TCL 10 L: An Imperfect Budget Option For Android

The folks over at TCL are officially in the smartphone market w/ the 10 Pro & the 10 L. FYI: The 10 5G is their 3rd device but has yet to go on sale. Now we already tackled the 10 Pro and now its time to shift gears towards their other device, the 10 L. With the TCL 10 Pro being their top-tier device, the 10 L is more so their entry-level budget device. So after a coupled weeks w/ it, we can break down our experience w/ it and talk about how it compares to the 10 Pro.

So despite being a few differences between the 10 Pro and the 10 L, they are noticeable ones – whether in appearance or performance. So instead of the premium matte finish on the 10 Pro, you got 3D backing + organic glass on the 10 L. As far as the resolution, you have the same display panel save for a .01inch larger size and display technology here over the 10 Pro. The 10 L has an LCD panel while the 10 Pro has a curved AMOLED panel. Both offer TCL’s NXTVISION technology that converts SDR to HDR in real-time and makes for more saturated colors, darker blacks, and better contrast.

The 10 L is powered by a slightly slower octa-core Snapdragon 665 CPU over the octa-core Snapdragon 675 CPU. The 10 Pro has double the internal storage of the 10 L w/ 64GB but matches the expandable storage at 256GB though. One of the upsides the 10 L has over the 10 Pro is a faster & more reliable rear fingerprint sensor. And last but not least, the 10 Pro has a slightly larger battery going from 4500 mAh cell w/ fast charging down to a standard 4000 mAh cell on the 10 L. Outside of that, the cameras are exactly the same in specs and performance. Both offer a 3.5mm headphone jack, running Android 10 w/ TCL UI, and a single speaker.

Budget specs but performs a bit better than you expect.

6.5inch LCD display w/ HDR10 support + 1080 x 2340 resolution
Snapdragon 665 CPU
6GB of RAM + 64GB of storage expandable up to 256GB via microSD
A quad rear camera setup w/ f/1.7 64MP main sensor, f/2.4 16MP Super wide-angle, f/2.2 5MP Macro, and f/1.8 2MP Super low-light video sensors
f/2.0 24MP selfie camera
Android 10 w/ TCL UI
dual mics
3.5mm headphone jack
Bluetooth 5.0
4000 mAh battery

Now we already told you that TCL used an octa-core Snapdragon 665 CPU w/ 6GB of RAM + 64GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 256GB via microSD. I did come across some sluggishness at times in doing everyday stuff of opening apps and scrolling through emails and such. But closing the apps running in the background every here and there helped a bit. However, gaming on it was just fine w/ zero complications at all.

On the battery side of things, you got a 4000 mAh cell inside of this. Now you don’t have any fast charging features here but it can still fully charge just over 2 & a half hours. Which is about 30 mins more than on the 10 Pro w/ Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging for a full charge. Now to answer the question of how long did the battery last? On moderate usage, I got about a day and a half of juice. On more intense usage, I still got over 12 hours of juice. My intense use case was watching a few YouTube videos, using Google Maps for an hour drive, streaming Spotify, and a few emails.

On the 10 L, you got a total of 4 shooters in total on the rear coupled w/ 2 LED flash sensors as well. You got 64MP, 16MP super wide-angle, 5MP macro & 2MP low-light video sensors on the back and for video, its capable of up to 4K@30fps + Slo-Mo up to 240fps. And on the front, you got a 24MP hole-punch selfie camera.

The results from these shooters on both photos + video remain the same from the 10 Pro. In good-to-great lighting, you can get good-to-useable photos/videos. However, you do get some oversaturated colors and oversharpened results. Moving from good-to-great lighting gives you results that are noisy, lack of detail, & full of inaccurate colors/white balance. This goes for both photos & videos as well as their dedicated Night Mode. Unfortunately outside of that, the rest of the camera falls into the budget quality.

Click image for full resolution

The upside is that the Macro lens is pretty good and the image stabilization for video ain’t bad either. So it’s not a complete swing-and-a-miss for the shooters on here. But after the PIxel 3a (soon-to-be 4a) and the iPhone SE sequel, it’s gonna be hard to compete for real in the market.

TCL kept it pretty simple for its software to match its hardware. The 10 L is running Android 10 underneath its own TCL UI which rocks mostly stock Android – save for select icons + app drawer layout. Along w/ all of that, TCL adds Super Bluetooth to support up to 4 headphones or speakers at once, NXTVISION for display options and a Smart Manager to monitor apps, battery, RAM management, apps like Compass, File Share, Radio, & more. Since this is TCL’s 1st real-time out w/ these devices, we’ll have to see if they will keep up w/ Google’s software update schedule and being on the faster side or not.

The 10 L is a great entry-level budget device w/ a beautiful screen not found on a smartphone in this price range.

Like the 10 Pro, the TCL 10 L is a great budget option that grew on me more than I thought it would. One can always appreciate a great panel to view things on w/ all-day battery life, & fast fingerprint sensor. Of course, talking budget phones you kind of gotta expect budget-level cameras. However, 10 L touts a display & the performance is far above what you would get at this price range. Now you gotta decide which one of these to get: the TCL 10L ($250) or the 10 Pro ($450)? I would opt for the Pro but either way, you’ll be fine.