TCL 40 SE

Verdict

The TCL 40 SE is a sluggish cellphone, however it’s additionally low-cost and has a few notable options you wouldn’t count on when spending this little. It has a lot of inner storage and stereo audio system.

Introduction

The TCL 40 SE is an inexpensive cellphone. That’s the complete deal right here. However the place a comparatively unknown cellphone model like TCL would possibly usually be off-putting when spending loads, shopping for from a model like that is usually an honest concept if you need probably the most cellphone you’ll be able to probably get to your money.  

There are actual positives right here. 128GB storage for this type of cash is nice. The design might simply belong to a cellphone that prices double the worth or extra. Battery life is sweet and the show is massive sufficient for comfy video streaming. 

Unhealthy bits? The TCL 40 SE doesn’t have 5G cellular web and its CPU efficiency is abysmal. This slows down the cellphone noticeably, affecting each interplay you have got with it, from flicking by way of menus to loading apps and taking images.

Actual-world efficiency might nonetheless be a lot worse, although, changing into a gentle irritant moderately than making you wish to smash the TCL 40 SE in opposition to a wall. I’d advise spending somewhat extra to get smoother day-to-day operation, but when cash is tight, this isn’t a foul choice. 

Design and display

• Nice design for a finances cellphone
• microSD assist and three.5mm headphone jack
• 6.75-inch show

The TCL 40 SE prices round £140, however would slot proper in subsequent to telephones from firms like Xiaomi that promote for £300. 

Certain, the entire outer shell is plastic bar the glass used to cowl the digital camera lenses and display, however the “look” isn’t cut price bin fodder. The TCL 40 SE again panel has a shimmering, nearly glitter-like impact. And it’s subtler than it could come throughout in a few of my images. The glint solely exhibits up in direct daylight.

The digital camera housing sits in an inlay of shiny plastic that appears loads like glass, utilizing a form just like the digital camera design of the Samsung Galaxy S22 collection telephones. However most of all, that is merely fairly a large-screen cellphone for one thing this low-cost. 

Large, high-quality screens clearly come low-cost today, as proved by the various low-cost, massive telephones from Xiaomi, Realme and Oppo. But it surely doesn’t diminish the sense of worth for precise consumers. 

The TCL 40 SE’s massive 6.75-inch display doesn’t go away an excellent first impression, although. Its default color temperature is simply too cool, and it has the color character of a cellphone attempting to look saturated with out having a show panel really able to it. As such, the TCL 40 SE ended up trying sickly. 

You possibly can fortunately enhance issues with a fast tweak within the cellphone’s settings menu. Its color now appears to be like fantastic sufficient, and I don’t discover its restricted 720p decision too apparent. There are not any scorching fixes for the TCL 40 SE’s mediocre most brightness, although. 

The cellphone, unsurprisingly, doesn’t have the form of show energy that makes seeing what’s on-screen on a vivid day straightforward. It barely will get by. However it’s also unreasonable to count on 900-nit brightness once you’re paying this little. 

Different elements of the {hardware} to notice embody a side-mounted fingerprint scanner for PIN-free safe unlocking, a headphone jack, microSD card assist and a stereo speaker array. It’s nice to see TCL handle to squeeze a stereo pair within the finances cellphone. It improves the video streaming expertise considerably. Nevertheless, they do sound a bit coarse at most quantity and don’t have the total tone of a really good cellphone speaker, thoughts. 

Digicam

• Can take surprisingly handsome photographs throughout the day
• Appears like a single-camera cellphone as there’s no ultra-wide
• Poor low-light picture high quality

The TCL 40 SE digital camera appears to be like the half on the cellphone’s again, and getting a 50MP digital camera at this value seems like a steal. Too good to be true? Form of. 

The secondary cameras listed below are used for window dressing as a lot as taking images. They’re 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensor cameras, the everyday ugly twosome used when a cellphone producer must fill out a cellphone’s pictures {hardware}. 

Really taking images with the TCL 40 SE turns into characterised by the cellphone’s limitations too. It feels sluggish and laboured. It’s important to await the TCL to do its factor. And in case you attempt to take photos too shortly, you’ll could discover a few of these frames weren’t captured in any respect. 

Capturing pics on a sunny day is a wrestle too. The display isn’t vivid sufficient to compete with highly effective ambient mild. It makes composition a chore. 

Nevertheless, the digital camera {hardware} itself sounds strong sufficient on paper, with a 1/2.55-inch sensor measurement making the pixel binned sensor pixels equal to a 1.4 micron “actual” pixel. 

