TCL 10 Pro: Unboxing & First Impressions By RodrickViews

Up until January of this year, every time I thought of TCL all I thought about was TVs because I know they got some cheap TVs that are amazing quality, but then I attended their keynote at CES 2020. Where then built some phones and this one right here is one of them- the TCL 10 Pro, and it looks like a monster, as I was doing. Some research on this phone I was thinking. Is this the new one plus where you can get an affordable beast of a phone, a flagship killer? If you may well I guess we're going to find out I'm pretty excited to see. We are looking at a six point: four seven-inch full HD, plus curved AMOLED display that also supports NOT vision as well as HDR 10, so that right there makes it already sound amazing I mean you can watch Netflix shows with extreme contrast and color clarity, and they even went as far as curving. The screen I mean personally I'm, not a huge fan of curved display.

So we'll see how much I like this one, but that's generally a flagship feature. Isn't if we're? Also, looking at a 64 megapixel main camera, but the funny thing is that's only 25% of the story, because there's not only one but there's two there's not only two but there's three there's not only three but there's actually, four main cameras. Of course. The first one is a 64 megapixel shooter, followed by a 2 megapixel camera specifically for low-light situations. Although 2 megapixels doesn't sound that great, but I guess we'll see coming up next, the third camera a 5 megapixel macro lens, so you can get up close and personal with your subject.

You can get really close on some flowers or maybe a bee, and get that really crisp detail. We have a 16 megapixel super wide angle, camera that 123 degrees. That gets you three point three times the shot you would normally get with a regular camera on the inside. We are looking at 128 gigabytes of storage along with 6 gigabytes of RAM, and it also does have support for up to a 256 gigabyte micros card, although theoretically it could support up to 2 terabytes, but it's not lynching, but I mean it might work. So why not? Along with a 4500 William hour battery that does support quick charge, 3.0 18 watts of power and also reverse charging from the USB port to another device, which is pretty amazing. Now one of the big things that it is missing, which I always love as a feature, is wireless charging.

It's non-existent here, uh. Why and all these goodies are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 outscore processor. Now it's not the highest end processor in the world, but for 450 bucks with all these other features. As long as it's not lagging and the user experience is good, does it really matter personally, I haven't really been paying attention to processors over the last few years, because basically, every phone you get is going to be smooth unless you get one, that's like a hundred bucks, but really at the end of the day, it's the user experience that matters, not the spec sheet. Because you're going to have some amazing specs and a crap phone.

So now I'm really excited to see what TCL is done. Aside from the TV market, I mean they did well with the packaging. It's looking very fancy display greatness now. Personally, I'm not really too fun of the way they did, that I mean I, see what they were going for, but this big gap, just kind of doesn't do it for me, although I understand what they're trying to do so, I guess sorry, that's kind of nitpick really who cares the TCL 10 Pro yeah there we go. Oh right, I'm actually liking the way this looks so far.

I know we didn't really get too far in but come on now. Look at this presentation is key all right. So let's pull this phone out. Okay, I'm surprised, it's so lightweight with all those features I mentioned and a 4,500 million power battery, it's very narrow and tough hold on. Let's put that to the side we're getting ahead of ourselves.

We don't have a sim ejection tool. Of course. Oh yes, I love it when they include these. We got an actual gel skin, clear case to put on the phone and protect it. Nice touch and there we go.

We got the logo that I'm not really liking, although it does look, alright display greatness. Hopefully that display is definitely greatness. I mean it's HDR, 10 NOT vision, Full, HD, plus super tall come on now it's gotta look good right. We also have a Quick Start, Guide and safety and precautions doesn't look like we got any TCL stickers. Unfortunately, next time you know I'm really liking.

This package only goes beyond little flaps, including a USB, a two USB type-c cable and a quick charge.3.0 wall, adapter I'm sure you all know a quick charge works. You can get a 50% charge in about 35 minutes, not too bad, and now, let's get on to the phone. Oh okay, this thing looks super nice. Look at that I mean it's just a blank screen, but it's super shiny, looks good, I, love, I love! How tall this phone is. I know a lot of people, don't like tall phones, I, don't know why, for some reason I do.

