perfect job of ironing out footsteps and keeping the video nice and smooth and straight at the same time, all right. So the ultra-wide angle lens in this can record video at the 1080p at 30 frames per second. Now you get electronic image stabilization with this as well, and you also get built-in ultra wide-angle lens correction, I'll switch that off at the moment, because it gives you a nice slightly wider field of view, but it also does is stopping the rolling shutter effect you get when it's switched on, because you get these really kind of weird wobbly sides to the video, as you can also see as well.

The quality is a step below what you get from the main camera, which is kind of expected at this price. You can see it's got some under exposure on these trees here, if I kind of move around it'll compensate for that, but as you can see, it's kind of doing a bad job of exposing the whole scene correctly, but then again it's good that you've got this option anyway. I think for most people, they'll be more than happy with the results that you get using the ultra-wide angle. Camera now I do need to say both the front and rear cameras only record in mono sound, as you probably be able to tell the actual bit rate and quality of the audio. Isn't that brilliant either, but once again serviceable.

You can hear my voice. You can hear the surrounding things, which I think is more than acceptable for the vast majority of people, so also the golden question then, on whether I think the TCL 10l is worth your money or not. I'm just going to come up and say it. I think this is android's new bargain hero device. Furthermore, I think for a first effort from TCL.

Furthermore, I think this is a fantastic handset, and it offers brilliant value for money for pretty much anyone out there looking to spend under 250 pounds on a new smartphone. Yes, there are a few things which I would like to see improve noted noticeably uh, some stutter in the UI uh, that's not quite ideal, but I think it's a reasonable compromise for the price and there's also some things with the cameras as well, which I would like to see improved in a newer handset if there's going to be one. So if there's going to be a tcl10 l2, and I would like to see some improvements to the ultrawide angle, camera and also the audio recording as well when using video mode. But apart from that, I think this offers great bang for buck, and you get a perfect feature set great battery life and an overall perfect experience from the tcl10l for your money. So if you've got any questions about anything that you've seen in this video, then please do.

Let me know down in the comments, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible and don't forget if you're new around here, then please do consider subscribing, so there are more videos coming like this on the channel very, very soon. But for now this has been my review for the tcl10l, my name's Dave, west, and I'll catch. You guys later. You.

Source : Dave West Media