Now this is a really interesting device, as im sure you can tell by the name. This is a smartphone with an integrated stylus and its really. The first brand new stylus phone thats come out in quite a while. Since lgs unceremonious exit from the smartphone space, weve had just motorolas moto g stylus and samsungs s ultras as the only two new stylus smartphones, but with this tcl stylus 5g theres. Now a third stylus option – and this one is not only the most affordable of the bunch. It also seems to have some stylus centric software and apps that could even put it ahead of motorola im, of course, going to go over some of those stylus features and everything else. You need to know about this new device, but first things first lets just go ahead and quickly unbox it. So i can show you what comes inside the package when you buy one. So at the moment this device is exclusively available in the us through t mobile and their prepaid brand metro. It might be more widely available later on, well have to wait and see, and the full retail price for this guy is going to be around 269 dollars. But chances are you can get a pretty big discount, whether youre a new or existing t, mobile customer. Depending on the network plan you go with and ill leave some links down below in the video description to where you can pick this phone up at its cheapest.

Current price, so the first thing we get is the phone itself, of course, and well take a closer look at that in just a minute digging through the rest of the box. Here weve got a small packet that holds your sim ejector tool and a short, quick start guide to help. You set up your new phone underneath that tcl still includes some charging accessories, which is great. You get a usb a to usb c cable along with an 18 watt wall plug, so all the essentials, which is much appreciated with all that stuff out of the way here is the tcl stylus 5g. Once again, weve got just this one color option lunar black and at first glance this device looks sort of similar to some of the previous tcl smartphones, but it actually offers a relatively new design and a couple other unique features, of course, that make it stand out. Physically, the tcl stylus 5g is a very tall 6.81 inch device, thats the screen size corner to corner, and you can see this center hole, punch, selfie, camera up top there relatively slim, but still noticeable side, borders and more prominent bottom chin altogether. We get just shy of an 85 screen to body ratio in the hand like i said this is very much one of those tall, lengthy devices, its a bit of a stretch to reach the top edge and corners of the screen, but its similar to the likes Of the moto g stylus and the old lg stylo 6.

. So if youre coming from one of those tall stylus smartphones, i think youll be used to the size and form factor here around back. The tcl stylus offers a pretty clean and minimal design. Its an all plastic build which you notice for sure, but it doesnt really feel cheap and the sides and edges actually feel like a thick metal material. Whats sort of interesting, too, is the fact that the whole frame of the phone is textured theres, like a lined crisscross pattern, its hard to see on camera, but you can feel it with your fingertips and that sort of helps you get a better grip on the Phone which is nice, it doesnt feel like its going to slip out of your hand overall, a very simple flat, squared off and super minimal form factor, no real complaints, but this being a budget phone. I dont believe we get any water resistance or ip rating and no wireless charging either taking a quick look around and everything else on. The left side is where youll find your dual sim and sd card tray for expandable storage to up to two terabytes. You do get 128 gigs of built in storage to start on the right. The volume buttons place just above the power button, which also doubles as your fingerprint sensor and in testing this out really quickly. The fingerprint sensor feels very fast one of those where you just barely touch your thumb and it seems to unlock right away great setup for sure and im glad to have it on this phone towards the bottom.

The headphone jack is still there alongside the usbc port. One of two speakers on this phone and, of course, that built in stylus, which ill demo in a moment theres a secondary speaker in the earpiece slit up there, just above the selfie camera and around back a whole bunch of different camera lenses which well go more In depth with later on, so lets talk stylus, since thats kind of the whole reason for this phone down at the bottom is where the built in stylus will live and its one of those clickable pop out setups very similar to what both motorola and samsung do. With theirs it slides in and out with these, and actually as you drop it back into its hole, it has an extra magnetic sort of pull that also keeps it from falling out. If you maybe click out the top accidentally thats a nice touch, the stylus itself has sort of that flat. Rectangular design its fairly thick feels like its built. Well, a step above those generic metal sticks that motorola has this. One is a bit beefier, which i think helps when you write, but with this being more of a budget device, the stylus is still just a stylus. It isnt connected to the phone theres, no like bluetooth, integration, no button features its, not a smart stylus like samsungs note or an apple pencil. So keep that in mind. The first use case for the built in stylus is just as an extension of your finger.

So you can tap touch swipe and scroll through the phone using the stylus just the same way. You would your thumb – and i know a lot of people like to do this – to maybe get more precise taps on smaller apps and icons beyond that, tcl actually integrated a ton of really robust, stylus, specific apps that will pop up in a dedicated panel. Each time you pull out the stylus theres, probably a dozen or so different apps and tools here, some weve seen before, but there are a few in particular that i want to highlight. The first is nebo, which is a more advanced note, taking app that offers things like written to text, conversion document, editing, diagram creations, math solving and a whole lot. More nebo has actually been around for a while, its a standalone, app on ios and android, but tcl seems to have partnered up with them to offer their app experience on this device. And you really have a ton of great tools and options here for school work and beyond. I know some people who use nebo on the regular from their tablets and things. So this is a similar experience, theres also my script, calculator, which is an incredibly powerful, handwritten math problem solver, which is also a pretty widely used paid app that tcl seems to have thrown in here with this stylus experience, theres also the traditional written notes, app screenshot Editors, magnifying tool, split, screen, app shortcut and you can add and modify the stylus menu to reorganize, hide or show whatever stylist features youd like.