Maybe this is me: oh wow, this gray is super nice I thought it was gonna, be a bit more shiny, but it's a bit more of a matte finish. Although it does change colors in the way it looks and shimmers based on the way the light hits it Wow. It just looks super nice, though, like it's, not too flashy. So if you don't like something, flashy do some more on the stealthy side. Looking good up here on the top of the back, we do have the array of four cameras.

Looking super nice, along with the laser autofocus that'll focus super quickly, even in the dark and even two LED flashes that are actually, it might be a little hard to tell, but the LED flashes are actually raised up a bit above the cameras. Why is that? Maybe, if you're running around naked, and you put your phone down, the camera lenses won't get scratched smart huh, we got some very minimal TCL branding on the back and the rest is just all blank very minimalistic. Looking and I'm really digging the way they arrange these cameras. It just makes it look super classy, no stove top. You know I'm saying over here on the left side we do have one, and this is a user customizable, smart key, which you can actually set to launch any app.

You want or any feature you want, just with the click of a button very convenient Samsung took a while before they did that over here. On the right side, we have a volume rocker, along with the power button, simple down on the bottom. We have the SIM card, tray the USB type-c charging port, as well as a speaker, grille and microphone up on top. Well, you look at that. We actually have two things that a lot of phones don't have anymore and remember this one's like half the price of the flagships, a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. And what is that? Will you believe it? It's an IR blaster, so you can control TVs at will.

I wish every phone had that I love that feature along with another microphone, of course, and then taking a look on the front. We got this massive six point. Four seven-inch screen: that's almost six and a half inches, that's insane AMOLED and curved looking good. We have a little teardrop notch for the 24 megapixel selfie camera, and now you're probably wondering how do we unlock this? Do we have to use face ID I, didn't say a fingerprint scanner anywhere? Well, this is a good day for both of us, because good news we have an under display fingerprint reader and better news. This is the first time I've ever used.

One of those and it's going to be like magic. I can already tell, so before we get this booted up. Let's try out the case. Real quick slips on real easily gives you some nice grip to it. Cameras are exposed, buttons are very click wow.

This is actually a perfect case. I'm impressed normal I, don't like silicone cases, but this was all right. Oh that's, clever! Look what I just noticed the part right here that I said I was like: why do they have this big gap here? I know what they're trying to do I didn't know they were trying to do this, though TCL logo is right in the middle of that smack-dab. Looking nice really, though, I'm liking, the case it looks good Wow I might actually use this case. I was planning to go naked, but not anymore.

The case does provide some lip protection on the front as well as the camera. It's not a's, not a bump, but I mean it still adds more rays off of the camera. Even though the camera is flush anyways. So that's cool yeah. Now, let's power this thing on.

Oh, here we go all that's screamed. While this is definitely AMOLED, it looks super nice I was like watching the splash screens. I, don't know about you. So let's watch this together. Shall be nice animations, no sound, but it looks nice, and here we go hi there, let's get started? Shall we right here? You can actually get a better look at the teardrop knots, not too bad, not too intrusive.

We'd have a little of a chain at the bottom, but it's definitely not too bad. This screen, though this screen is I'm surprised. It's so clear. So crisp looks very nice. It's so clearing just look wow.

The blacks are deep. Definitely AMOLED well scan. I say: let's pop up the SIM card tray as far as I know, this doesn't have an actual IP rating, although they did put a rubber ring around here. So it's definitely water-resistant to an extent. They've tried, I'm, not gonna, say much more, but I'm, not too scared.

This is nice too. On the top, we have a SIM card slot on the bottom micro SD card slot. All in one I like that, this phone is factory, unlocked to work on all GSM carriers, no CDMA, and it does have a plethora of bands. So you should be fine, no matter what I'm going to get this thing set up, and it'll be right on back after a message from our sponsors all right, and now it's time to do. The part I've been looking forward to unlocking or the fingerprint, so we're going to go next.

We're going to set this up. We got to get a pin set up. Furthermore, we just do this secretly, that's cool it lights up, so since it is lighting up I'm guessing this is an optical fingerprint one, because that's to light up your finger to be able to read it. This is like, futuristic, I, remember back in high school. There was this app where you can make it seem like you had an onscreen fingerprint reader, but it was really just depending on how long you held the screen in that specific spot, or maybe it wasn't even that spot just held the screen anywhere really, but it was fine.

