TCL 10L phone review

Where to buy

As a phone brand, TCL is quite new to the Australian market, having only previously offered up the TCL Plex. However, it has been selling Alcatel phones for many years now, as well as the most recent iterations of both BlackBerry and Palm phones. It's increasingly looking to leverage its TV successes by making phones under the direct TCL brand. In 2020, that includes two phones, the premium TCL 10 Pro and the more affordable TCL 10L.

The TCL 10L certainly seems to meet the current demands of the mid-range market with a quad-camera array, specifically tuned LCD display and pleasing physical design, but sadly it never quite lives up to the promise of its specifications.

Design

Design

• 6.53-inch vibrant LCD display
• Configurable smart key
• Ugly included case

• Read more about the TCL 10L's design

  The TCL 10L is a nicely designed phone, with a pleasing reflective blue finish that catches the light well under most circumstances. It's got that same glossy plastic finish that might just fool you into thinking it was actually glass, but that's not so. Not shockingly for a mid-range phone in the sub-$500 space, don't expect any IP-rated water resistance, either. Still, it's a nice enough looking device.

  The TCL 10L is the cheaper member of the TCL 10 family. If you opt for the pricier TCL 10 Pro, you'll score an AMOLED display, but the TCL 10L makes do with an LCD instead. Still, TCL's experience in the display business shines through here, because the 2340x1080 395ppi display is among the most vibrant I've seen in this category.

  TCL further pumps up the contrast with the included "NXTVISION" app that's intended to add HDR-like depth to images. Rather predictably, this is a matter of taste rather than creating a visual depth that was never there in the first place, but as an eye-catching phenomenon, it does work rather well, especially for video content. There's a small punch hole style camera in the top left, which is a terribly common design idea for mid-range 2020 handsets, although TCL's insistence on calling it a "Dotch" is, I suppose, a point of difference (though it's not a point of difference that matters in any real way).

  Like the TCL Plex, the TCL 10L also features a customisable "Smart Key" on the left-hand side of the phone. A long press by default will invoke the Google Assistant, but you can also set a short single or double press to perform a bunch of different actions as well. It's a nice feature to have if you want fast access to the camera or the flashlight or any number of pre-defined scenarios. It's certainly more useful than the Google-Assistant-But-Nothing-Else approach of many other mid-range phone makers.

  Like so many lower-cost phone brands, TCL bundles in a simple case with the TCL 10L, which should be a plus under most circumstances. It makes sense to protect your phone, right? Where most others would offer a simple clear case, some bright spark at TCL's headquarters figured that it was a way to further promote the brand. Not with a TCL logo, mind you – although there's one of those on the back of the actual phone – but instead with the words "DISPLAY GREATNESS" splattered diagonally across the back of the case.

  

  No, TCL.

  BAD TCL.

  Go back to your design department and think about what you've done, because this is one of the ugliest cases I've ever popped a phone into. The horizontal orientation of the cameras on the rear of the TCL 10L means you're not going to see too many other compatible cases either, sadly.

Camera

Camera

• Quad rear camera
• Photos tend to be a tad dark
• Macro lens struggles to find focus
• TCL watermark is the default

• Read more about the TCL 10L's cameras

  Aside from that ugly case, the other feature that you can't miss on the rear of the TCL 10L is its array of four camera lenses. It really wasn't that long ago that even dual-lens cameras were unheard of at this asking price, although it's well worth dipping into the details of what these lenses can actually do.

  The primary lens on the TCL 10L is a 48MP f/1.8 wide lens, which, like so many in its class, uses pixel binning to deliver actual 12MP shots, although you can force it into full 48MP shooting mode if you so desire. From there it's a sharp drop in megapixel count, with an 8MP ultrawide lens and a 2MP macro lens, as well as a 2MP depth-sensing lens, which means there are really only three addressable lenses on the rear of the TCL 10L. Around the front, the TCL 10L features a 16MP single-lens camera for your selfie-shooting needs.

  At a technical level then, the TCL 10L sounds like it could have some real muscle, especially for a phone that comes to market at the bottom of the mid-range right now. Unfortunately, the reality is that these cameras struggle to deliver pleasing images most of the time.

  The first problem – and one you probably won't even notice when you're first taking photos – is that TCL's camera app adds a "TCL – Display Greatness" logo onto every photo by default. Watermarking can be a valuable tool for photographers protecting their work, but who wants to pimp for a phone brand in every photo they take?

  

  Quite why this is the default baffles me, because if you don't know it's going to happen, you'll end up with a bunch of photos with an annoying watermark that you'll either have to crop or blur out before you really want to show them to anybody.

