TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G review

Verdict

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G is an Android phone for readers, which is a great and laudable concept. Just don’t come expecting a Kindle-Android hybrid, as that’s not the deal here. And this TCL doesn’t really excel in other areas like gaming or camera performance either.

It’s one of the most interesting phones at the price, but make sure you know what you get before buying.

Introduction

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G is one of the few interesting affordable phones of 2024. But it is also not what you might expect from the way TCL markets this Android. 

It has a “Nxtpaper” screen, which promises an “e-book-like” reading experience. And there’s a slider control on the side to make the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G toggle between screen modes — full colour and monochrome, paper-like. 

This is a great idea, but the execution is not what those imagining a phone that can turn into a Kindle are hoping for. The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G instead simply has an LCD with a matt textured glass top surface, which obliterates reflections. 

This isn’t an E-Ink screen, and it is backlit. I don’t love the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G for reading in bed. But is it better than the rest for reading while on your work commute? Sure. 

Screen aside, the £280 TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G is not all that notable. It has a fairly weak processor and you’ll get better photos from the Nothing Phone (2a) or even the year-old Pixel 7a. 

Design

• Includes a case
• Plastic body
• Unnamed screen class type

TCL’s 50 Pro design is bold enough that it could pass for a much higher-end phone from a distance. Its build is quite humble, though, sporting a plastic back and plastic sidewalls. Only the screen gets a glass coating. 

TCL tries to skirt around the idea you’re handling a cheap, no-frills device by giving the rear a pair of unusual finishes. I initially thought my one was meant to be an impersonation marble effect, but a Google Image search backs up TCL’s design claim of a basalt texture. 

Other colours have a “glass fiber” finish, but rest assured, this will still be plastic. It’s also important to note the basalt version is still smooth. It’s a matt-style finish with some sparkle, but there’s none of the contouring the “basalt” concept may imply. Thankfully. 

And that big shiny disc around the camera? This is plastic too. The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G is a hollow show-off, but I can’t be too down on it when the effect was to make me pleasantly surprised when I first checked out how much this phone costs. 

Elsewhere, we get a mediocre side fingerprint scanner, but otherwise few of the hardware perks of a higher-end phone. The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has no water resistance rating, its stereo speakers are quite thin-sounding, if respectably loud, and the screen protection does not use an industry-standard Corning Gorilla Glass formulation. 

However, we do get a headphone jack and 512GB storage as standard, which is excellent. A better-than-average case is included too. 

Bundled cases are typically basic silicone rear protectors. This is a book-style case with a side section that houses a stylus. 

It’s neat, and flipping the “lid” over does take the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G in and out of standby. However, the stylus is the simple kind with a capacitive nib — no pressure sensitivity. The stylus also makes the phone feel extra wide with the case attached. And as there’s no metal for the case to hook onto, the front part simply flaps around freely rather than acting as a magnetic clasp.

Screen

• An LCD screen designed to be able to impersonate E-Ink
• Matt finish means no mirror-like reflections
• Poor colour accuracy and calibration 

The entire sell of the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G is its display. This is a 6.8-inch Nxtpaper screen, which TCL says can conjure a “paper-like” experience. 

I’ve been an ebook reader user for almost 20 years, since around the time the Sony PRS-505 came out. I still use one now, a Kindle, and would be down for a phone that could replicate the Kindle experience. 

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G isn’t quite that. You can switch it into its Max Ink mode by flicking a slider on the phone’s side. 

This turns the display monochrome, a very Kindle Paperwhite-style look. What it can’t do is fundamentally change the nature of the display.

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has a Full HD LCD panel. It’s pretty similar to those of plenty of other lower-end phones, except it has a matt textured glass screen. You see something similar on the most expensive versions of the Steam Deck. 

This isn’t a film applied to the glass that you can peel off. The topmost layer of the glass itself is etched. And it eradicates reflections. Even strong overhead strip lighting just becomes a light glow. 

It’s highly effective, at the cost of a little perceived sharpness. Matt screens are also accused of making colours pop less than glossy ones. But my problem with the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G’s colour comes from the other end. 

This phone screen is oversaturated. And while it has an “sRGB” mode, it’s one of the worst I’ve seen in a phone in years. sRGB is a muted colour gamut by 2024 standards, and the sRGB mode here is still very rich. 

That’s not necessarily a huge deal most of the time, given phone buyers seem to like amped-up colour these days. But it does mean you can’t trust how photos appear on the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G screen. This phone’s photos look significantly different on my calibrated display, as they will do when you send them to friends and family over WhatsApp. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the phone’s brightness, though, which is far higher than the claimed 550 nits. It reaches 730 nits when maxed-out indoors, or 875 nits when in direct sunlight.

It’s nothing special by 2024 standards, but does mean the phone does not lag behind its OLED peers. And it can do a fair job of countering the contrast-killing effect of ambient light. You may lose the mirror-like reflections but the TCL 50 Pro still has to compete with sunlight.

Ebook reader features and software

• Has a dedicated e-reader interface
• Otherwise pretty standard Android

It’s a little funny that the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has an oversaturated screen when its USP employs a monochrome mode. Flick the switch on the side and the screen turns a slightly warm-hued black and white. 

It might be more accurate to call it “black and grey” though, as TCL deliberately emulates the lower-contrast appearance of E-Ink. That is the screen tech used in dedicated e-readers.  