In addition, you can install any other third party, stylus apps, you can think of yourself and add shortcuts to those favorite apps outside of tcls own, like googles, keep notes, for example, and as far as the writing experience, since this is still a budget stylus phone and Since the stylus, isnt, smart or otherwise, connected to it, youre still going to get that rudimentary writing experience with a bit of latency between the line on the screen and the tip of the pen. But this isnt unexpected and honestly for what it is, its more than usable, its a relatively smooth experience and similar to the moto phones and lg stylo. If youve used those overall, i actually think tcl did a great job delivering a decent stylus experience paired with a number of unique apps, add ons features and tools. They go beyond the simple note, taking and drawing theres some really good stuff here and im interested to see how tcl expands upon it, but for a first go they really offered a lot as far as the display. The 6.81 inch screen on the tcl stylus is an ips lcd panel, coming in at a resolution of 2460×1080 for about ‘5 pixels per inch. On the one hand, i actually think tcl delivers a great viewing experience for what this is paired with their next vision, enhancements, which i do think make a difference in color contrast and the overall look. This phone offers a relatively bold and punchy setup.

That almost seems better than what it is, and at this big size, 1080 resolution is definitely a must have plenty sharp for those pixel peepers amongst you and obviously having so much screen. Real estate is a plus, but it is still just an lcd screen, so it isnt particularly bright and theres no high refresh rate here either just a 60 hertz panel, like i said i dont necessarily have any complaints with the viewing experience, but comparably there are some 250 to 300 devices out there now with 90hz panels, oled displays so if screen caliper and quality is most important to you, while this is pretty decent, other phones offer more when it comes to the out loud listening experience, though, tcl brought a great dual speaker setup To this phone you get the one at the bottom, the secondary one in the earpiece – and this is exactly the sort of thing i appreciate heres a sound sample, so you can hear it for yourself: Music, Applause, Music Applause, Music Applause inside the dcl stylus is powered By the mediatek demensity 700 5g chipset, which is the same processor, found in samsungs, a13, 5g motorolas, moto g 5g, the tcl xe, 5g and a whole bunch of other budget and mid range devices, its paired with four gigs of ram 128 gigs of storage and thats. The only configuration option for this phone here are the geekbench scores for those of you who are interested nothing unexpected here, like i said, sort of a budget or mid ranger device, it does ship with android 12, which is great, and the software experience is no doubt Tailored towards tcls own unique experience now out of the box, i actually thought this phone was a lot smoother and snappier than i was initially expecting, which is great, feels well optimized and even as i started to open up a dozen or so apps, the four gigs Of ram didnt seem to hold it back any, at least for the moment, but if youre not as familiar with tcls android experience, it is lets, say a very unique theme and setup.

So it takes a little getting used to far from stock, though fairly straightforward, and there are some tweaks and touches that i dont really mind. I am looking forward to putting this phone through its paces in the coming weeks to see what all it can handle. I will say that i generally have higher expectations for it, because, given its stylus integration and the apps and features that go along with it, i think even the average user will be pushing this phone a bit harder day in and day out. So itll be interesting to see if this tcl stylus can keep up also powering. This phone is a 4 000 milliamp battery. Now that is a little smaller than some comparable devices. Samsung and motorola deliver five thousand milliamp batteries and their similarly priced phones, but well see how this device lasts. With my daily usage, im, hoping and really expecting a full days use out of it regardless and paired with a fast 18 watt charger. You should be able to juice up to 100 percent in under two hours, so not much time on the charger at all. Finally, when it comes to the cameras, the tcl stylus packs in a quad lens setup around back, consisting of a 50 megapixel, f, 1.8 aperture main shooter, a 5 megapixel 155 degree, ultra wide 2 megapixel macro for up close shots and a 2 megapixel depth sensor. The selfie camera is also a pretty respectable 13 megapixel shooter and inside the camera.

App tcl offers a decent array of shooting modes and features to help you get the most out of all those lenses. Some of the things i like are the wide angle lens. Of course, the high megapixel shooting mode for some extra detail and pictures pro controls hdr the light tracing that they have and even enhanced video stabilization. There doesnt seem to be a dedicated night mode. As far as i can tell and youre limited to just 1080 30 fps video, but i still think theres plenty to work with and taking a couple quick sample shots here to me. Tcl does a great job with image processing for one and these selfie shots. Also capture a ton of detail, i, like the overall look of the images for sure. I think this is better than i expected at least and with the rear cameras again, the post processing really helps these pictures out theyre a bit punchy. I dont think i necessarily look that tan in real life, but theres, nothing wrong here at all, really some pretty solid results and im interested to see how these cameras stack up in some real world testing. So all in all the tcl stylus 5g is no doubt a welcome addition to the very small stylus smartphone space. I do think that for stylus features their built in apps and add ons are a step above motorolas offerings in some capacity, since they havent really done anything new in years.

But it is still a simple stylus setup that cant compete with samsung. The phone as a whole is solid as well, but there are definitely a couple of sacrifices here that i think were made to keep the price down. But what do you guys think is this a stylist phone that can compete? Let me know in the comments down below id love, to know your thoughts. Of course. Hopefully, you guys did enjoy this. Video, though, be sure to follow techdaily on twitter and subscribe to the tech daily youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JIoNc_1YmE