TCL's 40 Series Phone Line Will Make Your Wallet Happy - CNET

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TCL unveiled a caller scope of affordable phones Wednesday at CES 2023, with plans to bring them to the US aboriginal successful the year.

The TCL 40 bid has 3 phones that outgo betwixt $129 and $219. Despite the debased prices, each of the phones successful the 40 bid see a 50-megapixel rear camera and TCL's NxtVision surface mode, which is fundamentally an HDR mode that turns connected erstwhile viewing videos oregon playing games. The 40 bid features the TCL 408, 40 S and 40 R 5G. They each tally connected Android 13.

TCL continues to tribunal price-conscious consumers. During a property briefing, the institution noted that 95% of its customers usage TCL phones connected prepaid plans, which often don't necessitate a recognition check. Other telephone companies are besides eying this conception of the market, with Samsung debuting its Galaxy A14 5G astatine $200 during CES 2023. Samsung's A14 is notable for including a humble spec bump to past year's A13 5G, but besides decreasing the terms by $50 from the exemplary the A14 is replacing.

While the little prices are surely appealing, it volition inactive beryllium important to spot however the phones themselves really work. Last twelvemonth I reviewed the TCL Stylus 5G, which had fantabulous features for its $258 terms tag, but repetitive bundle bugs made the telephone hard to urge aft investigating it implicit 4 months.

The cheapest telephone successful the caller lineup is the TCL 408, which starts astatine $129 (roughly £105, AU$190). It has 2 rear cameras, a macro and the aforementioned 50-megapixel camera, arsenic good arsenic dual stereo speakers. Unlike the different 2 phones, the TCL 408 volition initially motorboat successful Asia on with Europe.

Then there's the TCL 40 SE, which is simply a measurement up from the 408 and starts astatine $169 (roughly £140, AU$245). Its 6.75-inch show is simply a peculiar item due to the fact that it has a 90Hz refresh rate, contempt having conscionable a 720p resolution. The 40 SE comes with either 128GB oregon 256GB of storage. That's peculiarly notable, arsenic astir sub-$200 phones typically see 64GB oregon less. There's besides a microSD paper slot for much storage. The 40 SE has the aforesaid cameras arsenic the TCL 408 but besides has a 2-megapixel extent camera for features similar representation mode. The 40 SE volition archetypal motorboat successful Europe during the archetypal 4th of 2023.

The higher-end TCL 40 R 5G rounds retired the lineup astatine $219 (roughly £180, AU$320) and is the lone 40 bid telephone with 5G support. The 40 R 5G is presently disposable successful Europe, and TCL plans to motorboat it successful much countries passim the year.

TCL besides announced the Tab 8 LE tablet that volition spell connected merchantability aboriginal successful January for $159 (roughly £130, AU$230). It has an 8-inch HD display, a quad-core processor, a 4,080mAh artillery and 5-megapixel beforehand arsenic good arsenic rear cameras. Storage-wise it's connected the tiny broadside with lone 32GB of abstraction but does enactment up to 512GB of expandable storage. TCL besides highlighted its $40 MoveAudio Air wireless headphones astatine CES 2023, which are already connected sale.

Its different CES 2023 reveals see a assortment of premium experiences and concepts, including its RayNeo X2 AR Glasses. My workfellow Scott Stein demoed the glasses, which see a real-time translation tool. TCL is besides eyeing the foldable telephone market but is inactive trying to find whether this niche makes commercialized sense. Over connected the tv side, TCL is debuting a caller enactment of Google TV-powered models with higher refresh rates for gaming.