TCL 40R 5G mobile review

Tech giant TCL has just released a new series of mobile phones. Well, within the last few months at least. We’ve had TCL phones floating around on our desks in the past, and while none of them we’ve ever seen try to compete with current flagship phones, I feel like TCL is on the way. gradually cementing themselves in the mid-range market, as the family of handsets not only looks good and stylish but are also extremely efficient handsets when it comes to their performance. I just got my hands on the TCL 40R 5G, which was just shown at CES 2023, and wanted to give it a try. So let’s dive in.

Design

Starting from the back as this is definitely the most interesting aspect of this phone, as there is an engraved curvature that reminds me of some sort of astrophotography timelapse. The phone comes in either black or purple, of which we have black here and I have to say it looks pretty smart. The back of the phone and the case are made from plastic, so it feels extremely light although the etched pattern on the back gives a pretty good grip, such as a Samsung or iPhone placed in glass.

On one side, you have the lock button, which acts as a fingerprint scanner. It works fine and opens the phone almost instantly. But if fingerprint scanners aren’t your thing, there’s also facial recognition you can rely on to unlock your phone. Above the lock button, you have a volume rocker. The bezel of the phone is matte, and you get an external speaker at the bottom, as well as a USB Type-C charging port, and what feels like a headphone port is extremely rare for users who prefer to use wired headphones. Unfortunately, the phone is not waterproof for this reason, so don’t go swimming with it.

The TCL 40R 5G has a 6.6-inch IPS LCD display that is actually quite sharp and bright at 400nits of brightness. It’s 20:9 aspect ratio with 720 x 1618 resolution with 1500:1 contrast ratio. It has a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz, which can be reduced to 60Hz if you want to save battery, and it also has a smart setting where it can automatically choose the refresh rate depending on what you are doing with it. phone. The 40R 5G also has access to TCL’s NXT Vision software, which provides a variety of settings to aid in image quality. It’s broken down into three sections, which are picture, video, and game enhancements, and all of them aid in enhancing things like contrast ratio and sharpness, shadow detail, and overall resolution. With NXT Vision, there is also a reading mode and an eye-soothing mode to help reduce eye strain. And finally, a way to change the color temperature of the display. From warm, cool and neutral white balance. The small notch at the top of the screen is more like a waterdrop notch to hide the selfie camera. It doesn’t distract from the screen at all, which is great. It is very unpretentious and out of the way.

Efficiency

So inside, you have a quad-core MediaTek Dimensity 700 CPU, with two cores clocked at 2.2GHz and the other at 2.0GHz. This is backed up by 4GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage depending on which one you choose. You can also add a terabyte of storage with a microSD card if needed. You also have inside the ARM G57 MC2 graphics chip that controls the image.

Running the Geekbench 5 benchmark test, the phone gave us a score of 541 on single-core and 1,655 on multi-core, which is almost on par with Xiaomi Poco X3, Oppo Reno 2 and Samsung A22 5G. So a very average performance for sure. That said, though, if you’re going to use this phone to check Facebook notifications or update your Instagram feed, this phone is more than capable. Admittedly I did stutter when opening new apps for the first time and coming from something like the Google Pixel 7 Pro as my daily driver, opening apps is a slower process, but is slow enough now to not recommend this phone to non-users who need all the bells and whistles of a flagship phone.

Next, we ran the 3DMark test, just to see what kind of gaming performance you can get from the device, and it gave us a score of 1,206 with an average frame rate of 7, 2 in the Recommended Wildlife test, which to be honest isn’t really that bad considering the benchmark test pushes the phone’s resolution to 1440p. The phone will be able to play some Candy Crush or Clash of Clans, but if you’re in need of a phone for PUBG or Call of Duty Mobile, then you’ll have to look for a more powerful phone elsewhere. . And for comparison, similar phones with similar scores are Huawei Honor X9 5G and Motorola Moto G71 5G.

Android

The TCL 40R 5G is running Android 12 with TCL UI 4.0, which isn’t really a bad experience. At first glance it’s pretty close to the stock Android experience, however, in TCL fashion, there is some bloatware that comes with the phone, but I must say, not a huge amount. There’s an optimization app that frees up memory usage, the Support Center allows users to send feedback and troubleshoot problems, and check the health of components like your battery, and finally, heart rate monitor and pedometer to track steps. So in my opinion, not much and certainly a lot better than other oriental mobile phone manufacturers. There are some customization options that personalize the phone like widgets and wallpapers, if you want buttons or gesture controls for navigating Android or even the settings layout in your notification panel . Everything is pretty standard now with Android and nothing really stands out as bad. It was a pleasant experience using TCL UI 4.0.

