TCL's Latest 5G Phone Is More Affordable Than Expected

(TCL 20 Pro 5G)

TCL has an affordable trio of new phones, available today unlocked on Amazon.

Announced at Mobile World Congress, the upcoming TCL 20 Pro 5G will cost $499.99; the TCL 20S costs $249.99; and the TCL 20 SE is $189.99. TCL makes lower-cost smartphones and formerly operated with the Alcatel brand name. We really liked its Verizon model from last year, the TCL 10 5G UW, which had a great display and battery life at a lower price than any other 5G phone Verizon was selling at the time.

We have a full preview of the TCL 20 Pro 5G, where our reviewer Steven Winkelman says that "it does just about everything you'd want a phone to do, at half the price of some comparable handsets." The $499.99 price is even lower than we anticipated in our preview, where we thought it would cost $549.

The new phones will be sold unlocked on Amazon, although they may get carrier pickups down the road. The TCL 20 Pro 5G will be compatible with T-Mobile 5G and AT&T 4G, with Verizon low-band 5G coming "in the coming weeks." The TCL 20S will be compatible with all three carriers' 4G networks, and the TCL 20 SE will be compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile.

The TCL 20S

Along with the more powerful 20 Pro 5G, the TCL 20S has a 6.67-inch, 1080p AMOLED screen, a huge 5,000mAh battery, 128GB of storage, and a 64-megapixel main camera. It runs Android 11 on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor. Its 4G band support includes T-Mobile's long-range band 71.

The inexpensive TCL 20SE has a 6.82-inch, 720p LCD display and a similarly large 5,000mAh battery. It runs Android 11 on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 460 processor, and has a 48MP main camera. It lacks band 71, however.

The company also announced the pricing for a pair of true wireless earbuds, the MoveAudio S600. They will cost $99.99 on Amazon. The earbuds have active noise cancellation with a "transparency mode" that lets you hear surrounding sounds when you really want to. The new earbuds will come for free to people who buy a TCL 20 Pro 5G before July 5, TCL said.

We will have a full review of the TCL 20 Pro 5G coming soon.

About Our Expert

Sascha Segan

Former Lead Analyst, Mobile

My Experience

I'm that 5G guy. I've actually been here for every "G." I reviewed well over a thousand products during 18 years working full-time at PCMag.com, including every generation of the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S. I also wrote a weekly newsletter, Fully Mobilized, where I obsessed about phones and networks.

My Areas of Expertise

US and Canadian mobile networks
Mobile phones released in the US
iPads, Android tablets, and ebook readers
Mobile hotspots
Big data features such as Fastest Mobile Networks and Best Work-From-Home Cities

The Technology I Use

Being cross-platform is critical for someone in my position. In the US, the mobile world is split pretty cleanly between iOS and Android. So I think it's really important to have Apple, Android and Windows devices all in my daily orbit.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 for work and a 2021 Apple MacBook Pro for personal use. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, although I'm probably going to move to an Android foldable. Most of my writing is either in Microsoft OneNote or a free notepad app called Notepad++. Number crunching, which I do often for those big data stories, is via Microsoft Excel, DataGrip for MySQL, and Tableau.

In terms of apps and cloud services, I use both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive heavily, although I also have iCloud because of the three Macs and three iPads in our house. I subscribe to way too many streaming services.

My primary tablet is a 12.9-inch, 2020-model Apple iPad Pro. When I want to read a book, I've got a 2018-model flat-front Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. My home smart speakers run Google Home, and I watch a TCL Roku TV. And Verizon Fios keeps me connected at home.

My first computer was an Atari 800 and my first cell phone was a Qualcomm Thin Phone. I still have very fond feelings about both of them.

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