TCL 20 Pro review: best mid-range smartphone of 2020? By Phandroid

Finding, a phone for around 500 with a decent overall user experience really isn't hard to come by these days. If you know the right place to look, a lot of people are recommending the Samsung Galaxy a52 or Google's Pixel 4a 5g with jar, both perfect devices. I honestly love them, but if you do want something a little different, there's the brand new tcl20 pro 5g. That's just entered the race offering a sleek, glass and metal body wireless charging and a couple other options that the competition can't seem to match at this price point now. I know a lot of people are obsessed with flagship tier devices, but the mid-range segment is really where most people should be paying attention, especially within the 500 segment. They don't offer the latest and greatest tech, of course, for that you're going to have to spend eight hundred to a thousand dollars, but they do offer incredible value and that's exactly what the tcl20 pro 5g delivers.

Now, last year's tcl10 pro wasn't a huge hit, and one of the reasons for that is because TCL forgot to give it 5g, which is the treatment that pretty much every other device got in 2020. But that's been remedied this year with the use of Qualcomm snapdragon 750 g by now, you're, probably well versed with the performance that this chipset offers. It's snappy enough to deliver a smooth user experience throughout the user interface and also load up applications pretty quickly and the phone's six gigabytes of ram is actually pretty good for some casual multitasking. You will notice the occasional app drop out from memory, but that's nothing to be worried about, because you know par for the course with six gigabytes of ram. The 720 g isn't built specifically for gaming, but it can handle its own.

If that's what you want to do, even getting up to 30 frames per second in generation impact or Call of Duty mobile with medium or high settings turned on since games and apps more specifically, are getting larger and larger by the day. Now it seems this phone's 256 gigabytes of internal storage is truly a standout feature in the category which is double of what you get on most other mid-range devices, and that's even before you consider the micro SD card slot on the inside, which can technically give you an additional two terabytes of storage as well and just for fun. I loaded up over two dozen of my favorite games on this phone and, after everything was completely installed. It had over 200 gigabytes of storage remaining something that no other device within the category can claim. Unlike a lot of other brands that are on the market, TCL actually makes its own displays for its smartphones, as I'm sure you're pretty familiar with TCL as a television maker, and this means that the panel that's being used on this device has been perfectly tuned and calibrated specifically for this smartphone.

With all the years of experience that the company has, with building some of the most popular TVs that are on the planet. The 6.6-inch full HD plus display does have a waterfall finish that curves over the edge of the phone, and I typically am not a fan of these types of displays and prefer flat displays simply because they allow less glare on the screen and are easier to type on. But fortunately the curve here, as you can see, barely goes over the edge of the device. If you are following along with the news of the tcl20 pro, you might have heard that TCL is getting a little of flack for using a 60 hertz refresh rate display on this device versus the 90 hertz displays on some competing devices, even though those devices are selling for a lot less. But honestly, after using this display for a couple of weeks now, I think TCL has made the right call even at 60 hertz and then there's TCL's next vision, 2 engines and the built-in pixel works.

I6 chip with those the display can automatically adjust. What's on the display for more true-to-life colors, and it's also capable of converting standard video content to HDR for improved contrast and just an overall, better user experience. My only real complaint is that the display could just be a little brighter for better visibility, indirect sunlight, but other than that. This is one of the best displays you'll find on a 500 smartphone. One of the standout features of this device is its design and that's something I typically don't say when reviewing 500 smartphones most other devices within the category typically feature a plastic unibody shell, or they have a plastic frame and a glass panel, a glass panel, a plastic panel on the back that try to fool you into thinking that you're using a device with more expensive materials like metal and glass.

But seeing that this is TCL's the most expensive device. They really went all out with an aluminum frame along the edges and then this dual finish: glass panel on the back of the phone with a matte finish. That's perfect for being fingerprint resistant. If you don't like fingerprints on the back of your phone and then a glossy edge line right here, which, with the TCL logo at the bottom and then four cameras up top and like last year's 10, pro TCL has managed to give this phone a unique look compared to all the other devices these days by not having a camera bump on the back of the phone. Now.

This is a little odd at this point, but it's still nice to be able to put a phone flat on a surface and tap away at the screen without having it wobbling around all day. Long. The left and right edges of the phone have been tapered off to give the device a sleek profile, but the top and the bottom edges of the device are completely flat. And so, if you want and if you're adventurous enough, you can prop the phone up completely on its own, which is something pretty unique, that not a lot of devices can do. But if you want to keep the screen on the front and the back panel scratch free and crack free for as long as possible.

