TCL 30 XE 5G Review: All You Need to Know
TCL 30 XE 5G will be formally unveiled on January 4, 2022. The smartphone has a 6.52-inch screen with an IPS LCD display. The screen has a density of 269 PPI and a resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels. Dragontrail Glass shields the display. The Android 11 Plus TCL UI operating system powers the gadget.
Read along to find out more about this mid-range device.
Specifications & Further Details
The TCL 30 XE is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 700 CPU and 4GB of RAM, which is poor even by cheap phone standards. Even so, switching between apps is fast. It's not flawless; there are a few minor but visible hiccups here and there.
Another plus is the battery life. The 30 XE's 4,500mAh battery isn't the largest by any means, but the gadget is quite power-efficient overall. Light users who spend the most of their time on Wi-Fi will obtain excellent performance, lasting far into the next day on a single charge. It should also withstand heavy usage.
However, the long power life is most likely due to the very dull low-resolution screen. The 30 XE has a 6.52-inch LCD screen, which is good — LCDs have low contrast compared to their more expensive OLED counterparts, but you won't find an OLED screen on a $200 phone — but it's a lousy LCD. For starters, the quality is just 720p, which is insufficient for a screen this large. Icons and graphics have a rough appearance around the edges. It's also not very bright. When I used it next to a window on a mainly cloudy day, the automatic brightness was set to 100 percent only to keep the screen viewable.
However, the screen's refresh rate of 90Hz is much smoother than the conventional 60Hz. It helps to the phone's general responsiveness, which is excellent.
For a carrier-locked smartphone, the 30 XE comes with a plethora of pre-downloaded T-Mobile applications such as phone transfer, the majority of which can be removed or bypassed entirely during setup. The 30 XE also supports T-extremely Mobile's excellent mid-band Ultra Capacity 5G network, which is included in all of T-5G Mobile's plans – again not the case at Verizon, where access to the better 5G bands requires a more expensive unlimited plan.
The 30 XE comes with Android 11, which is out of date considering that Android 13 is just around the way. TCL representative Isabelle Braun said the phone will get an Android 12 upgrade, but she doesn't know when. In addition, the firm promises just two years of security upgrades for the 30 XE. That's not a long time, but it's not entirely surprising for a $200 phone.
TCL says the 30 XE 5G features a "triple rear camera system," although that's a bit of an exaggeration. A 13-megapixel primary camera, a 2-megapixel depth camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera are included. The depth camera's primary function is to offer extra information for portrait mode (which isn't very good), while the photographs from the macro camera are (predictably) low resolution and unimpressive.
That leaves the primary rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera, both of which are adequate. They generate incredibly rich, almost brilliant colors under strong light. None of the filters offered in the native camera app much reduce this, so you'll have to either like it or accept it. This also adds to certain strange-looking effects under mixed illumination.
The camera struggles with dim interior illumination and extremely low light. Low shutter speeds, autofocus hunting, noise reduction, or a combination of the foregoing causes blurred images. You can capture decent photographs of static things, but forget about dogs and children - even the greatest smartphone cameras struggle with moving subjects in low light. Video recording at up to 1080 / 30p is possible, although clip quality is mediocre.
Wrapping Up
The TCL 30 XE 5G delivers exactly what a cheap phone should do: it stays out of your way. For a phone at this budget, the performance is quick, which is a big plus if you want to live your life with as little aggravation from your mobile device as possible. However, if you want a bit more from your phone, there are several alternative choices to consider.
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