Now we actually have that's pretty amazing. Well, we can unlock with our face too. So why not? Okay, that was really fast. Look at that. Okay, we got all those colors, and it's moving that looks nice.

Let's use that one! Oh nice, okay, we're in okay, that's very fluent already I'm liking that it looks I'm still impressed with this screen. It looks so nice, so clear, Wow, keep in mind all those leaves you're seeing on the screen right now, that's not actually happening in real life. It's the camera, shutter speed or something going on interfering with the screen in person. Furthermore, it looks super amazing, like look at that. That's how amazing it looks crazy right, look, wow I'm, rest! All right! We got the app drawer here, load it up with apps no bloatware.

It looks like nice. Obviously, a thumb lock. You've got from a carrier, probably loaded up with stuff. Like that's one of the reasons I like iPhones, they don't have bloatware perfect right, really what's go. We didn't allow bloatware either I'd be great, but at this did we get it.

Unlocked you're generally in the clear, well I get a swipe to the left. You got Google News and everything right here. That's awesome! You have to open up a separate, app, see I'm used to being on an iPhone. You have to go in the Google app to see all this, but it's actually just right here on the left side of the home screen. That's great! You know the first thing I want to look at.

Are all these cameras. We got five cameras. Let's take a look at them, see how well they actually do so.64 megapixels I'm expecting greatness here. So we'll set this box here see if I can get a nice shot here, all right, pretty fast, shutter speed. It does look a little on the dark side, though so we have HDR set to auto.

You have timer settings flash settings filters 4 by 3 16 by 9 1 by 1; okay, so photo size. Obviously, oh it's not even set to 64 164 megapixels high pixel video quality. We can go up to 4k at 16 by 9 at 30 frames per second. Can you only were 30 frames per second, even on 1080p 720p wow they're, all they're all set to 30 frames per second? For some reason: oh, we have electronic image stabilization, AI camera, calorie detection, that sounds awesome, hey I composition, dark shot for when it's dark, so you can press the volume button to either do a shutter, zoom or volume I'll leave it on shutter I like that triple cam, I want to say that's and let us take three pictures at the same time. So you can see all different vantage points will be great.

We have shutter sound watermark, we'll leave it on just for the purpose of this video I. Don't know why you would leave it on regularly. That doesn't make sense. So now we're on pixel mode, and you can actually turn it off here on the bottom. So let's take a 64 megapixel picture I mean the picture, does look on the dark side, although I guess the lights are coming this way, so it might be, throwing it off a bit and I think about it.

Let me try it with the flash on and see if that changes up anything. You know what I'm going to try one. So you get to get it out of the way of the light. Now, let's try this. You know what not bad I mean I'm, not sure if it's 64 megapixel good, but it's alright, not bad.

We also have the zoom option. So, let's see, let me try to show you guys what's going on here, so we have the foam box right here, we're on 1x zoom we're on 2x zoom. We can zoom all the way up to 10x. Look at that all the way in there not too bad really for 10x. Let's go back out to one right here.

We can go wide. It looks like yep wide I mean I, don't I wouldn't say it's Super-duper wide, but it's decently wide. You can definitely see more look at that. Then we go to macro, so wait. No! This is always so here we go.

This is the triple camera. This is actually using a 64 megapixel camera, the ultra-wide and the low-light video all at the same time. So let's see what this actually looks like, okay, I, guess, okay, I'm kind of disappointed. You can't actually take the picture of all of it at once, but what you do is you see which one you like? Okay for this picture, I need to be ultra-wide, so you tap that, and then it opens up the ultra-wide, and you can snap your picture just like that and the picture for the ultra-wide that doesn't look that good at all. I, don't know a picture.

This looks very blurry to me. I. Don't know why it's kind of weird you try a regular shot this time ultra-wide, oh yeah, the ultra-wide looks really blurry. That's weird! Okay. We got portrait mode here without work on a box.

There does have to be a person about to find out all right. It actually did blur out the background. I mean, doesn't look the best I've ever seen, but definitely not bad. We have super night mode, you know what hey kill the studio lights, all right, as you guys can see, or maybe not. We are really dark right now.

