Review: TCL 20S

TCL has been one of the sleepers in the smartphone market. They’ve flown under the radar by offering affordable yet unremarkable smartphones that offer a lot of convenience and value. The TCL 20 Pro 5G is one of the most impressive handsets we’ve reviewed this year and its mid-range brother, the TCL 20 S also has a lot to offer in terms of hardware and software.

This slick and shiny slab of plastic looks and feels like glass and is a generally seamless smartphone. It looks more expensive than many midrange devices and I like the shine and the iridescent treatment used on the backplate’s plastic. 

The TCL 20 S comes off as a Samsung Galaxy S clone. It’s got a great and bright 6.67-inch display with a curved crisp 2,400 by 1,080-pixel resolution.  Like Samsung, TCL is primarily a TV manufacturer, so its bread and butter is display technology. It’s not an AMOLED display but is bright enough for general use and the proprietary NXTVISION keeps colors bright and offers stunning contrast.

A single hole-punch on the display hides the 16MP selfie camera. It is unobtrusive and centered in the middle of the display. On the rear, we get a four-camera array which is imbedded into the backplate (meaning no camera bump!) which is refreshing to see in a midrange device.  You get a 64MP primary sensor, an 8MP wide-angle sensor, a 2MP macro sensor, and a 2MP depth sensor which gives mobile photographers a lot of range.  

Camera performance is just okay and photos tend to come out slightly oversaturated or processed. It is a decent daytime camera but falls flat once ambient light dims. The included macro camera is not great, but the rest of the lenses and modes will yield usable images. 

The standout feature for me was the 5,000mAh battery which can power the TCL 20 S for over two days on a single charge. Coupled with quick-charging capability, the long battery life makes this a workhorse.  The Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 is reasonably fast and never felt like it was struggling even when playing more demanding games like Asphalt 9: Legends. Call quality is outstanding and clear with good volume even using the speakerphone. 

The TCL 20S features a USB-C charging point, dual speakers that are reasonably loud, a convenience key that can be mapped to specific apps, and a power button with a fingerprint sensor. It has basic IP52 rating which is basic in terms of protection and water resistance.  

The TCL 20S is a good midrange Android phone with excellent battery life and a decent feature set. It’s only drawback is that it is only guaranteed to receive one major Android update, for anyone seeking a solid and reliable midrange Android phone, the TCL 20S will not disappoint.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5