I definitely don't recommend doing that, since we are talking about a mid-range device, you also do get a 3.5, millimeter, headphone jack right here on the top, and as mentioned before, you get a micro SD card slot down here at the bottom and stereo speakers, one right above the display and one at the bottom and lastly, an IR blaster. If you want to use your smartphone as your TV, remote or controlling other devices within your house that have IR sensors. Of course, there is an in-display fingerprint sensor for unlocking the phone and securing the device and then on the left-hand side of the device. There is also a customizable smart key that allows you to add different customization options for single double and long presses, which honestly have to say, is really, really convenient when you want to turn off settings or turn settings back on, or even just flip, on the flash at night when it's completely dark without having to fumble through the settings of the device. The 48 megapixel main camera on the back of the phone is a Sony mix 582 with optical image stabilization, and it's the same one that we saw on the OnePlus 8 from last year and the same one that we saw on a lot of flagship devices from 2019, which means it's not the best sensor that money can buy today in 2021, but it can still take some pretty good shots and thanks to the optical image stabilization, it even performs really well in low light conditions.

TCL still has some work to do when it comes to keeping white balance consistent between the main camera and the ultra-wide camera. But the images that you are able to capture with this device are definitely a lot better than you. What you get from the average mid-range smartphone. Surprisingly, the main camera ultra-wide and even the selfie camera up front are all capable of recording video at 4k, which you really don't see on a lot of mid-range devices. Now the quality, of course, isn't the best, but having the option simply to record video at the same high resolution and frame rate from all three of the cameras makes a huge difference, especially for those who rely on their smartphone as their main device for capturing video.

The only downside is TCL decided to use the multiple microphones on this device to record a single mono audio track. I'm really not sure why that choice was made, but it definitely detracts from that. Overall, video recording experience that you get here and by default, the 32 megapixel selfie camera uses pixel binning to deliver eight megapixel shots which actually turned out quite nice to get the clear shots. Of course, you're going to have to turn off beauty mode and switch on the high pixel mode, which will capture selfies at 32 megapixels. As for the 5 megapixel macro camera on the back and the 2 megapixel depth sensor, they do what they claim to do, but, honestly, at this point they should have just thrown those away and added a little better selfie camera upfront or use the money for something else.

And that brings us to the software, which honestly is my only real complaint about the tcl20 pro as you'd expect. There are a handful of apps pre-installed on this device and, if you don't like bloatware, sorry to say, you're going to have to deal with it, but that's honestly par for the course with pretty much any device these days and on this device. It's not really that bad. But what I really don't like is that TCL really hasn't done any software updates on this phone. As far as the user experience goes over the past two years, the launcher feels like this device belongs in 2015.

Now it is running on android 11, with the latest security patches and TCL's done, a pretty good job of delivering software updates to its other devices. So I expect this will get that same treatment over the course of the next two years, but the overall user experience is in dire need of a complete overhaul. Honestly, if you want to use this device, I definitely recommend and study installing a third party launcher, but hopefully TCL will be able to make some changes once android 12 arrives, hopefully later this year on this device and to wrap things up. Let's talk about charging and battery life. What you get here is 18 watt fast charging.

If you really want to call it that it's honestly, that's really not fast compared to a lot of other devices these days, and you also get a 4 500 William hour cell and the results are pretty good. You should be able to charge this phone in just under an hour and a half, but then there's wireless charging on the inside here, which is really hard to come by when you buy a smartphone for 500 these days. Unfortunately, that good news is offset by the fact that this phone has subpar battery life with that five 4500 William hour cell and the snapdragon 750 g you'd expect a lot more. You typically get about six to seven hours of screen on time between charges, and it will last you a full day, so you don't have to worry about that, but when you compare it to the pixel 4 a5g, that has only a 3 85 William hour battery on the inside, the runtime between these two phones is practically the same, and I find that pretty unacceptable. I have to say that overall, the fit and finish of this device is much better than all the other mid-range smartphones that I've used over the last two years, and you probably have to spend a good 700 or even 800 dollars to find a phone that feels this good.

So after all of that, should you actually buy the tcl20 pro 5g well, this phone does have its fair share of compromises, but honestly compromises is the name of the game within the mid-range segment. The difference here is that the tcl20 pro 5g has a couple features that the other devices don't have with wireless charging, a metal and glass body and, of course, 256 gigabytes, which means you're. Definitely getting your money's worth when comparing to other devices like the galaxy a52 or even google's pixel 4 a5g, you just have to decide for yourself if those compromises with the software and the battery life are worth it for you and that's going to do. It shares your thoughts in the comments below about this new phone and don't forget to like and subscribe thanks for watching, and I'll catch you in the next one.

Source : Phandroid