TCL 40 XE is the company's new cheapest 5G phone, 40 X and 40 XL tag along

TCL unveiled a trio of affordable phones for the European and Asian markets at CES earlier this year, the TCL 40 SE, the 408 and the 403. All three are 4G-only models that focus on keeping costs low. Now at the MWC the company is unveiling more phones in the 40 series, some of which have 5G and all of which are affordable with prices of $200 and below. The new additions include TCL’s cheapest 5G phone to date ($170).

TCL 40 X 5G

This one isn’t it – at $200, the TCL 40 X 5G costs slightly more, but it also delivers better camera hardware. Well, there is the one proper camera on the back with a 50MP sensor, the other two modules are just 2MP helpers.

The phone has a 6.56” display with HD+ resolution (20:9) on the front with 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. The 8MP front-facing camera can do face unlock, a side-mounted fingerprint reader provides an alternative method for secure unlock.

The 40 X is powered by the Dimensity 700 chipset – this 7nm chip from late 2020 isn’t jaw-dropping, but it was also used on the pricier ($220) TCL 40R. Here it is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB storage (expandable by up to 1TB via the microSD slot). More importantly, the 5G modem promises downlink speeds of up to 2.77Gbps and supports the new VoNR type of voice calls. The phone has a 5,000mAh battery.

The TCL 40 X 5G is the priciest phone announced by the company today, but as mentioned above, this only means a $200 starting price.

TCL 40 XE 5G

The TCL 40 XE 5G is similar to the X, but it switches things around. It drops the price to $170 – making it TCL’s cheapest 5G phone yet. Even so, it uses the same Dimensity 700 as the X and has the same 4/64GB memory configuration (complete with a microSD slot).

So, where did the savings come from? The main camera on the rear only gets a 13MP sensors (the pair of 2MP helpers remains). The selfie cam, however, remains unchanged with an 8MP sensor. Security is handled either by face unlock or by the side-mounted fingerprint reader.

The XE has the same 6.56” HD+ display with 90Hz refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. This is comparable to last year’s TCL 30 XE. One noticeable upgrade from the old XE is the 5,000mAh battery (which is 500mAh bigger).

TCL 40 XL

Notice the lack of “5G” in the name – the TCL 40 XL chooses a larger display over next-gen connectivity. Said display has a 6.75” diagonal, though TCL kept the resolution at HD+ (the refresh rate is 60Hz).

That was the case with the 30 XL last year too, that one had a 6.82” HD+ display. This is also comparable to the 40 SE that was announced at CES with a 6.75” HD+ display (90Hz).

Like the X, this phone has a 50+2+2MP triple camera on its back and a notched 8MP camera on the front. The 5MP ultra wide camera of last year’s model is gone.

The storage on the XL is upsized to 128GB (expandable with microSD cards by up to 512GB), though RAM remains at 4GB. The phone is powered by the Helio G37, a 12nm chip with eight Cortex-A53 cores and a PowerVR GE8320, fairly low end compared to the 5G models listed above but on par with the 40 SE.

The battery was not upscaled to match the larger display and has the same 5,000mAh capacity as the X/XE. This model also uses face unlock and a side-mounted fingerprint reader.

The TCL 40 XL is $150, making it $20 cheaper than the 40 XE and the 40 SE.