TCL 20 SE: LOOKS GREAT, FEELS GREAT BUT... (FULL REVIEW) By Top-Down Tech

Hey, what's up everyone welcome back to my channel. My name is Janice creator for new tech dad and, as you can see here, we have a brand-new phone to review on the channel. This is the TCL 20se and yes, you heard that right. This is from the brand TCL and if you have heard of TCL before they do make TVs, it's actually really nice that they're jumping into the cell phone bandwagon, because that means more competition and more exciting products that consumers can see in the future. But for now we'll be talking about their entry level phone. So yeah I've been using this for a month now.

This has been a perfect experience for me, but specs wise. This won't give you the best overall specs when it comes to an entry-level phone, but before we proceed to the specs' discussion, let's go ahead and check out a quick unboxing, so you guys would see what's included in the package, I can't let you go baby cause. I love right, so there you have it guys that was a quick unboxing of the TCL 20se, let's jump to the ports on this. So at the bottom we have two speakers, and then we have an USB charging port on the right side. We have the power button and the volume rockers on the top.

We have a microphone and a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, and then we have an extra button right here on the left side. This is the Google button, or you can program this as well, but yeah mainly. I use this for the Google Assistant function, as you can see really helpful for those who, like to access their google quickly. The sim card slot is a hybrid sim card slot, so you can insert one micro, SD and one sim card, or you can use a dual sim card option without the micro SD card, so really nice for an entry level phone and then on the front. We have this water drop notch and, of course, the front panel is a 6.85 inch display, it's huge for an entry level phone at the back. We have a very glossy finish as you can see here.

It's quite reflective. You can see my light. Some may like it, but I personally don't prefer glossy back panels, but it is very nice to look at it makes your phone look a little more expensive than it actually is, and then we have a quiet, camera setup here really looks nice very slim, looking lenses, they are in a rectangular module, very slim, looking rectangular module and yeah. Let me give you a closer look of this, so the main shooter on this is a 16 megapixel camera, and then we have a 5 megapixel ultra-wide angle, lens a 2 megapixel dev sensor and a 2 megapixel macro lens as well. By the way, this is the aurora green colorway.

If that wasn't obvious enough, but there's also a black version of this phone and its body is made out of plastic. As you can see, this is all plastic right here, the frame as well as this back panel right here. It's made out of plastic. This is a plastic looking device, so this might get scratched easily so better slap on a jelly case on this. If you want to protect the back panel from scratches, so that's about it.

For the physical design and with that said, let's go and discuss the software on this so right out of the box, this comes with android 11 and on top of it is the TCL UI. But let me tell you, I really like the TCL UI, it's almost close to a stock android experience. You only have few bloatware pre-installed here like the TCL plus app right here, and then we also have this next vision app. But it's not too much of a clutter. It's actually very useful when it comes to your display, and we'll talk more about this in the display discussion.

So I have no complaint at all with the TCL UI. Now, let's go ahead and talk about the performance on the tcl20 SE, it's perfect for an entry level phone. You do have to take note that this only comes with a snapdragon 460. As you can see, we got a very decent score from an tutu, so it scored 142, 722 benchmark points, that's perfect for an entry-level phone. Usually you get something like 100 to 120 000 into two benchmark points at this price range.

Now, if you're going to be using this as your daily phone, and you're not really going to be running resource, heavy apps, then you're going to have a pleasant experience with this. I've had no issues just browsing through social media testing, this out for zoo meetings as well as playing games, but I'll share more of my experience in the gaming discussion. But overall again, if you are just going to be using this for your simple tasks like emailing using this for Facebook watching YouTube videos, you won't encounter any problems at all with those tasks, so go ahead and check this out if you are going to be using this for those simple tasks. Otherwise, if you want something that is more powerful, you might need to look at the mid-range level of phones. Moving on to the display discussion, I think I was a little disappointed when I found out that this only has a 720p display.

I mean. I know this is an entry level phone, but this is coming from a brand that makes TVs, and I know they do have a separate division for their TVs, but as a tech, reviewer, there's always a little of a glimmer of hopefulness that somehow some way they can translate their technology from their TVs and transfer them to their phones. But unfortunately that is not the case here and again. The first thing to note off is that this only has a 720p display. There are entry-level phones coming out right now with the full HD display, so this is definitely a little lacking when compared to the competition.

As for the colors, I have no complaint on that department, especially with the next vision. So the next version is their image enhancement software. To give you a better looking display- and I'm telling you it does work, so I always have that turned on, and hopefully this improves, and maybe they can make high-end phones in the future, where this really translates into a good-looking display, but with a 720p display. I don't think it is being maximized really wish. This was a full HD display, and they can give you more details when it comes to the pixels so yeah.

That is definitely something that they can improve on in the future. Entry-Level phones, but overall, I think most people will be satisfied with the display on this. It's quite big again at 6.85 inches, there's no complaining about the size that you can get with this phone by the way. If you're wondering if this can play engine impact. Yes, it can, I'm at the low graphical setting, not the lowest, and it's still working well.

You now have an extra level phone that can run genii and impact pretty nice. It does have some frame drops from time to time. Of course, it's to be expected, but overall experience is still really decent. You still have a wonderful time playing against an impact on this. Of course, it's not going to be the perfect experience, but it is an entry-level phone, so you have to take note of that.