It may possibly additionally produce genuinely pretty images throughout the day, ones which may not look all that completely different from pictures produced with a cellphone a number of instances the associated fee. Colors will not be clearly undersaturated or oversaturated, there’s loads of element for a finances cellphone and even once you zoom proper in to the pictures, the indicators of processing are normally not too heavy-handed. 

The Auto HDR operate, important for avoiding blown-out skies and murky foregrounds, is strong too. Nevertheless, simply because the TCL 40 SE doesn’t all the time take the images the digital camera app’s UI suggests it does, generally once you shoot a number of photographs in a row, the HDR simply doesn’t have interaction. 

At evening the outcomes take a extreme nosedive. Whereas the processing generally tries rattling laborious to brighten the scene and improve dynamic vary like a contemporary evening mode, this leads to both scratchy element or pure sludge — and sometimes each in the identical picture. 

Video can also be extremely restricted on two fronts. 1080p at 30 frames per second is your most seize mode. I’m extra involved concerning the whole lack of stabilisation, leaving all handheld movies trying fairly amateurish. That stated, I used the cellphone to seize some singers at a pub open mic evening, and the video — whereas a judder-fest — might have been a complete lot worse. 

Efficiency

• Very poor CPU efficiency
• (Nearly) bearable day-to-day efficiency
• Not good for gaming

The TCL 40 SE has a supremely weak processor. It’s the MediaTek Helio G37 from 2020, which itself is barely any higher than the Helio P35 from a lifetime in the past, again in 2018. 

That is an previous processor, and it wasn’t a lot cop when it was new. However is it sufficient?

For the primary 24 hours I believed my time with the TCL 40 SE was going to be a pure nightmare. It appeared unforgivably sluggish. This was brought on by the cellphone downloading and putting in app updates within the background. 

There’s so little headroom right here that this sort of fundamental multi-tasking, now taken without any consideration, can derail the TCL 40 SE. Issues improved after that, although. 

The cellphone remains to be sluggish all through. Apps are sluggish to load, navigation appears extra sluggish than I’m used to and net pages don’t transfer with something just like the grace they might by way of a higher-end cellphone. Nevertheless, a few of these finances telephones can go away you swearing at their display glass as you await the digital keyboard to pop up. 

I don’t really discover the TCL 40 SE all that irritating to make use of, as its sluggish really feel is at the least constant. 

Judging by its benchmark scores, a worse consequence was potential. The TCL 40 SE scores simply 822 factors in Geekbench 6, worse than what a Motorola Moto G2 would possibly hope to realize. That cellphone is sort of a decade previous. 

I couldn’t even run the extra graphically intensive cellphone exams I usually do as a part of a cellphone evaluation, as a result of the TCL 40 SE simply wouldn’t assist them. 

This type of efficiency in 2023 is like seeing a mobility scooter on a motorway. And but it’s a scooter blazing alongside at 55mph, because the just-about-passable day-to-day efficiency is bearable. 

Clearly it is best to maintain your expectations of gaming low. Asphalt 9 is simply too uneven to be really pleasant in precise races past the tutorial. You possibly can’t set up Fortnite in any respect. The Epic Video games app received’t even allow you to obtain it. 

 Battery life

• Doesn’t embody an adapter
• Makes use of an annoying semi-proprietary 18W charging system
• Good battery life

The TCL 40 SE has a big 5010mAh battery. That’s fairly massive for a cellphone working off such a weak engine, however about what it is best to count on from a cellphone this measurement. 

Actual-world stamina is sweet. The cellphone has lasted me into the early-mid afternoon of the second day after a full cost, providing a very good quantity of buffer for many who want their cellphone to final by way of an extended and difficult day. 

Utilizing this cellphone can also be proof of how spoilt we’re by immediately’s reasonably priced ultra-fast-charging telephones. The TCL 40 SE helps mediocre “as much as” 18W charging. But it surely doesn’t embody a charger, only a cable. You’re prone to have a tough time discovering a charger that may let it use its full pace too. 

USB-PD chargers will solely draw round 11W in response to my energy meter. I used the higher a part of a dozen adapters to attempt to get it to hit 18W. An previous Lenovo charger received the closest, drawing round 16W. 

This noticed the TCL 40 SE attain simply 26% in half-hour, 13% in quarter-hour. A full cost takes somewhat underneath two hours, which is fairly sluggish by 2023 requirements. This can be a cellphone you’ll have to recharge in a single day. There isn’t any wi-fi charging choice right here — which you by no means get for this sort of cash anyway.

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