TCL 30 Plus Smartphone Review

TCL 30 Plus Smartphone Review – The TCL 30 Plus was announced alongside a series of smartphones by TCL on February 27 at the event called Mobile World Conference 2022. Although the phone will launch globally, TCL plans to launch only in Europe as of now. The phone is expected to go on sale sometime in April.

In terms of looks, it doesn’t look quite different from other models of the TCL 30 series. There are single versions of the TCL 30 Plus smartphones available with 5G support. Overall the phone comes with a decent camera, display, and battery support. With that said, let’s begin with a detailed review of the TCL 30 Plus smartphone.

TCL 30 Plus Smartphone Review

Highlights

1. The TCL 30 Plus features a 6.7 inches AMOLED display with 900 nits peak brightness.
2. The chipset is the MediaTek Helio G37 chipset provided on the smartphone.
3. It has the latest Android 12 OS out of the box with TCL UI 4.0 user interface.
4. The main rear camera sensor is a 50MP sensor and the selfie camera is a 13MP sensor.
5. The phone has a Li-Po 5010 mAh battery capacity and an 18W fast charger support.

Design and Display

Design-wise, it looks quite similar to other phones in the TCL 30 series. The back of the phone is made out of plastic and it is completely flat, while the sides are chamfered, which is also made of plastic. Due to the chamfered sides and the matte texture finish on the back, the phone doesn’t slip out of our hands very easily and since the body is completely plastic, it won’t shatter.

Everything from the flat back to the new camera module, the design looks very elegant and we are certainly impressed. There’s also a shiny ring around the main camera which glows a rainbow color pattern when light falls onto it. Upon first glance, you may think it’s some sort of LED, but it’s not, it’s just a shiny ring.

The phone comes in two colors, Tech Black and Muse Blue and both the colors are very classic. As for the display, you get a 6.7 inches AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution and 900 nits peak brightness under direct sunlight. There’s no high refresh rate support, but it features accurate colors, and its contents look absolutely fantastic on the display.

Memory and Internal

As for the internals, the phone is powered by the 12nm MediaTek Helio G37 chipset and so the phone doesn’t feature any 5G support. For high-performance and gaming needs, this chipset can reach up to a 2.3GHz clocking speed. The inclusion of 4 powerful and 4 power-efficient cores will allow you to run powerful apps and games, for longer periods of time without sacrificing too much battery.

For gaming, you get the PowerVR GE8320 GPU, and while it can play games such as PUBG and CODm at lower graphics, you will not be very satisfied. The performance is not too great and there will be occasional lags every once in a while.

The phone comes in only a single variant with 4GB RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The 128GB of internal storage is a lot of storage and should be enough for most people, but if you would like to expand the storage, there is dedicated microSD card support as well. For the operating system, you get the latest Android 12 OS out of the box with the TCL UI 4.0 user interface on top of it.

Camera

There’s not much to be excited about in the camera department. It may seem like a triple camera system, but only one of them is useful and that’s the 50MP main camera. The rest of the 2 PM macro and 2MP depth sensors are not worth talking but considering the price, there’s nothing to complain about, especially since the main 50MP camera is quite decent.

This sensor takes decent pictures with a good amount of detail and considering the amount of price you will pay, the quality is more than what we expected. But the night shots are just average and, in some situations, there can be a bit of noise. The phone also has a dedicated night mode that enhances the low-light pictures, and while it does improve the images quite a bit, it still may not be enough to post on social media without some editing.

However, the 13MP selfie camera can take some decent selfies with the right skin tones and decent color balance. In fact, the images coming out of the 13MP selfie camera are quite good and we are certainly very impressed. For video recording, the phone manages to shoot up to 1080p at 30fps from both the rear camera and the selfie camera.

Battery and Others

The phone equips a Li-Po 5010 mAh battery capacity and it comes with an 18W fast charger. The battery performance of the phone is actually quite good compared to other smartphones and can last 2 days if you don’t play a lot of games. The 18W fast charging allows the phone to charge the 5010 mAh battery in about 90 – 120 minutes, which is not so bad considering the huge capacity of the battery.

The fast charger doesn’t overheat the smartphone while charging, unlike many other smartphones we have seen in the past, which is a very positive outlook of the phone. Apart from that, the phone also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, a headphone jack, and a USB Type-C port for charging. The smartphone is yet to go on sale, but when it does, it will cost $ 240 (Rs. 18,299 in India) approx.

TCL 30 Plus Pros and Cons

TCL 30 Plus Specifications Detail

Down below you can see the full specifications of the TCL 30 Plus Smartphone.

Conclusion

The AMOLED display, elegant design, camera, and battery are some of the main attractions of this phone. If you are satisfied with all these features, then this phone won’t disappoint you and the price is also justified considering the specs you are getting.

But if you need 5G connectivity, high-performance or better cameras, especially an ultra-wide camera, then this phone is not made for you. In that case, you should look at alternatives such as the Realme 9 5G India or the Motorola Moto G62, and they will provide a better chipset and better camera performance in a decent price range.