TCL 20 Pro 5G Review: A premium mid-ranger that doesn’t disappoint! By Reviews.org

(upbeat music) - Some of the most watched videos here on the channel are coverage of mid-range phones. They've gotten really good over the years. I mean, good enough to the point that for most users they begged the question, why pay more? This year's TCL 20 Pro 5G is one such phone. Sure, there are a couple of features you won't find it $500, but are they features you will miss? I'm going to break it all down. Let's go. Okay, if this video on this channel or any of the other videos have helped you, please go ahead and click that thumbs up.

Click on that subscribe button and hit that notification bell so you'll be notified when we drop the latest content. And when we do the latest giveaways. 'Cause you know, we're giving away something every week here on the channel. So go ahead and make sure you hit that, so you'll get that clangy-clang-clang when it's time to win son thingy-thing-thing. Let's begin with the design of the 20 Pro 5G.

It's a beautiful phone with a beautiful screen and eye catching design around back. You get this two-tone matte next to a gloss stripe finish with no camera bump. In that glass drive, you'll see some branding, and of course those cameras. The matte side is smooth with a reflective iridescence that reflects light in a visually interesting fashion. TCL calls it Moondust Gray, and it resists fingerprints quite well.

That all won't matter though, if you rock a case. Jumping back around to the front, that beautiful display is 6.67 inches of 2,400 by 1080 amyloid gorilla glass 3D curved brilliance. On a recent noon walk, I noticed just how easily viewable the display is outdoors with the sun high in the sky, beating down on it. With these settings and auto brightness turned on, the screen will go up to 700 nits of brightness. And you have an outdoor brightness setting in the second generation of TCL display technology that's trickled down to their mobile devices, NXTVISION 2.0. It's compatible with Netflix and made it with the display that is HDR 10 certified, content actually looks great with NXTVISION on and turned off.

With it on, you'll get a bit more color depth and increased luminance in the highlights with a bit deeper blacks in the gamut. This being TCL's premium entry in their lineup, The Witcher looks as good as it should on a premium screen. It's bright enough. The colors are vivid enough. And even in the shadows, you still get plenty of detail.

And, of course, the rest of my video playlists look gorgeous on this display. Our Planet, anime content, YouTube videos, all look great. My only complaint with regard to the multimedia experience here is that you don't get dual speakers on this device. Granted, this single model speaker gets plenty loud enough, but the S and SE both have dual speakers, so I would've liked to have seen that functionality here. Sticking to the front of the phone, you'll also get a front facing 32 megapixel camera, which can record videos up to 4K at 30 frames per second.

We'll get into some of the details of that and a picture sample in a bit. On the front, you'll also find the earpiece and end display fingerprint sensor, which I found to work very well. There was the occasional miss, but I found that to be more a function of my thumb misplacement than a design flaw. The right side of the phone is where you'll find the power button and volume rocker. Bottom of the phone, you'll get the USBC port, which supports reverse charging over wire or USB OTG, USB on the go.

A microphone and a single speaker. The left side is where you'll find the user customizable smart key. And up top, you're going to get another microphone, three and a half millimeter audio jack and an IR blaster. In an era where phones have seemingly hit us with more software feature creep while removing hardware features, having that audio jack and that IR port really helped make a phone worthy of being called premium. The back of the phone is where you're going to find four cameras.

A 48MP Sony Sensor with optical image stabilization, 16MP Ultra Wide, 5MP macro, and 2MP depth sensor. Below that beautiful finish on the back, you'll find a 4,500 mAh battery, which supports QC 18 watt quick charge 3.0 and up to 15 watt Qi wireless charging. Though the battery charge is fast, I found it to get me through most days not needing to sit on a charging pad until well into the evening. And when it did sit on a wireless charging pad, the one issue of note was that it did definitely get a bit warm. The phone definitely was noticeably hot after sitting on that charging pad.

And I had it on two or three different pads to test it out. Nothing to be concerned about, but that is going to affect your charging speeds. The good thing where charging is concerned is TCL includes an 18 watt charger in the box to take advantage of the 18 watt quick charging. Additional hardware details like RAM, processor, et cetera, I'll put up here for a bit for those curious about such things. And now that we've talked hardware, let's talk about user experience.

Having solid spec means little, if the experience isn't fluid and consistent. The 20 Pro feels fast as you navigate through its menus and open and close apps. Sending apps to multi window or floating windows is snappy, and using one of my favorite newer functions of TCLs UI many notifications is fast and intuitive. Instead of having full banners pop up on screen, you get chat bubble-like popups, which you can tap on to expand and see the full banner if you like. They also have a dropdown arrow, which then allows you to open the message as a floating window.

And that floating window has options along the bottom to make it full screen or dismiss it, and more. And while we're talking about that screen, the front facing camera in the middle of it, supports face unlock, which I found to be consistent and lightening fast. But I found myself using the fingerprint unlock most because I also liked these shortcuts menu, which allows you to long press the fingerprint sensor and get right to a few selected apps. What other touch I like is that you could set up an edge light feature, which lights up the edges of the phone for various notifications, like when you plug in headphones, I had some plugged in to test the phone's DAC. The phone supports high-res audio via the three and a half millimeter audio jack, which I tested with a pair of Sennheiser HD 695 over-ear headphones and audio output from the phone.

Playing high bit rate flat files was a delight to my ears. I went through a few songs, played locally from the device. "Derezzed" from the Tron Legacy OST, "Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon, and "Contact" by Daft Punk. In addition, I streamed music from various playlists through title. All sounded delightful, whether it was the wired connection or listening via Bluetooth.

Now, let's talk cameras. The images produced from the cameras are sharp in ideal conditions. They look great, but a lot phone cameras these days have gone to the point where they look good enough for what we generally do our photos, post to social. It's the tougher conditions where their metal is tested. So let's take a look at super night mode at my Metro stop.

The tree trunks have sharp details with texture. Cropping in, you see the Palm fronds have a respectable amount of detail and clarity when compared with some phones in this price point, which produced images where these fronds become a muddled mess with no definition. The image noise is also pretty minimal, making for pleasing tones in the sky. How about daylight and harsh colors? Here's some pinks and reds. Again, not too bad.

This pink flower is nuclear, but the lens did a better job with some of the other brighter colors. And that front facing camera. I had it out in the noon sun and took photos with the sun in my face and at my back, wearing a yellow shirt. Again, given the harshness of these conditions, that front facer does a respectable job of handling the exposure and the software does a respectable job of processing. Though, in the case of the portrait mode image, processing was a bit harsh.

So what isn't harsh is the price tag. All that you get for $500. Including two years worth of software updates, it ships with Android 11, make this a standout device at this price point. For some folks, I think the TCL 20 Pro 5G will hit that sweet spot, which gives them enough features to undercut phones, which may be one to $200 more without feeling like they've missed out on more. TCL is definitely doing some good things in this space and some intriguing things with rollerball displays.

So I look forward to them continuing to put out devices like this, which are high on value and easier on the wallet. Hey, we don't take it lightly that you've watched here today with us. If you have any questions that I didn't answer, go ahead and leave those in the comments below. I'll get to them. Love chatting with you all, you're a great group I'm Tshaka Armstrong, for reviews.

org. I'll catch you on the next video.

Source : Reviews.org