Now the phone is finally in our hands for thorough testing. Now you may know that TCL is world’s, second biggest TV manufacturer. So what is the TV manufacturer doing in a smartphone world? Well, according to the company, they want to offer products in all categories that rely on the display technology and integrate it in their own ecosystem. It is worth mentioning that, while this is a debut model under TCL’s brand, the company owns Alcatel and blackberry, so it’s not their first rodeo, and we have to say that we were pleasantly surprised with how plex turned out to be the experience. Will the Alcatel has definitely helped a lot with the creation of this new phone, but at first glance, TCL phones are something else. At least judging by the first phone in the lineup TCL plaques is positioned slightly above Alcatel and belongs in the middle price bracket, costing slightly above 300 euros or 360 US dollars. Alcatel and blackberry brands are also owned by TCL and will continue to coexist. Alcatel will maintain its position as an affordable brand for younger and less demanding users, while blackberry will remain focused on its current audience, namely the business users. Tcl will cover middle and upper class of phones. All this is well thought through, but both Alcatel and Blackberry positions in the market have been a little shaky in the last couple of years. So how well does TCL do on a mobile market? Judging by the first impressions, it will seem that they are doing just fine as soon as you open the box, you’re greeted by a personalized.

Thank you note kind of like what oneplus does and why not. If it contributes to creating connection between a customer and the brand, the rest of the pack is relatively standard. We see a USBC, cable and an 18 watt charger that show us. The TCL has by no means neglected that important aspect of today’s phones and also the phone case. We do think that the case is quite rigid and it’s slightly softer case may bring better experience in daily use, but hey is there and it’s free TCL plaques comes in two variants: obsidian black and opal white. We saw the white phone at the Berlin Aoife conference, but also a few days ago at the local event, and we must say that it looks more attractive than the obsidian black model that we’ve got on. Our test, which looks more serious and plain. Tcl flex looks attractive with glass covering both sides in the white model. Also has the micro texture on the back. Unfortunately, there is no information with the glasses. Some special stronger variety like Gorilla Glass, the design is a very important aspect of a modern phone and it really needs to be done right. In that regard, we would say the TCL flex was a success. It’S front surface is dominated by a screen that covers over 90 of it. The bezels are very thin in that aspect. Tcl has definitely passed with flying colors and we really like the look of the phone in the upper left corner of the screen.

We have a punch, hole, front camera, which is very good choice, certainly better than a large and noticeable knotch. Now design wise, the back of the phone is very interesting. For starters, there are three cameras in a horizontal layout, instead of placing them in a usual position along the edge TCL plays them at the top. With the central alignment, TCL obviously made an effort to flatten these cameras as much as possible, so there are no bumps that would disrupt the look of the phone. This not only made the phone visually striking, but also gave it a unique look and its own design. Language on the back there’s, also a traditional fingerprint scanner right below the main camera. Some users may like this, others, won’t it’s, really a matter of taste. Personally, I would prefer a larger and rounder fingerprint scanner and think that this layout of cameras and flash would look better if they were housed in a separate frame, something like samsung galaxy s 10. But then again, maybe TCL didn’t want their first smartphone to resemble any of the competition, so we do honor their bravery. The success of this decision will, as always, be judged by the consumers. The power and volume buttons are located on the right side of the device on the left side. There is a special button that activates the Google assistant by default, but you can program it to do different things based on. If you clicked on it once double clicked.

