There’s a new smartphone brand in town and it’s from an unexpected entity–China’s TCL. Known globally for its TVs and display technologies, TCL has just stepped into the fiercely competitive smartphone space with its latest smartphone–the TCL Plex. Malaysia is the first country in Asia to receive this device.
The thing is, you may already have heard of TCL, or rather TCL Communication, the company that designs, manufactures and markets a multi-brand portfolio of smartphones including BlackBerry, Alcatel and Palm.
So, in other words, making and marketing smartphones aren’t exactly something foreign to TCL. Coupled with its heritage, expertise and experience in display technology and IoT devices, smartphones are almost a natural progression.
TCL is currently the number one brand in China and number two TV brand globally. Shocked? The brand’s legacy in display technology is undisputed, and with the TCL Plex, TCL is integrating its proprietary and advanced display and camera optimisation technology called TCL NXTVISION.
Aesthetically, the TCL Plex comes with a dual-side curved glossy glass body and 3D holographic finishing. It comes in two nature-inspired colours—Obsidian Black and Opal White.
The TCL PLex features a 6.53-inch FHD+ TCL Dotch Display with 90 screen-to-body ratio. The tiny front camera is as discreet as they come, located on the top left of the display.
The phone is equipped with a dedicated display engine and coupled with TCL NXTVISION delivers cutting-edge colour accuracy and 6-axis colour enhancement. With its realtime SDR to HDR conversion feature, TCL Plex offers a HDR-like experience with increased contrast, amplified colour, brighter highlights and darker shadows.
The display also has a plenitude of modes for optimal clarity including “Adaptive Tone,” “Reading Mode” and “Eye Comfort Mode.” In Eye Comfort Mode, TCL claims to reduce 66 percent of harmful blue light emitted from the screen.
TCL is also proud of the triple-camera setup on the TCL Plex. It consists of a 48MP f/1.8 main shooter (Sony IMX582), 2MP 2.9 ultra pixel low-light sensor and 16MP 123-degree super ultra-wide camera. It’s capable of 4K video as well as exceptional low-light performance. It also offers 960fps slow-motion HD videos.
On the front, it gets a 24MP fixed focus f/2.0 shooter with 4-in-1 big pixel technology for better low-light selfies.
In the audio department, the TCL Plex supports a plethora of audio formats including high-res formats like FLAC. It comes with multi-mic microphone, dual-mic noise cancellation and a 3.5mm audio jack. With Super Bluetooth, multi-share music with your friends or connect up to four Bluetooth speakers simultaneously.
Under the hood, TCL’s debut phone features a Snapdragon 675 processor paired with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It supports microSD storage expansion of up to 256GB.
Battery-wise, it packs a commendable 3,820mAh cell which supports fast-charge via USB-C. TCL claims a charge time of 1 hour 38 minutes from zero to full.
The dual-SIM device supports up to 4G Cat.6 (400Mbps DL), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, VoLTE and Bluetooth 5.0.
The TCL Plex features a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor and also supports face authentication.
An additional feature is a physical Smart Key on the left side of the device that can be customised to access various mobile apps or commonly used features.
The phone runs Android 9 Pie with TCL UI on top.
Pricing and availability
The TCL Plex retails for MYR1,199 (~USD286) and comes free with a TCL MTRO wireless on-ear headphones worth MYR199 (~USD48). You can purchase the device through Shopee or through Brightstar Distribution Sdn Bhd authorised retailers.
Visit TCL’s online store on Shopee at: https://shopee.com.my/tcl.mobile.my
Buy TCL Plex here.
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