TCL unveils affordable 406 Android 13 phone, TWS buds

In addition to the TCL 40 X, XE and XL, the company also unveiled an affordable model, cheaper than the TCL 408 from CES, though above the 403 and 405. The company also showed off noise canceling TWS buds and portable 5G Wi-Fi hotspots.

TCL 406

The TCL 406 costs $120, $10 less than the 408. Where does the saving come from? The camera – the new model has a 13MP sensor, down from 50MP. It still runs full Android and it even comes with the newer 13 version out of the box.

Other than that, the two phones are quite similar. They have 6.6” HD+ displays, stereo speakers and 5,000mAh batteries.

Note that TCL also has the 405 and 403 phones, but those are Android Go Edition devices, so we can’t compare them directly to the other two. That said, the 405 hardware is pretty similar to the 406, the main limiting factor here is the RAM capacity.

The TCL 406 will become available in Europe immediately and will expand to other regions soon.

TCL Moveaudio Neo

TCL has been in the TWS earbuds space with its Moveaudio buds, although it took a gap year after unveiling the S600 in 2021. Now it is back with its cheapest buds with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) yet.

The TCL Moveaudio Neo feature both ANC for listening to music and environment noise cancellation for voice calls. The ANC reduces noise by up to 28dB. There is a transparency mode available too, for those times when you do need to hear your environment.

The Neo buds support Google’s Fast Pair, so pairing them up to a recent Android phone should be as simple as opening the case and tapping the pair button on the screen.

The buds have 10-mm drivers and touch controls, plus 4 equalizer modes. Each bud weighs 4.5g and is rated IP54 so rain and grime shouldn’t be an issue. The case weighs 41g. The one major missing component is a high quality audio codec.

The buds can last up to 7 hours of continuous playback, the total listening time when you include the case is 40 hours. Charging is done over USB-C and is pretty fast, 10 minutes are enough for 100 minutes of playback.

The TCL Moveaudio Neo cost $50. For comparison, the S600 is $100, the S180 (also with ANC) is $80 normally, there are significant discounts at the time of writing. The S180 have shorter battery life (30 hours) and lack fast pair, however.

TCL Linkzone 4G and 5G hotspots

The TCL Linkzone MW512 is a 5G Wi-Fi hotspot that works in the sub-6GHz band. It has an intuitive user interface thanks to the on-board display so you can keep an eye on connection status, battery life and so on.

There is also the Linkzone MW63, which has a 4G connection (Cat. 6, up to 300Mbps down and up 50Mbps up) and supports eSIMs so you don’t need to purchase a physical SIM when traveling abroad. This pocketable device can connect up to 32 devices to the Internet over Wi-Fi 5 (ac at 867Mbps), its 2,150mAh battery can last up to 8 hours of operation (standby time is up to 300 hours).

Info on the prices and availability of the Linkzone hotspots will be announced soon.