It or did a long press, the bottom edge of the phone houses, a USBC connector as well as a speaker, TCL, does not shoot for the stars with this model, so the same goes for the hardware comes with. Yes, you will find faster hardware for this price range, but what TCL offers will certainly be good enough, especially given the device category as the specifications are quite decent. Specifically, the phone is based on the snapdragon 675 chipset made in 11 nanometer technology, and this 8 core processor provides very good performance. It is not exactly the latest technology, but it’s, quite good and fast. Adding to the positive impression is the fact that TCL plaques comes with 6 gigabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of storage, which surprised us a bit we’re used to seeing 4 and 64 for 128 or 6 64 gigabyte combinations in this class. But TCL obviously decided to make no compromise when it comes to memory. It is also possible to expand the storage, be a hybrid SIM slot which forces you to choose between a second SIM card or micro SD card to expand storage space with a maximum capacity of 256 gigabytes. The storage is ufs 2.1, but we will not take it as a disadvantage because of the price range of this device. When it comes to operating system, TCL relies on android, 9 pi in combination with the company’s own interface. The DC lui 1.0.1, which has some interesting features that are worth pointing out.

First of all, it is a pretty good interface in which we see some things from Alcatel solution, which is obviously used as a basis. Tcl took the importance of a good UI very seriously, as TCL UIs are very well tuned far beyond what we would expect for our company’s first attempt at it at least under its own brand. The system is very responsive that icons are quite colorful and some innovative ideas were used. For instance, we like the way app drawer was implemented. Swiping up opens a drawer with many categories of applications. You can also customize these categories and freely move applications from one category to another system: utilities, finance, edge education, media life, business or create the category you want so they’re a neatly sorted. We have to say that we like the solution, more than say, deploying applications and shortcuts to separate folders, because it looks cleaner and it’s much easier to navigate. We also like that TCL didn’t bother the users with bloatware or add ons and has instead found a way to offer something interesting for the start. For example, a lock icon on the main screen has the same effect as turning off the screen and again it’s, something you press quickly after you’re done, instead of looking for a button on the side with your other finger, there’s also shortcut for NXT vision that can Quickly, activate or deactivate these screen customization options. Tcl has done a lot to integrate its phone with the other devices and it offers so we plug them tks to send content directly to TCL TVs, as well as a couple of shortcuts that some may found unnecessary.

Like the one, the TCL community or support center there’s, also an optimized icon, which is not really a shortcut when you press it, it cleans up the phone memory and remaining apps for an optimized performance. You can see the TCL strives to make everything as easy and fast as possible in a single touch. Finally, there is a smart key option that configures the key on the left side of the phone and allows you to adjust what function is performed by single press. Double press or long press. There are also a number of gestures you can use, such as flipping the phone over to silence it quickly, turning on the camera and so on, and you can also use functions to access additional features. All in all, this is more than good for a phone to view. Tcl designed the phone in line with its display, greatness philosophy and therefore was expected to pay a lot of attention to the phone display, especially as the company boasts that it has provided a number of exciting features through its NXT vision technology. The large screen has a diagonal of 6.5 three inches, a nineteen point, five to nine aspect ratio and a pixel density of ‘5 pixels per inch thanks to the resolution of 2340 x, 1080 pixels. So everything is in line with the best we’ve seen in this category. Maybe even more since the IPS display the phone uses is something that we could even see in some higher category.

Nxt vision has conceived as a set of technologies that it has display quality, warmth and intensity of colors and lighting and overall, a much more vibrant display. All at the touch of a button part of this technology is the up scale of content from standard to high definition. Does it work well? To be honest, the screen certainly becomes alive when NXT vision is activated, but the upscaling on such a small screen is not that noticeable. After all, isn’t it easier to just turn on high resolution. We might see an application of this technology in situations where we have very slow internet connection or a limited data plan. But you want to watch YouTube, so you can use lower resolution to turn on upscaling on your phone it’s, not a bad thing to have, but it certainly won’t revolutionize. The way you use your phone plus NXT vision on the phone consumes more battery, which brings us to that topic. Tcl planck’s comes with a 38 hundred 20 million per hour battery it’s, a very solid capacity which will allow a day and a half of use without major problems. We conducted our 10 hour YouTube video test with two occasions with and without the NXT vision technology, and we saw the difference both visually and in terms of battery life. When active, the Plex finishes 10 hour, video test with 30 battery left when NXT vision is turned off. The phone ends up with 42 battery power, which is quite good result, so decide for yourself whether you want to pay for a more vibrant dynamic display with a slightly higher battery drain.

