When a budget-friendly carrier-exclusive phone is announced, it’s natural to expect a lot of red flags. T-Mobile has been launching self-branded phones under the REVVL brand for several years, and as spec-to-price value continues to increase, it’s only producing better results over time. The new REVVL 6 Pro 5G is the latest to join this series, and thanks to a combination of software, performance, and battery life, it’s turning out to be one of the best budget phones I’ve ever used.

REVVL 6 Pro 5G: Availability and network

The REVVL 6 Pro 5G is a T-Mobile US exclusive, and as the name implies, it runs on the carrier’s 5G service. There are no cosmetic or spec options — this model is only available with 128GB of storage, 6GB RAM, and in the color Dark Shadow for the price of $220.

There is also a lower-spec version named REVVL 6 5G (sans ‘Pro’) for $170. Both models were built on the same processor, but the non-Pro has a slightly smaller 6.5-inch display and 4500mAh battery, lacks NFC, and includes only 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage.

I think it’s worth spending the extra $50 for the Pro model. While most people probably won’t care about most of the differences between these models, modern versions of Android aren’t very forgiving on 4GB of RAM. As a result, the non-Pro variant is far more prone to kicking background apps out of memory, which can impact things like music and podcast apps.

REVVL 6 Pro 5G: Design

The REVVL 6 Pro 5G doesn’t take any risks with its design, instead favoring a look similar to any other smartphone on the market right now. The rear panel is dark matte plastic with the T-Mobile logo printed in the center and a camera module rising out of the top left corner. Surrounding the edges is a sturdy plastic rim that feels like it could survive a moderate drop without taking much damage.

The bottom edge is home to the headphone jack, USB-C port, and a single speaker grill. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to accidentally cover the speaker with a finger while watching videos or playing games, blocking out most of its sound.

While it’s certainly a large phone, it’s really no wider than the larger variants of most Pixel and Galaxy models; it’s just taller. If there’s anything to complain about here, it’s that the REVVL 6 Pro is likely to peek out from the top of most pockets.

Both the volume rocker and power button are located on the right side of the phone, producing pleasingly responsive and tactile clicks. The volume rocker is near the top edge, and given the height of the phone, it’s a little hard to reach one-handed.

The power button is positioned near the center of the frame. It doubles as the phone’s fingerprint reader, and it’s the source of all of my biggest complaints about the REVVL 6 Pro. I’ve never been a big fan of side-mounted fingerprint readers, and this one demonstrates almost everything that can go wrong with them. For starters, it’s not very accurate, something to be expected as it can only scan a narrow strip of your finger.

Unlike the raised volume rocker, the power button sits perfectly flush with the edge of the phone with a shallow inset in the center, making it harder to find by touch alone. It’s located in the perfect spot for my thumb to land on it if I’m holding the phone in my right hand, but I tend to hold it in my left more often, and my pointer finger can almost never find or unlock it successfully.

To make matters worse, the reader is overly-sensitive and attempts to scan a finger (or any skin) even if it’s barely contacting one side of the sensor. And finally, you receive identical haptic patterns when the reader first kicks in, but no indication if it accepts or rejects the finger, and there’s a half-second lag before the phone unlocks if it is accepted.

Merely handling the phone results in a lot of failed attempts, something the phone responds to by temporarily disabling the fingerprint reader. This happened so often in my first week that I needed to unlock it with a code almost every time.

Many of the problems with the fingerprint reader can be solved by using a case with a cutout for the power button, which eliminates accidental touches and creates a spot you can easily feel for when unlocking it. If you’re looking to go caseless, though, be ready for some frustration.

REVVL 6 Pro 5G: Display

A 720p display that measures a whopping 6.82 inches might sound like a recipe for disaster, but it actually looks pretty good, as long as you’re not too picky. At a 20.5:9 aspect ratio, the phone doesn’t feel overly large and it still has a decent pixel density. Nevertheless, the pixels can appear slightly jagged on curved lines if you look closely, but most people are unlikely to spot the minor imperfections in day-to-day use. The refresh rate is also capped at 60Hz, which remains pretty standard among budget phones.

A teardrop notch affords enough space for the selfie camera, but otherwise the bezel on the top and sides is pretty minimal. The bottom bezel is a little thicker, likely making space for the USB-C port and speaker.

My biggest problem with the display came from poor touch rejection at the top and bottom edges. This really became a nuisance while playing games, as my palms evidently touch quite often, even when I made serious efforts to minimize contact. It only seems to be a problem while holding the REVVL 6 Pro in landscape orientation, but if you plan to use it this way often — like playing games or watching movies — it’s another good reason to invest in a case.

