TCL 40XL 2023 Unlocked Cell Phone 4GB + 128GB, 6.75" Display, Smartphone Android 13, 50MP AI Camera Mobile Phone, 5000 mAh, 4G LTE, US Version, Dark Gray

So I am giving this 5 stars. There is zero doubt this is a very quality smartphone. Cameras are solid, the battery is off the chart, comes with the full charger brick and even a phone case. The audio driver is awesome. 3.5mm headphone jack is awesome, but using my JBL earbuds, even better. Video records very well, will record in HDR, you can take HDR photos, the haptics are good, not great, and finally, the OS is easy to use. Why the but in the headline? So, if you are a phone snob or to be very frank someone that is constantly buried on your phone, sniffing through multiple apps at once, that much of a photo nerd that you can probably count the pixels per photos with your own eyes, THIS IS NOT THE PHONE FOR YOU. Pay the extra, go to the Samsung, Google, or Apple models. At times due to the 4gb of RAM, scrolling is not as smooth as you would hope for. Again, if you are a phone nerd, someone that buries themselves in their phone, this is not for you. With that, if you are looking for a solid smartphone, great click and share camera photos, good video quality, an AMAZING battery, good audio, buy this thing. Not to mention the last thing.....it is TCL. As in TV's.....as in the display on this thing is solid! It does not disappoint. To be very clear.....I am moving over from an iPhone 12, and for the past 48 hours, burning it up, downloading, watching movies, YouTube, etc.....great battery to be honest. Who is this for? People who want a solid smartphone, great display, even better battery, easy camera, easy OS, and comes with a ton of stuff out of the box. Who is this NOT for? Phone nerds, people who want the top end camera, people who require solid sound out of the phone speakers rather than using earbuds, and those who use multiple apps at once. Overall.....5 stars, but would say 4.7 out of 5. Battery 5 Display 4.8 Call quality (I use Tello) 5 Camera 4.3 Video 4 Accessories out of the box 5 Fingerprint on the side 5 ***update from 7/23/2023*** This is without a doubt my daily driver now. As to the scrolling lag, that is not just on this phone but one app for weather that I am not going to call out is laggy even on an iPhone 14 Pro Max....the scroll and loading rate on this for this price point is solid. Tested out a UMIDIGI 5G Max to see if I was missing something on the price point. Already sent it back. The geekbench on this vs the UMIDIGI 5G was 2:1 faster. I want to say dual core on this one was 1867 vs 1302 on the UMIDIGI. To put it in perspective, my old iPhone SE 2020 was only 2118 on geekbench so not missing a ton out. The ONLY thing I am noticing is that in low light the camera is, meh, but I can live with it. Again.....if you are a phone nerd or snob, you will probably not be the happiest with this phone. If you need a solid smartphone, that does the trick, solid camera, UNREAL battery, and great TCL screen, for 219 after a 30.00 Amazon coupon, you cannot go wrong. And again......I am moving over from an iPhone 12. So take that for what you will.

I've owned this TCL phone for about a week. I can't speak to the longevity of the phone at this time, but I will update the review as needed. For context: my Samsung Galaxy S21+'s display died suddenly, and no amount of troubleshooting was able to fix the issue. I took it to the AT&T store, and because the display didn't work, I could not trade it in. The manufacturer's warranty had expired 8 days prior to this, and I did not have an extended protection plan in place. So, my options were to spend nearly $500 to get a new phone, or try my luck on finding something else on Amazon or Ebay. I'm happy that I chose the latter. Amazon had a sale going at the time of purchase, so I was able to get this phone for around $150. I figured it was worth a try. I had heard of TCL before, but only in the TV market. I don't know a lot about the brand or their reputation. After receiving the phone, I inserted my SIM card and powered it up. It comes with about 50% charge on the battery. I signed into my Google account and the phone downloaded all of my old apps, contacts, and text messages. This was a life-saver, as I had no way to access my old phone. I was able to connect to Wi-Fi and bluetooth with no issues. So far, here are the pros and cons that I've found: Pros: +Extremely cost-effective compared to new phones offered by the big carriers +Comes unlocked, so it will work with most carriers +Google/Android comes standard +Good display +Good call quality +Responsive +Outstanding battery life (better than my Galaxy S21) Cons: -Average camera -Audio output at max level is still not very loud -No 5G capability To summarize: This phone's value is unmatched. I'm extremely pleased with it so far. This phone may not have 5G, but the 4G LTE has been more than enough to run Google maps and stream music/podcasts while commuting. It's everything I need it to be in between home and work Wi-Fi. It may not have the nicest camera or fastest internals, but for the price, you will not find a better value. Assuming this phone survives for a while with no glaring issues, I plan to purchase another TCL for my next phone.

Coming off flagship phones like the Galaxy S23+ and Note 20+, take this review for what it is. Comparing a minivan to a Ferrari. First this phone is as large as my previous phones and runs most of what I use a phone for, camping, text, FB messenger, Facebook and YouTube. No gaming for me. For the price the resolution is fine, not OLED impressive, but after a couple weeks I no longer notice, nor care. This is a value phone that gives great value for under $150 compared to previous phones at 10x the price. However, this phones speed is the big let down. For example pulling up the improve picture gallery. Swipe up quickly to expose a new page of pic thumbnails, it then takes no less than 15 seconds to populate the thumbnails. That's as ton of time for a phone. Same delays when loading a new program for switching between. And did to low internal memory of you have several windows open, going back to another program is like opening it from scratch. So for under $150 it does what a phone needs to. And if you're not in a hurry to load programs or switch between them it's fine. My daughter got the same phone and instacarts. By the time she gets a notification, switches back to the app from say Facebook, she loses the shop. It's that slow. Great phone for teenagers though that area prone to lose out break their phone . I will be putting this in a drawer as a back up and ordering a new S24.