- If you've ever heard of TCL
you probably know them because they make
pretty good, inexpensive 4K TVs.
But TCL also makes phones.
Like a lot of phones.
They make Alcatel phones that basically every carrier sells.
They make blackberry phones.
And they also make that little itty-bitty palm phone.
But now TCL wants you to know that TCL makes phones.
So they're announcing three of them.
There is the 10 Pro, the 10 L and the 10 5G.
0h yeah also, there's a folding phone.
So let's just start with a folding phone
'cause it's probably the one you're most interested in.
And I have bad news, it's just a prototype.
Like a really proto-typey prototype.
The hinge creaks when you open it up.
And the software is nowhere near ready.
But there are some clever design features to it.
So for example when you close it, it closes completely flat.
And that's because they're using
the same sort of hinge mechanism that the Moto Razr is.
The screen sort of bubbles up in a teardrop shape
inside the hinge.
Another interesting thing,
there is no screen on the outside of it which is a choice.
TCL says that they do not know
when they're gonna sell this thing.
They're waiting until the technology is ready.
Maybe they even want to wait
for glass screens that can fold.
And they definitely want to wait until their software.
So, that's a folding phone.
It's cool, but we should talk about
the phones they're actually gonna release this year.
One important thing to know about these phones
is they're getting released globally,
including in North America, and including in the US.
Which really is kind of a first for TCL
under the TCL brand.
Now the company doesn't want to tell us
much about the specs.
So we don't know the exact processor yet,
we don't know the megapixels on the cameras
or any of that.
But we do think that all three of these phones
are gonna cost less than $500.
Which could mean that TCL is gonna role in
and try and take on OnePlus head-to-head.
So let's talk about the 10 Pro first 'cause it's probably
the most interesting of these three phones.
It's the most premium one.
It looks a little bit like a Galaxy S 10.
It has that sort of a curved screen on the sides.
And TCL is making a really big deal
about its screen technology that it's pulling in from TVs.
So it has a custom controller
and that can mean that it can vary the refresh rate,
so we should see 90 maybe even 120 hertz on this.
And for video it can dynamically change
SDR content into HDR content.
It has an in screen fingerprint sensor.
And there are four cameras on the back
which should be enough.
One of those cameras is a macro camera
and I was able to pull focus on a little plant
from just about 3 inches away, which is pretty impressive.
We'll see about the rest of the cameras.
TCL was pretty blunt that they're not good have
the best cameras on the market.
They know that, we know that,
so they're not gonna pretend that it's going to be
an amazing best-of-breed camera.
One other thing that I can say about this thing
is that it has a headphone jack.
Hey!
Now the two cheaper phones are the 10 L and the 10 5G.
And they just feel cheaper.
They're just not as nice a build quality.
They do have the same four cameras on the back.
Well, maybe not the same.
I don't know for sure that they're identical
to what's on the pro, but it's got four cameras.
Which, fine, again, that's enough.
They have a fingerprint sensor on the back
and their screens are flat and probably
just not as nice as on the 10 Pro.
But the important thing to remember
is that the 10 5G
is gonna have a Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 series,
which presumably means the 765,
which means that it has 5G built in
without hurting the battery life too much
which means that it might be the very first 5G phone
that costs less than $500.
And that's really important.
Now look, if you're watching this video
there is a pretty good chance that you are not gonna get
super hype over mid range TCL android phones.
I get it.
But they're still important because TCL
has really good carrier relationships.
Which means that when somebody walks into an AT&T
or T-Mobile or whatever,
and they just want to get the cheapest android phone,
they're gonna get something pretty good from TCL.
And having more competition in the sub $500 space
is gonna be important for everybody.
I especially like that these phones
are pretty normal size.
They're not big honkers like OnePlus phones are.
That's nice.
We will find out much more about these phones
at Mobile World Congress next month.
We'll get full specs and hopefully prices
and hopefully release dates on all of them.
So we're gonna be stay tuned for that.
As for the folding phone, who knows?
TCL even talked about how they wanna make
a folding tablet with like three folds on it.
That could be fun.
The bottom line is if TCL can pull this off
you might know them for phones instead of just TVs.
Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching.
We're here at the Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas which means we're gonna have
a ton of videos of some pretty cool gadgets.
So you should keep it locked to The Verge.