If you’ve been looking for an affordable 5G smartphone, TCL’s newly-launched 60R 5G handset could be the end of your minutes-long search. The Chinese brand announced that its handset, priced at R2,000 here in South Africa, is now available from Cellucity, Takealot, “and other participating retailers.” Whoever they are.
Announced earlier this year, the TCL 60R offers a fair amount of smartphone for not terribly much money. The 5G aspect is the highlight, with other features mostly making the grade at this price point.
Going 60R so
The TCL 60R manages to be more affordable than the company’s last handset we saw in the er… silicone. The TCL 505 was a decent effort for R2,500(ish), and this one shares many of the same specs as last year’s office visitor. That means a 6.7in IPS LCD, with the same 720 x 1,600 resolution as the 505. Ditto on the 120Hz refresh rate, though this one takes brightness up a few nits to a peak of 480.
Mediatek’s Dimensity 6300 processor, also seen in some Oppo, Xiaomi, and Motorola budget handsets, should serve its purpose. 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage come in at the ground floor of smartphone specs, though we wouldn’t be surprised to see the TCL 60R advertising 8GB of system memory at retail. That’d be the 4GB page file helping to speed things along.
Also in common with the TCL 505 is a 50MP main camera sensor, which operates alongside a secondary sensor so meaningless that we can only find it listed on TCL’s product website. If you’d like to save a click, the backup lens is a measly 0.08MP in size. An 8MP selfie camera takes up space in the front.
There’s a 5,200mAh battery, pokey 10W wired charging, a side-mounted fingerprint sensor, and an IP54 waterproof rating. As we mentioned above, the TCL 60R represents a fair amount of smartphone for two grand. Hopefully, the company will let us play with one and provide a proper review in the next couple of weeks.