  Once you've delved into the menus to disable the watermark, you can then get to shooting, which is where you'll hit what is essentially a problem of light. In bright conditions, the TCL 10L delivers fair images, but as soon as the light drops even a little, it'll struggle with focusing on your subject quite a lot, often see-sawing between focal points in real time while you wait for it to decide. Even once that focus is achieved, the end results tend to be a little darker than you'd expect, which leads to muted tones and rather gloomy photos compared to other cameras in its class.

  It's notably worse if you're using anything but the primary lens. Jump to wide and especially macro and you'll struggle to get pleasing photos that aren't lost in the murk. This is a common issue with the low-megapixel macro lenses that a lot of mid-range phones are sporting right now, so if you're keen on close-up photos, look elsewhere.

  

  Jumping back to the primary sensor, one of the clear benefits of pixel binning should be a jump in light accuracy, but even when shooting at full 48MP, the same effect is seen. While you may not expect to see really great cameras in the mid-range, we've seen that assumption seriously challenged by phones from Google, Apple, realme and Huawei. However, it seems like TCL is still playing catchup in terms of overall quality.

  TCL 10L sample photos:

  

  

  

  

  

Performance

Performance

• Powerful specs run slower than expected
• Pre-installed apps are annoying

• Read more about the TCL 10L's performance

  The TCL 10L runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage, expandable via microSD card. That's a fair but not exceptional internal recipe for a phone at this price point. We've seen similar with less RAM in the Oppo A52 and Nokia 5.3 by way of comparison.

  The TCL 10L runs on Android 10 with TCL's own launcher on top, although I really struggled to find much beyond the NXTVISION app that felt like it added much to the experience in a way that pure Android wouldn't have. Even then, the effect can sometimes seem like it's simply blowing out colours for the sake of it.

  The TCL 10L certainly didn't stand out in benchmarking terms, even against phones that have less RAM, presumably due to the demands of TCL's own inbuilt launcher. Here's how the TCL 10L compared using Geekbench 5's CPU test:

  Apple's iPhone SE 2020 absolutely dominates in this field, but it is a more pricey option than the TCL 10L. However, even among its Android brethren, including phones with the same processor, the TCL 10L doesn't really impress. It's the same story in 3D graphics performance, where its Adreno 610 GPU doesn't stand out either.

  The TCL 10L is a fair performer in more anecdotal tests, with intermittent lag that's not unsurprising on the Snapdragon 665. However, given that there are cleaner Android options out there, it's hard not to assume that TCL's additions are what adds to the TCL 10L's specific issues.

  TCL installs a number of apps by default on the TCL 10L, with a varying degree of utility. There's an "Optimise" app that runs a fancy spinning animation but gives few clues as to precisely what it's optimising – presumably memory usage and maybe storage, but who knows?

  You also get Facebook and Netflix installed by default, as well as the bookings.com app, whether you want it or not. Thankfully you can uninstall it, but I'm not a big fan of pre-installed anything on Android phones. A huge appeal of the platform is that you can install what you want, not clean up what you don't with a new handset.

Battery life

Battery life

• 4,500mAh battery
• Mediocre battery performance

• Read more about the TCL 10L's battery life

  Again, on paper, TCL is doing exactly the right thing when it comes to battery capacity on the TCL 10L, providing a 4,500mAh sealed battery for your power needs. That's a tad larger than we tend to see at this price point, and well ahead of inhouse brand phones such as the Google Pixel 4a or the Apple iPhone SE 2020.

  So you'd expect that it should be able to provide an easy day's power and then some, right?

  Well… maybe. As always, phone usage determines its endurance. We put the TCL 10L through our standard battery rundown test, running a full screen 1080p YouTube video at maximum brightness and moderate volume from 100% battery to get a picture of its likely endurance characteristics. What we typically want to see here is a figure above 90%, because that typically translates to a phone that will make it through a full day's usage without any issues.

  Here's how the TCL 10L compares against a range of phones in the mid-range under those test conditions:

  88% left isn't a death sentence – it's certainly possible to get through a day's usage of the TCL 10L without having to reach for its USB C charger if you're careful – but it's not particularly good either, especially when you consider that the TCL 10L has a larger battery capacity than any of the phones in that test group. The needs of that NXTVISION display certainly drain the battery fast when you're watching video, but it's also true for gaming or any other kind of intense activity, sadly.

Should you buy the TCL 10L?

At a specification level, the TCL 10L should be right up there with the very best in the mid-range, especially considering its asking price sits comfortably under the $500 mark.

However, specifications aren't the only thing you should look at when choosing a phone, and in just about every respect, the TCL 10L falls short of what you can get in competing mid-range phones. That leaves it feeling like an average phone in an era when we're seeing so many truly exceptional and worthy mid-range alternatives.

Pricing and availability

Price

RRP: $449.00

Where to buy

Check price at Amazon

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Specifications

Images: Alex Kidman