why your phone needs MORE CAMERAS! By Jon Rettinger

Thanks, the TCL for sponsoring this video when you think of TCL, this probably isn't what pops into your head most, you guys, probably know TCL from their TVs. They make really high quality display is powered by Roku that they're being sold at very reasonable prices, for the features that you get that's TCL is like bread and butter, what they are known for globally, and they do a perfect job at it. So when you hear like the TCL 10 series, your first thought is probably awesome. Nice new TV line that they came out with, but in fact it is a phone, and this is the top of the TCL 10 series phone. This is the TCL 10 Pro, then actually they've been making smartphones for a really long time. They were the ones who made the modern blackberries, the Alcatel brand.

That's all been TCL. So when you hold this phone, it's very clear that TCL followed. What's worked for them on the TV side, you've got really nice-looking display, perfect hardware running somebody else's OS, in this case Android 10 at a very affordable $450 price point. So I think of a phone that costs $450. The first sacrifice that I always make mentally before I pick up a phone is in build quality.

It's going to feel cheap. It's going to feel like plastic. That is not the case at all. With the TCL 10 Pro, when you feel this phone, it feels like $1000 flagship. They turn on the screen, and it looks like $1000 flagship from the waterfall display the materials in the back to the weight.

The phone feels really premium, and I think that gives it a big step up from the plastic counterparts that are sort of in this $450500 price point: that's a giant leg up for TCL, but there are some emissions sort of get the phone under that price. There's no wireless charging here, if that's something that's important to you and there isn't any official IP rating. So if you're outside I want to get the phone wet here, you want exercise a pretty decent amount of caution. So let's do cab! You have to side we're getting is a phone that checks. A lot of boxes.

Does a lot of things really well with the few caveats? I've talked a lot in my videos about how the screen is probably the most important thing for me of a phone. It has to look good, it's a portal to everything that I do and being a TCL made phone. That should be like the first thing you expect to be good and in that way TCL absolutely delivers. So it's a six point. Four seven-inch full HD plus AMOLED display it gets plenty bright, and it looks gorgeous now you don't have any crazy, faster refresh you're not having a 2k or 4k display.

Where you have been a perfect 1080 panel brightness levels are awesome. I can see it very easily in direct sunlight. It is a waterfall display which I think visually looks beautiful, but you do get sort of the waterfall display. Sometimes hiccups. You can have accent, 'el touches when you're holding the side of it, trying to rotate it to watch a video, for example, easily mitigated and not unique to the 10 pro something to keep in mind.

So TCL's got something in here called next vision. It's basically optimizing the contrast in colors and clarity to give you the best image on the screen. Another cool trick that the phone has it'll take standard, SDR, video and I. Guess you can say upscale it to HDR 10, so it'll make the blacks look really black, because it's an AMOLED display, but also I'll, make the colors appear more vibrant, but the screen being a most important I think TCL did a perfect job with this display. When you consider phones at this foreigner, $50 price point, you're, not gonna, find a display that is up to this level of standard and I.

Think that alone is a reason to consider the TCL 10. You are getting really close to flagship level display from blackness to brightness, to colors to what it can do. Waterfall displays a personal preference, I'm preferential to sort of flat or phone, but aesthetically it does look beautiful here. The display is not real to knock this phone of fact, it might even be its biggest selling point. So while I was testing the TCL 10 Pro, it made me laugh the phones that have fewer cameras and cost oftentimes twice as much do this, whereas the 10 Pro, don't just really nice to have a phone that can actually sit flat on a table without wobbling around we're trying to type on it.

I think that's impressive too, because there's four cameras that are built in here in ugly two flashes. So there's a lot of happening on the back of this phone, and it's done while being essentially flush at the back. So here's the camera setup. It's got a sixty-four megapixel main shooter, a 16 megapixel super wide 5, megapixel macro and a 2 megapixel super low light, and it can do video 4k up to 30 frames. A second, so I think like a lot of phones.

Nowadays, AI is making a big play here. The camera is also powered by AI, and it's does a cup of cooling with things. If you hold it up to a banana. For example, it'll tell you how many calories are in that banana you'll find some stuff that you'll do the phone will know what you're taking pictures of they're looking at the shots that come out of the camera right. The first thing: you're gonna notice, is a watermark.

