The TCL 30 SE is an Android phone that is very cheap and has a good camera and a good battery for the price. But even though its software and design are good, it doesn’t work well and it’s hard to get updates for it.
Even though it’s not amazing, the TCL 30 SE is a nice enough cheap Android phone. It has a 6.52-inch screen with a teardrop-shaped selfie camera in the middle of the top. The bezels on the sides and top aren’t too wide, but they are a bit wider at the bottom.
Specifications
- 6.52in IPS LCD panel
- HD+ resolution, 1600 x 720 pixels
- Stereo speakers
- MediaTek MT6762G Helio G25 (12 nm)
- 4GB RAM
- 64GB or 128GB of storage (expandable up to 512GB)
- 50Mp f/1.9 main camera
- 2Mp f/2.4 macro
- 2Mp f/2.4 depth
- 8Mp f/2.0 front camera
The three lenses on the back of the phone are neatly lined up in a vertical line in the top-left corner of the back. On the back of the phone, there is a panel with a fingerprint sensor, which stands out against the shiny plastic.
Yes, the 30 SE’s frame and back are made of cheap plastic, but they have a glassy sheen that makes them look a little more expensive than they are. Space Gray, Atlantic Blue, and Glacial Blue, the colours that are available, all have a nice subtlety that gives them character without being too loud or flashy.
The plastic could also make the phone more durable than glass phones, since it won’t break if it falls. Still, the phone doesn’t have an official IP rating, so people should be careful with it around dust and water.
The 50MP wide camera is the main camera on the TCL 30 SE. It can take photos that are very sharp and well-balanced when the lighting is good. But even though it has a lot of pixels, the 1/2.76′′ sensor is not a very big one. There’s also no OIS to help keep things steady when it’s dark.
In fact, the lack of a Night mode is one of the things that stand out the most. When I did my usual low-light test shots, I couldn’t find a low-light mode in the Camera settings menu, and shooting in auto just turned on the flash. The resulting shots taken in low light are, as expected, murky and noisy. The lack of any kind of ultra-wide camera is also surprising. The two extra sensors are actually a 2MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor, neither of which is very useful.