The TCL 10 5G UW brings premium features to an affordable phone

5G is here. While it’s been making headlines for years, to date, that has mostly been talk. Now, however, carriers are rolling out their nationwide networks, and average consumers can finally take advantage of the next-gen tech. The TCL 10 5G UW is a perfect example of this, offering 5G support in a phone that would be solid even without 5G.

TCL may not be the first name you think of when you think of smartphone brands. But that doesn’t mean that the long-time TV manufacturer doesn’t have anything to offer. In fact, the TCL 10 5G UW is a solid phone with 5G support that doesn’t break the bank.

There are plenty of reasons you should consider this phone for your next phone purchase, and the first is design. The TCL 10 5G UW offers a number of features that can seriously come in hand. For example, there’s a fingerprint sensor on the back, in the perfect position to unlock your phone as you take it out of your pocket. And, there’s a headphone jack on the top -- which is a feature you don’t see all that often any more.

The front of the phone looks modern, thanks to its edge-to-edge display, with a subtle hole-punch cutout for the front-facing camera on the top right. The 6.5-inch, 1080p display surrounding that cutout looks great, with vivid colors and deep black levels. That makes the phone great for watching movies and TV shows, and for mobile gaming. Making that experience even better is NXTVISION, which enhances SDR content to look like HDR. It’s honestly pretty awesome. 

On the back of the phone, the variant we checked out, which is the Verizon model, has three lenses, making for a versatile and dependable camera experience. There’s a main 48-megapixel sensor, with an 8-megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 5-megapixel macro lens. And, on the front, there’s a 16-megapixel selfie camera. 

The device is built from nice, premium materials too. It has a classy-looking multi-color look on the back, and should be able to withstand most of the day-to-day abuse you can put it through. 

The phone is pretty powerful under the hood too. As mentioned, the display is great for mobile gaming, and the phone is fast enough to keep up with those games thanks to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor. The processor is built specifically for mobile gaming, and with its 6GB of RAM, you’ll easily be able to play your favorite titles. That performance extends to other things too. The phone can easily handle multitasking and all the day-to-day tasks you’ll put it through, plus the 128GB under the hood should be enough to store all your apps and games, and if not, you can expand upon it through the MicroSD card slot. And you’ll be able to use your phone for longer thanks to its 4,500mAh battery, which easily got me through a full day of relatively heavy use.

The TCL software experience is relatively smooth and stripped-back and that’s a good thing. Everything is pretty much where you would expect it to be, and you can sort apps based on their name, by label, or even by icon color. It’s a cool touch. 

Then there’s the 5G support. The model we’re reviewing supports both the wide-reaching nationwide Sub-6 networks, and the superfast mmWave networks that promise speeds of multiple gigabits per second. 5G networks may not be as huge as they could be just yet, but it’s well worth having a phone that supports 5G, so that as they expand you can take advantage of them. 

This phone supports Verizon’s incredible 5G network, which is now nationwide, and offers some pretty stellar download speeds. That includes both the Sub-6GHz 5G network, which is super far-reaching, and Verizon’s mmWave cells, which are available in many cities and boast speeds of multiple gigabits per second. 

You might expect that all of these features come at a high price, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it comes at only $399.99, which is quite a bit cheaper than the competition. Other Verizon 5G-capable phones, like the Pixel 4a 5G and Moto One 5G come in at much higher prices.

In other words, if you’re looking for a capable, 5G phone that comes at a relatively low price, the TCL 10 5G UW is absolutely the way to go. You can get it for yourself straight from Verizon or from the TCL website.