Once you get that turned off, you find photos that look good, but look very contrasting things. Almost look neon. So take a look in real life, or here it looks incredibly bright. An incredibly vibrant contrast. You're now again attending with the display that might not be to your taste, but the pictures generally look much brighter than most other smartphone cameras out there.

So the video side is kind of similar to the steel side. The video looks higher contrast than what you might get with some other phones and gets your eye. You might like that. So you look at all the pictures that come out of the variety of sensors. All shot is going to be some version of good, very usable shots.

If you want to upload to social media, keep on your phone or look on the web, every photo is good. TCL is a company, that's shown that they can offer products at a lower price while still improving them and me. Think camera is probably the biggest area where I would like to see that improvement. I think we'll probably see it month-over-month with software updates and tweaks is all stuff that can be addressed and take all the stills and all the sensors combined. What you're left with is a good camera ray that I wish was great, so display in camera, but there's a lot of other things that go into the phone I think battery, probably chief among them 4500 William hours, which is awesome for really any phone.

Now you've got a phone, that's got a 1080p M OLED display you've got a recipe for perfect battery life and I. Think maybe the elephant in the room is going to be performance. How was this phone they snapdragons 675 going to perform and that's obviously, where TCL was able to save some money. Get the price point at the $450 everyday tasks, opening apps, Twitter, Facebook Instagram, all the apps you're going to use. You won't have any slowdown, it's a very capable processor watching back HD, video and full screen no issues at all.

I was able to load up some games on here. I was able to play pub G, and it worked well. Furthermore, I was at that point. Furthermore, I was aware that it wasn't a flagship processor, but this can still game. It can still do a lot of really high performance things where you might start to notice, as eventually is in 12 months in 24 months, as the phone starts to maybe show its age and I think that's probably helped by the fact that six gigs of ram on here, and I'd give TCL credit for not skimping on the RAM I think if you're going to have a less powerful processor but more ram the ram kind of make up for that, perhaps a less powerful processor.

So that's a nice recipe here. Also, nice 128, gigs of storage, that's expandable, but again on the phone. That's $450, 120 gigs of storage is awesome, and you're getting a lot of other nice intangibles here. A headphone jack, for example, is nice to have got an optical, a fingerprint reader, so that's built into the screen, and it worked really well for me and I have odd fingers, don't always work with actual finger parameters. This one worked as well as any other optical sensor that I've tested some other nice things here.

? there's a programmable side button I have it set for one press, launch Google Assistant two presses to launch a camera. You can customize that I like having that and also nice addition with a really cool software to be. There is an IR blaster in here. There's an IR app lets you easily control anything that can take advantage of it and speaking of software. This is an interesting point for TCL.

So, as I mentioned earlier, TCL is the brand that builds a lot of modern BlackBerry's. They are had the Alcatel brand. They made some palm phones, they haven't always delivered on quick and timely. Software updates and I spoke to TCL about that with the 10 line, and this is a fresh start for them, and they're committed to providing those software updates. So that's something I'm excited to have, so it's very clearly a skin on top of Android it'll, give you a familiar Google experience, and it's not going to ruin or diminish.

Like other skins. Can you know your use with the phone, so the TCL 10 Pro, like pretty much every other phone? That's ever existed, is not a perfect phone, but it nails the fundamentals of a perfect device. It delivers a really solid screen, so there's a decent camera experience and a build quality that I don't think you're going to find in any device at this for under $50 price point. Now. It's not the only 10, Series phones available.

TCL's also has a 10 L and a 10-5 G front videos on those. Let us know, and we'll have some follow-up coverage, but you're getting a lot of phones for that price and if you want to pick one up, it'll be available at Best, Buy, Walmart and Amazon, as well as TCL themselves, and also if you live in Canada, to come to your neck of the woods pretty soon. You want to pick one up, though we'll link to them down below, but overall, a really positive experience from a brand. I think has a lot of potential to carve out their own niche in the smartphone space. I think consumers will respond very well to that kind of disruptive newcomer to the smartphone world.

Source : Jon Rettinger