So in super night mode, let me see what we can do here. Keep the device steady. There we go. We took a super night shot. You know what that's actually pretty good I mean it's still pretty dark, but it's really dark in here.

Well, look. We can actually see some detail, I'm pretty impressed with that. We got pro mode, so you can obviously manually adjust everything, hey studio on and then now we actually have more modes. Furthermore, we have slow mode which actually goes up to 960 frames per second for super slo-mo. Furthermore, we have stop motion light tree, so you can actually draw stuff with light.

That's awesome. We're not going to be doing that right now, and then we have panoramic mode. Of course, high pixel mode and then super macro, so we're on the super macro mode now and look at that. I can get super close to the box, and it's actually still clear. So you see, let me get some simple words here on the back.

Oh, look at that. That's actually super nice and yes, the macro is actually perfect I'm liking that one the wide angle wasn't too good super macro, it's definitely a win and then, of course, let's try the selfie mode flip the camera around and now not too bad I know my iPhone definitely looks better. This is a higher megapixel count, but that doesn't really mean much okay, so we'll do a regular shot. First, it looks okay, not not the best ever always beauty mode on. Oh, you can have beauty mode on too.

So, let's turn beauty mode all the way up. It looks about the same, just more airbrushed, and then we have portrait mode ? portrait mode, not too shabby I'm, actually digging that okay and well that's. Actually, we need to try some videos, so first we're going to do the front the regular main camera for a video shot. Hey right here. This is a sample of I.

Think it's a 4k 30 frames per second still main camera 64 megapixels. How does it look? Let's put the box next to me? Is our mat over exposure, so my golly studio lights on me, so hopefully it's able to correct it and bring down the brightness a bit. Hopefully the audio sounds good -. That's a big problem. I have with some cameras.

If that isn't sound good. That what's the point, okay looks good though, and then now let's do a front-facing video, alright front-facing 24 megapixel camera. Do you know the video that she doesn't look too bad I feel like the video looks better than the pictures actually did we focus? We don't have focus, of course, but uh. It looks clear to me. This is, should be at 1080p.

I did actually go in the settings for the self. Our settings there probably are. Yes, it would be separate. Maybe I would say where I'll be together, but whatever, hopefully the audio sounds good too, but the video I think it looks pretty good. What do you all think all in all, though I think the cameras are definitely acceptable, they're not the best ever but for 450 bucks, I, think they're, good enough, plus you get four of them? The wide angle that I'm really disappointed in that one.

Alright. So now that we've taken care of the cameras, let's take a look at what else we got over here. We do have a little sidebar. You can actually add different apps here they stole this from Samsung. But who cares I? Don't we can add apps here, so we can have Google Chrome a compass whatever you want us to have easy access to us? So, no matter where you are: where can we be? We can be in Netflix all right, Netflix looks good, it's actually pretty installed.

Nice update, let's update it. Why not? But while you're doing all this boom swipe over here, you want to go to Chrome BAM, just like that. Loving that feature a little convenient access right. We do have the smart button on the left side. Of course, you can press that, and now we can set it up a single press.

We can set up to do whatever. We want a double press and a long press to see so one press took an instant picture. Double press just opens up the camera and then holding it down. What time is it look at that pretty awesome right. You know what I completely forgot.

Let's try out the fingerprint sensor. Oh, it's down there. Okay, that opened up right away once I figured out where it was whoaed. Okay, it's not superfast though, but maybe I'm missing the mark. It's actually pretty quick takes about a second yeah, so a little on the slower side, but I still love that now, let's try face unlock I'm, not looking damn face.

Unlock is definitely fast. Okay, perfect! Now, as far settings go, what settings do we have in here? We have network and Internet. Of course we in change the Wi-Fi cellular network data usage, hotspot, VPN, all the good stuff same old, same old, Bluetooth and device settings. We do have NFC see you can obviously transfer files between each other and as well as use Google Pay. We have dark mode on automatically, but you can also toggle it on all the time I like dark mode.

Lets we'll see you out for now an always-on display, okay, that was off, but now we have it on I'll see what that looks like wait hold up always on, so it should be on right. Now, right, oh there we go. We can see the time the date, the battery percentage. Obviously so notifications will probably pop up, and then we can also see the fingerprint down here. Let's put our finger on it, yeah I'm good to go nice and a notification light which I haven't had since I've had an iPhone's.

