A few years ago, Motorola introduced its, which quickly became one of the company’s best-selling mobile phones. And now TCL is jumping on the trend with its first attempt at creating a budget Galaxy Note alternative with the $258 TCL Stylus 5G.
With a large 6.81-inch FHD+ display, the TCL Stylus 5G offers ample space for things like drawing, taking notes, or just watching videos. And similar to other TCL handsets, the phone has a blue light filter and support for the company’s NXTVISION technology, which can upscale SDR content to HDR to improve things like contrast and color saturation in both movies and games.
Other specifications include a 4,000 mAh battery, an eight-core Mediatek Dimensity 700 chip, 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. Thankfully, unlike many premium smartphones, the Stylus 5G still has a microSD card slot for expandable storage and a 3.5mm jack for wired audio. Cameras include a 50-megapixel main sensor on the back, along with a 5-megapixel ultra-wide lens, a 2-megapixel depth sensor, and even a 2-megapixel macro camera. Meanwhile, there’s a 13MP selfie shooter on the front.
As for the stylus, just like a Galaxy Note (or more recently the ), the TCL Stylus 5G comes with a built-in memory slot for its stylus, as well as a number of pre-installed stylus apps. There’s a feature similar to Samsung’s Screen Off memo that lets you take notes without having to unlock your phone first. There are also dedicated shortcuts for capturing screenshots and creating custom GIFs. And thanks to a partnership with MyScript, the phone also includes free subscriptions to the Nebo and MyScript Calculator apps, which let you turn handwritten notes or formulas into text.
Unfortunately, the Stylus 5G lacks some of the advanced features you get on more expensive alternatives. The phone’s stylus is a passive stylus, so it can’t be used as a remote camera shutter or presentation tool, and while the phone has 5G in its name, the phone only supports sub-6GHz 5G. However, TCL claims the Stylus 5G has 30 percent less latency than similarly priced competitors like that. Ultimately, then, perhaps the biggest concern about the phone is limited software support, given that TCL only has one major Android OS update and only two years promises of security patches.
However, if you’re looking for a super cheap phone with an integrated stylus, it’s nice to see a company other than Motorola testing the market with the TCL Stylus 5G. The phone is available today from T-Mobile and Metro.
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