TCL 305 Smartphone Review – The TCL 305 is a Go-edition smartphone that was announced on January 31, 2022, in Europe and then went on sale a month later. This smartphone is designed for people who want a smartphone on an extremely low budget without sacrificing too many features. The smartphone looks quite impressive with a water-drop notched display while the device supports all your daily tasks without interruption. Likewise, it is similar to other TCL phones available in the market.
Unfortunately, 5G connectivity is missing on the phone but it is not the only requirement in a phone and other features are equally important if not more. The company still hasn’t revealed its plans for global release. Let’s find out everything about this smartphone with a detailed review of the TCL 305 smartphone.
Table of Contents
TCL 305 Smartphone Review
Highlights
- The TCL 305 features a 6.52 inches IPS LCD display panel with HD+ resolution.
- The chipset is the Mediatek Helio A22 SoC integrated with PowerVR GE8320 GPU.
- It is powered by the Android 11 Go Edition with TCL User Interface.
- The triple rear camera has a 13MP primary lens while there is a 5MP selfie camera at the front.
- The TCL 305 has a huge Li-Po 5000 mAh battery capacity with standard charging support.
Design and Display
Design-wise, the phone doesn’t look anything extraordinary and that’s okay as it is not meant to appeal to a luxurious sort of audience. This is meant for budget users who can afford to spend very little on a phone and considering the price tag, the phone looks quite nice. The back of the phone is flat while the sides have chamfered edges. The phone comes in two colors, Space Gray and Atlantic Blue and both the colors look classic and you can buy any one of them.
Besides this, you get a 6.52 inches IPS LCD display panel with only 720p resolution support. There is no high refresh rate whereas you may face problems using the device outdoors with the 450 nits brightness. Unfortunately, Gorilla glass protection is also missing on the phone. Overall display experience with the TCL 305 would be below average.
Memory and Internal
When it comes to the TCL 305 internals, you get a 12nm MediaTek Helio A22 chipset with the PowerVR GE8320 GPU support. The chipset can reach up to a 2GHz clocking speed while the performance with this device would be quite average. You can’t expect heavy gaming from this smartphone while you may use basic apps and complete your daily tasks.
With this duo, you can achieve customization as per your desires while you will be limited to basic apps on the phone. As for memory and internal storage, you get 2GB RAM with a 32GB / 64GB internal storage option. You can extend storage limits with the dedicated SD card slot. Performance and low RAM are the major downsides of the TCL 305 smartphone.
Camera
The main highlight of the triple rear camera system is the 13MP main sensor as the rest of the sensors in the back are just 2MP macro and depth sensors and they are just for secondary camera features. The back camera can Click manageable pictures during daylight. Pictures taken during the night are below average and have a bit of Noise. You can’t have high expectations from this outdated camera setup.
The 5MP selfie camera in the TCL 305 smartphone is also very average and misses a lot of details. The picture quality coming out of the selfie camera is not that good enough. For video recording, the phone manages to shoot up to 1080p@30FPS from both the rear and the selfie camera.
Battery and Others
The TCL 305 has a huge Li-Po 5000 mAh battery capacity and it is the best thing about this phone. The battery of the phone lasts for days, while it takes some time to charge the phone as you don’t get fast-charging support on this phone.
Apart from that, you get necessary comms and sensors such as WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Radio, OTG, and a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner for security. The TCL 305 smartphone is available at the price of $200 (14,900 in India) approx for the base 2GB variant.
TCL 305 Specifications Detail
Down below you can see the full specifications of the TCL 305 smartphone.
| Specifications | TCL 305 |
| Network | 2G, 3G, 4G |
| Announced | January 2022 |
| SIM | Dual SIM |
| Dimensions | 6.50 x 2.97 x 0.35 inches |
| Weight | 190g |
| Size | 6.52 inches |
| Display | IPS LCD 450 nits brightness 20:9 ratio ~269 PPI density |
| Protection | No |
| Resolution | 720 x 1600 pixels |
| OS | Android 11 (Go edition), TCL UI |
| Chipset | 12nm – Mediatek MT6761 Helio A22 |
| CPU | Quad-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53 |
| GPU | PowerVR GE8320 |
| Card slot | Yes (dedicate slot) |
| RAM | 2GB |
| Internal | 32GB, 64GB eMMC 5.1 |
| Camera | 13 MP (wide), PDAF 2 MP (depth) 2 MP (macro) LED flash, HDR, panorama Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Selfie | 5 MP (wide) Max – 1080p@30fps |
| Loudspeaker | Yes |
| 3.5mm jack | Yes |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.0, A2DP |
| GPS | Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO |
| NFC | No |
| Infrared port | No |
| Radio | Yes |
| USB | USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go |
| Sensors | Rear-mounted fingerprint, accelerometer, proximity, compass |
| Battery | Li-Po 5000 mAh |
| Colors | Space Gray, Atlantic Blue |
| Expected Price | $200 (Rs 14,900 in India) approx. |
Conclusion
The TCL 305 smartphone looks impressive and has a huge battery capacity. Besides this, there is nothing noteworthy about this phone. The phone lines in the mid-range segment and is far behind its competitors. You get an average display, outdated camera, no fast-charging, and underwhelming performance and therefore we don’t see any reason to buy this smartphone.
In case you are with a limited budget and want a smartphone just for lite uses you can definitely go with the TCL 305. But for an alternative option, you can check the Oppo A57 5G smartphone.