REVVL 6 Pro 5G: Other hardware and what’s in the box

There’s not much waste in the packaging for the REVVL 6 Pro. The box is just big enough to fit the phone, with very little empty space. Inside is a 3-foot USB cable (A-to-C) and a SIM tool, but there’s no charging brick to clutter up your drawers. There are still a couple of cardboard inserts and some booklets that could be eliminated to cut down on waste, but they aren’t excessive.

REVVL 6 Pro 5G: Software

T-Mobile claims Google had a heavy influence on the REVVL 6 Pro 5G, and one look at the home screen makes it obvious. If you didn’t know what to look for, it would be easy to mistake this for the Google Pixel launcher. Outside of some very subtle differences, there’s little to distinguish the home screen, notification shade, and settings app from the aesthetics Google designed for its own phones.

The only highly visible difference can be found on the Google Discover page of the launcher, which is adorned with two tabs: one for Google’s own feed of recommendations, the other for suggestions provided by T-Mobile. Frankly, the content of the new tab feels like it’s largely sourced from partners and ads — plus it takes an unusually long time to load — so it’s probably best to ignore it.

Beyond the usual lineup of Google and T-Mobile apps, very little comes pre-installed. However, the setup process takes you through several screens of apps that surely paid to be on the list, but none of these are forced on you — it just takes several taps to get through all of it.

Performance and battery life

Overall performance is generally good. The Dimensity 700 isn’t a powerhouse, but it doesn’t struggle with typical usage. I rarely felt like apps took any longer to launch or that I had to sit on loading bars. At worst, there were some occasional frame drops while scrolling heavy layouts like Google Discover, but I’m not sure that I would have noticed if I wasn’t specifically watching for it.

Even games perform well on the Mali-G57 GPU. I tried a few different titles that tend to stress the processor, including Bloons 6 and Apex Legends Mobile, but none of them felt slower or caused the phone to heat up significantly.

In terms of battery life, the REVVL 6 Pro 5G has no trouble going a day with fairly heavy usage, and realistically should make it at least two days on light or moderate activity. If you’re going almost entirely idle, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it lasting a few days.

I went out for camera testing one afternoon and spent a little over nine hours walking around shooting photos and videos, streaming YouTube over cellular. By the time I wrapped up and went home, the battery was still at 61%. I’m not even certain it’s possible to use a full battery in under 12 hours, even if you’re gaming for hours on end. The USB-C port is capped at a standard 15W for charging, so it’s still going to take a couple of hours or more to completely fill the 5000mAh battery; but even as little as 10 minutes should be enough to get through a couple of hours. And if you prefer the convenience of wireless charging, that’s supported as well.

While the massive 5000mAh battery found in the REVVL 6 Pro plays a large role, I would attribute most of this high life expectancy to the power-friendly Dimensity 700 processor and the 720p display. If you’re looking for a multi-day device, this is it.

Cameras

Photos coming out of the 50MP main camera are binned down to 12MP for the final image, and they are quite good for a phone in this price range — as long as you’re not pixel peeping too closely. Details come out looking sharp with realistic colors, and the automatic processing is mostly under control. It won’t have trouble living up to the task of shooting food photos and nights out with friends to post on the socials.

Of course, the hallmark traits of a budget camera are still here, but they aren’t overwhelming. Detailed areas are sometimes oversharpened and colors are amped slightly beyond reality, but they’re both well within reasonable limits. I did spot a few post-processing faux pas, like surfaces that appear smooth or entirely flat when there should be some gradation and texture, but these errors seem generally uncommon.

The lens on the main camera does get some chromatic aberration in backlit shots — something to be expected on most smartphones — but it would be nice if the software attempted to correct it automatically. One thing to be particularly aware of is a fairly severe vulnerability to lens flares, specifically if you catch the sun or other bright lights in frame or at certain angles. Again, this will happen with basically any smartphone (and a lot of dedicated camera lenses), but it’s particularly prominent in the REVVL 6 Pro 5G.

Night shots in the city are much better than I would have expected, albeit a bit unrealistic. If there’s even a little light in the scene, the lit areas end up much brighter than they are in real life, and there’s relatively low grain throughout the image. This clearly comes down to some heavy noise reduction algorithms, but the results are very impressive for this price range. There is also a Night mode that takes longer to shoot a photo and applies the typical image stacking algorithm to produce an even better image. Unfortunately, not much can be done in actual low-light shots — they simply turn out dark and grainy.