So that's something I've missed. We have NOT vision, so we already have that turned on. We have screen color set to vivid gentle or standard adaptive tone. That's just like on iPhones where adjusted the screen based on the environment you're in, so it's not too harsh on the eyes. I love that, so we're leaving that on for sure we have system navigation, we now button gestures or more some more.

So the think this one's more like an iPhone right. Okay, so yeah swipe up and hold up okay, so this one's basically an iPhone, although it's nowhere near as smooth, so I, don't think I'll keep it on I mean it is pretty smooth, but it has a bit of a delay. It's not as fluid stick with the buttons on Android I have to use buttons. It's just the better way to do it. Nice.

We have an app cloner, so you can actually clone apps like Facebook Snapchat Instagram whatever, so you can have more accounts on one phone, so you have to keep switching and log it out. That's a great feature: I would love to have that on an iPhone for sure we have a screen recorder, which is always nice to have 1080p resolution. We can record the microphone sound or mute. There's no option to record the system sounds which is a bummer, because that's one of the features I love about the iPhone it records. Whatever you hear coming out of the iPhone- and you can also turn on the mic, if you want to, but this one, you can only record the mic.

So that's the bummer. We have gestures, so you can flip to mute three fingers. Screenshot. Let me try that now that's cool okay, we'll leave that on! You can even do scrolling screenshots I wish the iPhone had that word, didn't save it as a PDF. I would love it to save.

As a regular JPEG lit, screen gestures, quick launch camera tap to wake yeah. We want tap to wake on I love that feature. We have game mode, so you can choose the block. Notifications, have a constant brightness double check for gestures, add, add, add, turbo mode to have the best performance, but also use more power. You probably want that on unless you're trying to conserve power, as well as optimize the network to limit other apps and network usage while you're gaming.

So that way you don't start lagging, and they can also clear out background apps to really storage for the game as well as driving mode, which you know, driving mode is driving mode and then smart key, which we already took a look at nice. We have security, we have Google Play, protect fine on device security update. The security patch is from March 1st, so it is about three months old, not too bad. Google Play update is for December of last year. We have screen lock options fingerprint face key smart lock, you know all the basic stuff.

We have private space here, so you can actually keep all your stuff private. If you want to be a little sneaky and even app lock, so you can lock individual apps, so you need to unlock it with a passcode. That's great I love that feature first. So now, let's hit up YouTube, we'll take a look at how videos work, as well as how the speaker sound. Okay, the video looks extremely clear.

You can stretch it. The nuts don't get in the way too much. The sound is really loud, although it's only coming from the bottom speaker. There's no stereo speakers here, which is a downer, but the video itself looks super clear. Super vibrant I loved it.

So all in all this phone is actually super nice and impressive. The screen is amazing. Video quality is amazing. The colors are so vibrant in screen fingerprint scanner BAM I love it look at that. That's awesome, I, don't know! This is the first time I've ever had one, so I'm pretty impressed, although it is on the slower side, but does it matter not too much come on? Now, plus you got face, unlock, which is superfast I haven't experienced any lags and everything is super smooth.

The screen is super nice. It's definitely a pleasure to use the only thing I found out so far is the cameras aren't super great. They are passable, but they're, not amazing, by any stretch of the imagination, especially that super wide angle lens, which maybe once I go outside and try it out with some nature or something that's actually like further away and because everything was too close and the lights were kind of interfering. Maybe then it'll look better, but for now, I'm not too impressed with the cameras, although they are definitely good enough to get the job done. I'm going to be using this, putting it through the paces and seeing how I like it in my everyday life, and I'll, get back to you guys and let you know if I like it.

Let me know if you guys tried it out for yourself or, if you're planning, to pick one of these up and what you guys thought of it. So far, of course, I'll leave the link down below in the description. If you want to pick one of these up for yourself because really for 50 bucks, this screen and everything is amazing. This might actually be the new OnePlus flagship killer, TCL coming in strong with what I believe is their first series of smartphones, so I'm pretty impressed.

Source : RodrickViews