As for the charging, we already said that the package comes with an 18 watt charger and it’s capable of recharging 50 of the battery in 32. Minutes which is accomplished with a quick charge, 3.0 standard, which is great for this class sounds, is not something we expect too much of in this class, and TCL Plex is ranked decent in this regard. It only has one speaker with an average loudness, a 3.5 millimeter connector is also present and the phone supports FM radio and it comes with the usual sound, related software and customization options. The cameras are very important feature in all of today’s phones and although consumers might be aware that the price affects what you get, they do expect that to get at least a very good camera, so does TCL flights delivered that? Well, we think it does. The device has a very interesting camera configuration. The main sensor is the sony i MX 582 48 megapixel sensor, which is used in most situations. It is a wide angle sensor with F 1.8 aperture and a pixel size of 0.8 micrometers, which is converted to effective 1.6 micrometers using pot, buyer four and one technology. Also. It supports phase detection autofocus ii. Camera is an ultra wide type and it’s a 16 megapixel sensor with an f 2.4 aperture. We can certainly see that TCL didn’t cut any corners when it comes to the cameras and we’re glad to see the high resolution ultra wide sensor, which is very welcome.

Addition. Even without any stabilization or focus assistance. Finally, there is the 2 megapixel F 1.8 aperture sensor, which the manufacturers say is a slow motion, video camera that shoots up to 960 FPS, video and HD. However, we notice that the macro mode goes off when shooting extremely close objects, so it wouldn’t surprise us if it also has that function. We have to say that we were quite satisfied with the quality of the shots, especially considering that the conditions were far from ideal, with cloudy weather, to follow the late November days, despite the above average temperature. Although the dynamic range is not very perfect, the level of detail is very good. The colors are excellent and the sharpness is the ideal balance between detail and fidelity. Honestly, TCL flags behave similarly to other phones, have relied primarily on the Sony, IMX 582 sensor and that’s great news, especially since nothing was left to chance and proven solutions were used. Overall, the photography experience is pretty good. What about nighttime, shooting, yes, TCL plaques also has a night mode, which is quite a surprise again. It works pretty. Well, though, it suffers from a couple of problems. The exposure is such that even the smallest amount of multicolored light gets cast over a portion of the photo and also one of those phones that most intensely are exposed to night shots. Also, duration of taking a night shot could be a shorter, but for the first attempt quite decent, you will get very useful night photos.

The selfies could be better, though they are not bad. We experienced more problems with a portrait mode which often does not separate the subject from the background properly, so there are artifacts at the portal lines. The standard mode, on the other hand, is pretty good and you’ll be able to get very good selfies easily with one problem at night, the image can often be very out of focus as if there was some software bug, but overall the 24 megapixel front. Camera gets a passable rating. Video is a very, very pleasant surprise. The phone records in 4k resolution with stabilization, although it’s not I’m, rich in detail as some other phones in 4k, primarily because of the bitrate. It is certainly extremely usable and belongs to better video recording models in its price range. Again, there is one small thing. It often looks as if the camera tries to change focus for a few milliseconds, but the question is whether an average user would notice it at all either way. The overall impression of the cameras is very favorable. Ecl Plex is a very solid and well rounded phone and we would say the same if it was signed by anyone else, instead of TCL, as it feels like it’s the 115th phone made by any of the popular smartphone brands and not the debut model. One of the largest TV manufacturers here are their. There are some small complaints that we often have even models made by market veterans, but overall TCL has done a really good job.

Tcl planck’s is pretty good and fair product, which offers a lot in its price range compared to most of the competition, and the price is roughly three hundred and ten euros, which is roughly three hundred and seventy US dollars. Thank you once again for watching our review of the TCL Plex.

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