The 5MP ultra-wide camera has many of the same characteristics of the main shooter, but at a much wider field of view. The loss in resolution is a real pain point here, and images look blurry on anything larger than a phone screen. Generally speaking, I would stick with the main camera for any photos that matter. I also noticed the ultra-wide adds a slight green tint to the blues, making the color of the sky look off.

Of course, the REVVL 6 Pro includes the seemingly obligatory bad macro camera. It’s a cheap 2MP sensor with a macro lens focused at 3-5 centimeters. I think of these as utility lenses, because their only real function is to shoot pictures of things like small scratches when you need to use them as evidence or documentation. Unfortunately, the low resolution doesn’t give much room for the images to look decent, and it’s fixed focus, so you have to try pretty hard to maneuver the phone into just the right place to get a good shot. My review unit also had a big problem with a light halo appearing in macro shots. I discovered I could correct it by cupping my hand over the corner of the phone to block light from hitting the raised edge that borders the lens. Your mileage may vary.

The 16MP selfie camera is also a mixed bag, which all comes down to the beauty features that can’t be fully disabled. You can manually turn down the effects one by one, but it looks like something is still happening even with everything set to zero. Pictures of my face are missing texture, and the backgrounds sometimes look similarly odd and soft, almost like they belong in a hyper-realistic illustration. But with that said, photos captured with it will fit right in alongside the standard fare of Facebook and Instagram posts.

Video is painfully disappointing, especially after seeing the above average quality of photos the primary sensor can produce. The REVVL 6 Pro’s main camera can shoot up to 2K@30fps or 1080p@60fps, and the ultrawide can capture the same resolutions, but only up to 30fps. Unsurprisingly, the macro camera can’t shoot video. There is no optical stabilization (OIS) in any of the cameras, and if there’s any electronic stabilization (EIS), it’s not evident from my tests — handheld video is very shaky. This isn’t really a big problem for the selfie camera, but any movement is extremely evident in the rear cameras.

The camera seems to struggle with proper exposure while shooting video, often preferring to overexpose. Details are wildly oversharpened, which sometimes causes some problems in very fine details. I also noticed occasional frame drops in videos with pronounced motion, almost like the data couldn't be written fast enough. Most of these issues can be overlooked since they're common at this price level, but it's something to be aware of, especially if you plan to handhold the phone or move while recording.

The camera app is fairly basic and closely resembles the design and behavior of Samsung’s camera app. However, it offers far fewer features, and very notably lacks the ability to capture RAW photos. In addition to Night mode, you can swap directly between Video, Photo, and Live Focus. The last tab offers access to the Macro camera, full 50MP mode, Hyperlapse, Panorama, Slow Motion, and Pro modes.

Should you buy it?

Yes, you should buy it if you’re looking for a powerful budget phone. All budget phones are bound to have a long list of compromises compared to the flagship models that command much higher prices. Some models have a great balance of sacrifices to bring down the cost, and the REVVL 6 Pro 5G falls into that category. You get really great battery life without feeling the poor performance that often comes with it, a display that looks good despite its low resolution, and a camera that can shoot pretty good photos in the conditions most people would be inclined to use it. And all of this for just $220.

But for that low price, you will have to put up with a frustrating fingerprint reader, or buy a case to work around its issues. Likewise, if video quality matters to you, the REVVL 6 Pro isn’t a great buy — though that’s the case for most other options at this price point as well.

FAQ

Q: How does the REVVL 6 Pro 5G compare to the Samsung Galaxy A03s?

Samsung’s Galaxy A03s features one of the lowest prices you can find for a budget smartphone. Priced $60 less than the REVVL 6 Pro 5G, it naturally doesn’t compete well in a head-to-head spec match. However, it’s those compromises that signal a good reason to opt for the REVVL 6 Pro, particularly with a paltry 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage in the A03s. Samsung’s phone also comes with a substantially less capable main camera, lacks wireless charging and an ultrawide camera (while still including the rarely useful macro), and has no support for 5G. The price gap may be significantly higher for this range, but it’s likely worth the cost for the added niceties.

Q: How does the REVVL 6 Pro 5G compare to the OnePlus N20 5G?

For $80 more, the OnePlus N20 5G comes equipped with many matching specs, but a slightly more performant Snapdragon 695 processor. While OnePlus included a slightly better main camera, there’s no ultrawide available to use in a pinch. Likewise, it has the faster 33W SuperVOOC charging capabilities, but the REVVL6 Pro 5G takes its own win with the inclusion of wireless charging. OnePlus also provides a better unlocking experience with its in-display optical fingerprint reader, but suffers in the software department after some of the recent complaints regarding Oxygen OS updates.