Review: TCL 60 XE Nxtpaper 5G

The 5,010-mAh battery feels like it should last longer—I routinely hit around 30 to 25 percent by bedtime with average use, though you can extend it with Max Ink Mode. There’s no wireless charging, but this phone has all the accouterments you’d want, from a microSD card slot for expandable storage and NFC for contactless payments to a headphone jack. The phone feels a little slippery and top-heavy, so I recommend finding a case to be safe, though I’ve dropped it a handful of times and luckily don’t see any scratches on the glass screen.

It’ll work with every major US carrier and is exclusively sold unlocked on Amazon, a nice break from many other TCL phones that are locked to a carrier in the US. Speaking of, I didn’t have any issues with the 5G connectivity, but I did get some comments about call quality. I didn’t have trouble hearing others, though I wish the call volume could get louder, but a few people struggled to hear me via the phone’s speaker mode. I tested this with some friends, who didn’t have any issues, so it’s hard to say if it’s a network problem or the caller’s hardware.

That leaves the camera, which isn’t terrible for a $250 phone. Quality heavily depends on the lighting, and even indoors during daylight, you’ll probably want to turn on Night mode to avoid a blurry photo. The 50-MP main can struggle with high-contrast scenes, and colors don’t look super accurate, but the results are passable. No problems scanning QR codes, at the very least.

The biggest drawback is software updates. This phone runs Android 15, and TCL is only promising one Android upgrade to Android 16 at some point in the future. No more Android features after that, though it’ll get a total of two years of security updates. It’s not significantly worse than other phones at this price, but Motorola now offers two Android upgrades for its Moto G phones. TCL should do better.

I’d buy a CMF Phone 2 Pro ($279) over the TCL 60 XE Nxtpaper 5G, as it looks better, has better performance, and nicer cameras. But the pleasing matte screen has this calming quality that I’ve come to enjoy over the past week, and I like the ability to switch to even less saturation or monochrome if I’m reading a lot. If you’ve eyed something like the Boox Palma 2 for some time, I think you’ll have a much nicer experience with this TCL.