MobileTechTalk TCL has today taken the wraps off of its new 20 series line of phones, encompassing the TCL 20 Pro 5G, the TCL 20L and TCL 20L+. We also get a sneak peek at an absolutely insane foldable and flexible all-in-one device. Lets jump into it.
Starting off with the TCL 20 Pro 5G, as is obvious this is an upgrade to the TCL 10 Pro from last year, a device we were able to get our hands on before launch but unfortunately not doing the review period here in the UK. The big upgrade is of course the chipset, going from a 600 series chip to a new 700 series chipset, and whilst it’s not the new Snapdragon 780G that I was hoping for, the Snapdragon 750G is still rather new, boasting 2 Cortex A77 cores at 2.2Ghz with a bank of 6 Cortex A55s at 1.8Ghz with an Adreno 619 GPU built on Samsung’s 8nm manufacturing process it should be nice and power-efficient, but it is also one of the newer chips with Qualcomm’s X52 5G modem inside for Sub6 5G. The TCL 20 Pro 5G has a 6.67″ AMOLED touch screen with a hole punch in the top centre for the 32MP selfie camera. the AMOLED screen is curved at the edges and has a 2400x1080p resolution giving it a 20:9 aspect ratio, behind the screen is an optical fingerprint scanner much like last year.
The cameras are also a bit different this year, with a main Sony IMX582 48MP sensor, this isn’t the newest sensor, but the benefit of using a slightly older camera is that you get the benefit of the OEMs who have used it before, they did all the bug finding. with OIS and an aperture of f1.79, the main camera on the TCL 20 Pro 5G should be more than adequate for daily snappers. Next is the ultrawide, and this is a 16MP unit with a 123-degree field of view behind an f2.4 aperture lens, lastly is the 5MP macro camera and 2MP depth camera which, well they exist. There is 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage with a microSD slot for expansion for those that care. This is all backed up by a 4500mAh battery that is topped up at a max of just 18w which is a shame, though it does also support a rather respectable 15w Wireless charging.
Next up is the TCL 20L and 20L+ which are very similar to each other, in fact, they only really differ in the main camera and RAM. they both have 6.67″ 2400x1080p IPS screens with TCL’s NXTVISION upscaling tech that absolutely wowed me on the TCL 10L and 10 5G last year. they get a Snapdragon 662, which might seem like a downgrade from last year’s 665, but they’re on par but the 662 has better power efficiency. They both get 5000mAh batteries with 18w USB-C chargers but no wireless charging here. The TCL 20L gets a 48MP main camera (Likely a Samsung GM1 or GM2) with an f2.0 aperture. the Ultrawide takes a step down from a 16MP 123-degree unit to an 8MP 118-degree one, hopefully, it’s better than the ultrawide on the TCL 10L was. the last 2 lenses are 2MP Macro and Depth cameras, and the front camera is a 16MP unit with an f2.2 aperture and a 76-degree field of view. for the TCL 20L+ that main 48MP camera gets swapped out for a 64MP one (likely a Samsung GW1). Whilst the TCL 20L+ gets 6GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS2.1 storage, the TCL 20L comes in a 4GB 128GB variant as well. All three of these devices ship with Android 11 with TCLs skin on, though upsettingly the TCL 20L is apparently only getting one platform update, whilst the 20 Pro 5G and the 20L+ don’t get that same warning, so we shall see.
Lastly, TCL showed a sneak peek at a device that is kind of insane. It’s a foldable and a rollable. Much like the Huawei Mate Xs and Royole Flexpai, the 6.87″ smartphone screen unfolds to an 8.85″ small tablet, then a motor can engage and unroll the 8.85″ tablet into a 10″ tablet for more media consumption. and this is about all we know about it other than it looks bonkers. but much like with the awesome rollable concept from TCL last year which didn’t end up happening, we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much just yet.
