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TCL 20 Pro 5G review: Just another pretty face
The TCL 20 Pro looks great, but there are some problems under the slick façade
TCL has spent most of the modern smartphone era making phones under brand names like Alcatel and BlackBerry, but it recently stepped out of the shadows to brand phones as plain old "TCL." It's released a few mid-range devices over the past year, but the TCL 20 Pro 5G is the most ambitious piece of hardware yet. It has a high-quality OLED screen, a quartet of cameras, and a very attractive design. However, TCL is also asking more for this phone, and the $500 price tag puts it up against capable phones from Samsung, Motorola, and others.When you look at the specs all listed out (as you can below), the TCL 20 Pro 5G seems like a reasonable deal. However, integrating a phone into your life takes you beyond the specs, and there's less to like under the surface. The TCL 20's software is buggy and inconsistent, and the cameras are middling at best. Even the 5G connectivity, which is supposed to be a big selling point of this phone, was disappointingly spotty. TCL is making progress, but I'm not sure it's enough.
TCL announced a bunch of phones in April and they've been making their way around Europe for the past couple of months. Now, the TCL 20 series is finally heading for the U.S. and we know how much you can expect to pay for them.
TCL's presence in the mobile world may be understated compared to the Samsungs or Xiaomis, but having only put out phones under its own name for the past couple of years, the company has definitely has its foot on the gas pedal. Today, three new phones are joining the TCL 20 series, bringing this year's catalogue up to five devices.