The main menu is divided into categories, which is an interesting highlight. You can find things like communication which contains your Facebook app, contacts and messages, and Media where you can find your camera, gallery, music, TikTok and media related apps other. Categorizing your menus this way makes it easier to find what you’re looking for than scrolling continuously through your list of installed apps.

Moving between apps is a pretty smooth experience, and I never really experienced any kind of lag or stutter. The only thing that stood out to me was the boot speed when my phone ran out of battery once. It’s not as fast as a flagship phone, which is understandable, but it took too long for me to comment.

Battery

Inside is a 5,000mAh battery, which is more than enough for a full day of use given the phone’s resolution and refresh rate. In the box you get a 15 watt charger and a USB Type-C cable, which is fine. Not really on par with some fast chargers, but it does take a few hours or so to go from empty to full, so it’s not too bad really. The cable though is extremely short. Like it’s too short, running it from the floor where there may be an extension plug to your bedside table can be a stretch. I would like to see a longer cable provided.

It also has a feature called Smart Charging, which is designed to charge your phone slowly overnight so it reaches 100% when you wake up. This will prolong the life of the mobile phone battery and reduce overcharging.

Camera

Around the back are three separate snappers that are neatly placed on the top left of the rear panel. The case is raised and there’s a little concern that the lenses might get scratched if it’s placed on an unsuitable surface. The main camera above has a 50-megapixel sensor with an f/1.8 aperture. It’s classed as a wide-angle lens, and to be honest, the shots from this lens aren’t all that bad. I’ve certainly seen worse on mid-range handsets in the past. The second is a 2-megapixel macro sensor with f/2.4 aperture and the third is a 2-megapixel, f/2.4 depth sensor.

Taking pictures with the 50-megapixel camera yields decent quality images without too much processing. Colors are fine, although a bit dark compared to the processed photos you tend to find on higher end handsets but this is not a bad thing and if photo editing is your thing, then yes. maybe add a bit of saturation later on.

Features inside the camera app include your standard auto mode. You get a video mode that shoots 1080p at up to 30 frames per second. There’s no 60 or 120 fps here for slow motion, and there’s not even a slow motion mode to take advantage of. There’s a portrait mode that takes advantage of that wide aperture and produces a shallow depth of field, and finally a Pro mode and Panorama mode. Inside Pro mode, you have access to ISO level, shutter speed, white balance, and manual focus options.

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As I said, the photos taken from the camera are not bad. They’re not super detailed even though the phone produces sharp images, and they’re certainly usable if you want to add them to your Instagram feed. And in controlled lighting conditions, you can get pretty sharp images from the camera. Colors look pretty good on your phone screen, followed by your social media posts. There’s a feature that takes advantage of HDR in both videos and photos to reduce flared highlights and increase those shadows. TCL’s ‘One Shot’ feature captures multiple images at once, and its AI algorithms choose the best ones based on sharpness and posture. This results in AI tracking, so if you’re taking motion pictures, it can detect this and increase the shutter speed to capture nice and sharp photos. It works,

However, when it comes to close-up macro shots, this camera leaves me wanting more, especially since I’m so used to my Google Pixel 7 Pro. The recreated photos aren’t too bad, but you won’t win any kind of photography award for your macro photography with this phone. Focus distance also leaves a lot to be desired, and instead of calling it a “macro” mode, I’d rather call it close-up photography.

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The selfie camera has an 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture and can also record movies in 1080p at 30fps. It does a pretty good job of separating the background on my selfie above so I’m pretty impressed with the results. This is done through the facial recognition software built into the camera, which glues a box around the face so that a clearer image can be created. However, whether that has something to do with TCL’s image post-processing or not, the colors seem a bit muted compared to how they really are in the world. I added a similar selfie to this review taken with the Google Pixel 7 Pro and I have to say that when it comes to subject sharpness, especially if you’re viewing them on network feeds. social or web site, is insignificant. I am very impressed.

The TCL 40R 5G is a pretty impressive mid-range mobile phone that packs in some pretty decent performance in significant places. You certainly won’t be playing the latest games on this device, but if you’re a fan of Candy Crush or similar, then fill your shoes. Even so, its performance is decent if you just need a phone to update your Facebook or Instagram with photos and Stories, and the camera is more than capable of snapping snapshots of your day or snapping photos. Family photos at events. It doesn’t feel as premium as some handsets, due to the use of a plastic case as the case, and surprisingly it doesn’t come with a carrying case. Even one of those thin, basic, transparent boxes commonly found in retail boxes these days. However, it does come with a charger, so the macaroons are just there. But, can I find prices here in the UK? No chance. No matter how I Google I can’t find this phone. However, what I could find was a price tag of $229, so let’s get started. And it’s hard to argue with that price if it reflects what’s coming to the UK when it arrives. For more information, go to TCL website.