Of course, you can also set the graphics to the lowest graphical settings, and maybe you can have a better experience, but for me the low graphical settings already work so yeah again. Impact and mobile legends are the two games that I was able to try on this and perfect time on both games. Also, you have to think note that ultra settings is available on mobile legends, but I did experience some frame drops here and there for mobile legends on ultra graphics. So again, that is something that we have to take note of when playing those games and expecting you know a very smooth overall experience for those games and you better temper your expectations, because this is an entry-level phone after all, and now, as for its thermals, pretty good, pretty decent, even after several hours of playing it didn't heat up too much. It didn't reach the point that it was too uncomfortable and, of course, there's some minor heat at the back panel, because that's a normal thing.

If you're playing games for several hours already, that's something that you would expect from phones, whether it be an entry-level phone, a high-end phone or just a mid-range phone, so yeah pretty normal experience, nothing to really worry about. When it comes to gaming and of course you can see some stuttering there from Tangshan impact and again that is something that you would be expecting from this game, even at the low graphical settings, but your overall gaming experience is still going to be good all right. So, let's move on to the camera on this again, as I mentioned, this has a quad camera setup highlighted by the 16 megapixel main sensor. So I can confirm that here in the Philippines, it has a 16 megapixel main sensor as compared to a 48 megapixel main sensor in other regions. Now, as for the qualities of the photos that you can snap with the tcl20se, well, they're not gonna, be the best looking photos out there.

But of course this is what you'd expect from an entry-level phone they're. What I'd call decent, but you guys be the judge of it. You can see the actual photo samples in the Google Drive link in the description box. If you guys want to check that out. As for video you're limited to 1080p, which is expected because again, this is an entry-level phone you're not supposed to expect 4k resolution on an entry-level phone.

So that's about it! For the video and the camera experience with the TCL, it is a little packed with camera features, so you have the panorama: stop-motion uh. You also have the light trace here and also super macro and the slo-mo. You also have video. Of course, you have the portrait mode, AI color, which is something that takes out the color. You see that I'm not sure if you guys are seeing that but yeah.

Basically, it isolates an object and makes everything look gray, and then you also have the pro mode here in the menu. So you can adjust the camera settings manually but yeah. That's the overall camera experience that you can get from the TCL 20se, pretty much your typical entry level, camera phone experience now as for its battery, this has a 5000mah battery capacity, and it's pretty good in my book from experience. I actually left this for a week without using it, and it still had nine percent of battery after a week of not using it. So it has arguably a pretty good standby time.

So if you are going to be using this as your secondary phone is going to work well for you, especially if you're not gonna, be using it as much as your primary phone as for charging time, this has an 18 watt, fast charging feature which is pretty good at this price range. It will take you about two hours and 30 minutes from zero to 100 when you're charging this. You can use this for about a day and a half without having to recharge this. If you are going to be using this normally for your Facebook, your YouTube, but again I always stress out that your battery mileage may vary depending on your use case scenario, so always put that into consideration when you're watching review videos, and they're telling you, or we're telling you that we can use this for a day and a half, and then you actually get something lower. It really depends on how you use your phone all right.

So what's my final verdict on the tcl20se? Well, in my opinion, it's a really gorgeous looking phone. You can see that from its design, pretty well-designed at the bottom. You have a dual speaker, not bad for an entry level phone, and then you really have a clean design at the back, very glossy, very shiny, and then you have a two-tone setup right here with the TCL branding, and then you also have a quad camera setup, which is perfect, and then you still have the headphone jack and an expandable memory card slot, not bad at all for an entry-level phone all right. So everything I mentioned the tcl20 SE has been perfect so far, but there is one major thing that you need to consider when buying this phone in the Philippines, and that is one major concern here. It's price.

So this comes in at 8, 90 pesos. It's supposedly a perfect price for an entry-level phone in most places, but here in the Philippines the prices are so competitive when it comes to the other brands that for most people who see the price of the TCL 20se, it's going to make their eyes roll, and I really can't blame TCL for that, because the competition here in the Philippines, when it comes to entry-level phones and mid-range phones, is so cut through. A lot of brands have been undercut by Xiaomi and Poco when it comes to pricing of phones, because their features are also jam-packed. So I think the only way that TCL can penetrate the market is, if they lower down the prices, or maybe they can come up with something for the entry-level phones. That is more feature-packed than most entries from Xiaomi, because Xiaomi is undeniably the number one phone when it comes to entry-level phones and there's also other brands coming out in the market as well.

There's infinite, there's techno and other brands as well. So it's really a cutthroat competition out there, and it's really nice for us consumers, but for the brands it's going to be hard to penetrate the market. If you come out with a phone with an entry-level phone that can cost more than the competition but for other regions, I think this has a really more acceptable price at about 190 to about 125 pounds. That is what I saw on GSM arena. Of course, that's not going to be accurate, the whole time, but that's the price range globally.

So if you guys can find this at a really affordable price. This is something that I can highly recommend. This is definitely a nice phone to have and if you guys want to get your hands on your own tcl20 SE I'll leave the links in the description box and if you enjoyed this video and found it helpful, please give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel and hit that bell button. So you can watch more videos like this in the future. That's it for today guys keep safe and have a great day.

I can't let you go.

Source : Top-Down Tech