But did we mention there’s a headphone jack?On the surface of things, the TCL 10 Pro comes up with the display goods. Day-lit ultra-wide images are entirely usable, and having a second field of view is always welcome.The TCL 10 Pro starts to seem less impressive when compared to the best-in-class phones.Its exposure metering leans slightly too much towards making your images bright and vivid. In the odd shot that we took in really quite normal, well-lit conditions it would oversaturate colors to a crazy degree, with the kind of brilliant greens you might expect to see on an alien planet in a particularly lurid video game.Elsewhere, the AI seemed wholly unable to balance brighter elements, such as the pure white petals of some lilies, making them look like weird garden lamps. Those are two higher-end devices.And with a low-powered chipset and an AMOLED display that doesn’t get crazy bright, the TCL 10 Pro will get you well into a second day of moderate usage. Only two of them feel essential, though, as with many quad-camera phones at this level.There are standard and ultra-wide views, but no zoom. The rear finish is too easy to scratch, and the phone doesn’t come with a case or a screen protector.In addition, the almost flat rear means the cameras sit on the same pane of glass as the rest of the rear, and this too is concerning. The back is matte, interrupted only by the strip that holds the cameras, and sports a subtle gradient. There’s no zoom, and the cameras and image processing isn’t as good as that of the bigger names.
And don’t bother using the zoom.
I recommend using it.The TCL 10 Pro’s 2340 x 1080 pixel OLED screen is a highlight. Your app drawer ends up being three miles long, with half of your apps ending up in an “other” category. The third and fourth cameras are 2-megapixel sensors for background blur photos and a 5-megapixel macro.Macro photos are passable, with greater close-up detail than you’d see from the main camera. It comes arranged by category as standard, which is completely impractical. And, unusually, there are no 60fps capture modes, even at 1080p or below.However, 4K/30 does support electronic image stabilisation, which is a must if you want handheld footage to look smooth.The TCL 10 Pro’s selfie camera uses a high-resolution 24-megapixel sensor, but it isn’t particularly impressive.The TCL 10 Pro has a 4500mAh battery, a capacity that seems chosen to balance stamina with the phone’s thickness. It’s only around a third of a second, but this is noticeable when comparing directly to phones from some of the better-known names.While I have more complaints than praise for the TCL 10 Pro cameras, I’m mostly happy with their performance. It’s handy if you need to give your wireless headphones a quick boost.If you’re looking for a phone that offers what OnePlus models once did then you may be mildly disappointed by the TCL 10 Pro.
The TCL 10 Pro hits the sweet spot for midrange Android phones. And while the 24MP selfie camera takes reasonably crisp shots, it too seems to struggle with bright spots, like the early evening sky or the sun shining off this writer’s (admittedly pale) head.Close-up indoor food pictures with reasonable natural lighting look quite appetizing at first glance, but there was a tendency to pump up the reds and greens to an unnatural degree. Comparing these same night shots to very similar ones taken with the OnePlus 8 - which is hardly a shining example of the camera phone format - shows that the TCL 10 Pro is lagging well behind even the third or fourth tier.But night mode is still quite an advanced feature, and it works here at a basic level. It comes with a Snapdragon 865, plus a far more powerful processor than either the TCL 10 Pro’s or Xiaomi Mi Note 10’s.The TCL 10 Pro’s snappiness is more likely down to low added software overheads and the use of fast RAM and internal storage. The TCL 10 Pro scores 1573 in Geekbench 5, compared to the Those willing to spend a little more might also want to consider the PocoPhone F2. But to be honest, we struggled to notice a huge effect, or to even find an everyday means for putting such a feature through its paces.On the plus side, the phone has full Netflix certification, so you’ll be able to stream Full HD HDR10 content in all its glory.While we’re picking up on the display’s shortcomings, it’s not great in direct sunlight. The TCL 10 Pro is one of the first phones to bear the full force of the iPhone SE hurricane. Or rather, doesn’t.Another flagship flourish is the implementation of a waterfall-style curved display. However, the macro isn’t good enough to make me want to actually use it regularly. The device has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 processor accompanied by 6GB of RAM, which is slightly better than the The CPU in the TCL 10 Pro is relatively old, announced back in 2018. It took only two minutes of tweaking to knock the interface into a shape I actually like.General performance, too, is excellent. Hardware is less advanced and images tend to display a fine mist of grain across them; but this is only visible on zooming. None of the cameras have a telephoto lens, meaning any zoomed shots are cropped, and one of the lenses is dedicated to capturing depth data for the others. As a result, there are often small areas of overexposure even after the dynamic range processing has done its thing.In addition, general image processing isn’t nearly as good as that of Google, Xiaomi or Huawei phones at the price. Tell us what you think - send your emails to
We continually check thousands of prices to show you the best deals. While your opinion will vary on the attractiveness of its horizontal strip design, the fact that it’s completely flush with the phone really stands out. It’s no disaster for the TCL 10 Pro’s camera, though, since it’s able to render better shadow detail than the Samsung Galaxy A51.I’d expect this area of TCL phones to improve if the company continues in its attempts to become a bigger player in own-brand phones. And when it comes to practical usefulness, your mileage may vary.