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G also switches to a simplified interface in this mode. It only houses limited app shortcuts as standard, but you can add any you like. 

There’s also a bookshelf home screen, which feels quite e-reader-like. You can of course read your own ebook files and PDFs, and this home screen connects to ebooks.com. It’s an independent ebook store that has been around for decades — it has nothing to do with Amazon. 

If you do want to use the Amazon Kindle store, or the Rakuten Kobo platform, no problem. You can just use their apps instead. 

I don’t think the reading experience is as good as a Kindle ereader, or a the more directly comparable Boox Palma, though. While the reading mode is designed to reduce eyestrain and blue light output, a backlit LCD screen is still not as relaxing on the eyes as a front-lit screen E-Ink. Modern phone screens are also quite narrow for longer reading sessions, at least to my e-reader-pilled eyeballs.

It doesn’t go dim enough for comfortable dark-room reading before you go to bed, not without using the screen-inverting dark mode anyway.

Is it worthless? Absolutely not. It’s surprisingly well-implemented and is one of the most interesting features I’ve seen in an affordable phone recently. I just think it’s very important you know what you’re getting here. And what you are not. 

I also find I routinely accidentally switch on the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G’s e-reader mode when taking the phone out of a pocket. It is annoying, particularly as the switchover comes with a silly animation and sound effect that takes a few seconds.  

Performance

• Weak gaming performance
• Rivals have higher-end chips
• No obvious throttling

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has a fairly weak processor, the MediaTek Dimensity 6300. It’s comparable in power to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695, used in the OnePlus Nord CE 3 Lite, which was a similarly priced phone back at its launch in early 2023. 

General performance is absolutely fine. I’ve had no issues using the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G as my everyday phone during testing, and feel no need to move on from it after my review is done. You’d expect that at the price, though. Day-to-day performance should only become an issue in phones much cheaper than this. 

It means there are better options for gamers, though, including the Nothing Phone (2a), which has a more capable MediaTek 7200 Pro chipset. 

I tried Fortnite, and the experience was not great. You can only run the game at up to mid-level settings, due to hard limits in the version of the game the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G runs. And unless you put graphical restriction in place you’re not going to get close to 30fps. Choppier than a sous chef.

In better news, there’s no sign of thermal throttling based on my testing. Which you’d hope for given how limited the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G’s power is.  

Camera

• 108MP primary sensor
• Basic 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro lenses
• Average camera performance for the price point

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has a very familiar rear camera array for an affordable phone. Its primary camera is meant to dazzle you with its specs, so you don’t pay too much attention to the rest. 

It has a 108MP primary camera, one with a respectably large 1/1.67-inch sensor. This is paired with a basic 8MP ultra-wide camera and a trashy, largely pointless 2MP macro. 

If a phone like this has one good camera, I will often come away happy. But the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G doesn’t really have a single particularly good camera. 

The main camera still doesn’t provide particularly good results at night. It can make scenes appear bright, but doesn’t retain the detail or image integrity of the better performers. 

While the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has powerful Auto HDR processing, it tends to make images appear flat at times, and renders colours unnaturally.

Like any half-decent phone camera in 2024, you can still get great-looking images during the day. But the hit rate of the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G’s camera is not good considering how high-end its hardware may appear on paper. And its 108MP images (it takes 12MP ones as standard) do not hold up when zoomed in, and also lose the more effective dynamic range enhancement of 12MP pics. 

The camera uses a Samsung HM6 sensor, seen in a whole head of lower-mid-range phones, and I don’t think this is close to the best implementation of it. This is no great surprise when TCL probably doesn’t have an R&D budget close to that of the big names.

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G’s secondary super-wide camera is welcome, but suffers from the usual issues of a sensor significantly lower-end than the primary. Colours in sky gradients will often have a completely different character, and there’s an obvious drop in native dynamic range, detail and clarity. This is nothing unusual for an 8MP ultra-wide.

And, as usual, the 2MP macro is poor. 

Video’s limitations are even more stark than those of stills. 1080p at 30 frames per second is your max mode here. There’s no 4K. There’s no 60fps. 

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G does have software stabilisation, but it’s not hugely effective. 

Those video caps are thanks to the MediaTek Dimensity 6300 processor’s image signal processor. The Samsung sensor supports far higher-end modes, even if it’s not a true high-end piece of hardware.

Around the front, the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has a 32MP selfie camera. It’s fair but does not produce the most natural or flattering skin tones. 

Battery life

• Solid battery life
• OK charging pace
• No wireless charging

The TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G has a 5010mAh battery, just fractionally above the standard for a phone of this size and class. One of the big claims is the phone can last up to seven days of reading, again attracting comparisons to proper readers like the Amazon Kindle. 

I wish TCL would resist the temptation to do this.

It’s a bit of a misdirection as the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G does not have the super-low-power display of a Kindle. Its real-world stamina is perfectly sound, though, as you’d hope for from a 2024 processor that has modest performance. 

Getting it to last a full day is no issue, and you should have up to 30% charge left by the end of the day. I don’t think it’s quite on the level of the Sony Xperia 10 VI for stamina, though. 

Maximum charge power is 33W, and the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G includes such an adapter. It takes around 28 minutes to reach 50% charge, and 91 minutes to hit 100%. 

Unlike some rivals, though, the TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G takes its sweet time to hit that top number. It hit 98% at the 75-minute mark. 

There’s no wireless charging here, which is normal at the price. 

Latest deals