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TCL 10 lineup includes two phones for the US and the brand's first 5G model

Jan 06, 2020, 2:00 PM

Adrian Diaconescu

Apart from an already customary slew of new Alcatel products with incredibly low price points and respectable overall features, TCL is also previewing several own-brand devices at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today. At least two of these should be of interest to our North American audience, looking at an official Q2 commercial release in the US and Canada at reasonable prices of "under $500" and up.

Unfortunately, it appears we'll have to wait until February 22 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to get the full deets on the very interesting TCL 10-series smartphone lineup. Oddly enough, the company is keeping almost all of the key features and specs of the TCL 10 5G, 10 Pro, and 10L under wraps for the time being while sharing a whole bunch of high-quality images already.

As the name suggests, the TCL 10 5G will come with built-in support for the new standard in high-speed cellular connectivity, making this the company's first 5G-enabled phone set to launch "globally later in 2020." Powered by Qualcomm's "recently announced Snapdragon 7-Series 5G SoC" (aka the Snapdragon 765) rather than the equally new Snapdragon 865, the TCL 10 5G will thus probably compete against the likes of Nokia's impending "5G value flagship" instead of going toe to toe with the Galaxy S20 family or LG G9 ThinQ.

Interestingly enough, it seems that the three TCL 10-series devices will share a quad rear-facing camera arrangement including a macro lens, among others. While the TCL 10 5G and 10L are apparently slated to also share a 48MP primary shooter, the TCL 10 Pro will take the megapixel count of its main rear cam up to 64. The Pro model is also the only one of the three to sport an in-display fingerprint scanner and a waterdrop notch, with the TCL 10 5G and TCL 10L instead going for a somewhat unusual combination of a hole punch screen and conventional rear-mounted biometric recognition mechanism.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about the TCL 10 Pro is that the high-end cameraphone (powered by an unspecified processor) comes with an "edge AMOLED display" manufactured by the China-based company itself rather than Samsung. That's going to be very interesting to check out in action at MWC 2020 next month and in stores around the world starting sometime during the year's second quarter.

It looks like the TCL 10 Pro and TCL 10L, which are designed to "form the core" of the brand's smartphone portfolio in 2020, will hit the US via unspecified retail channels, while the TCL 10 5G will probably remain an international device available exclusively outside North America.