When LG exited the mobile market last year, taking its Stylo smartphones with it, things looked bleak for aficionados of low-cost stylus phones. TCL has introduced a new smartphone with a built-in stylus: the aptly titled TCL Stylus 5G, just as it looked like Motorola was going to run the table with its Moto G Stylus phones. T-Mobile is selling it for $258 starting today, June 2nd.
A 6.81-inch 1080p LCD, MediaTek Dimensity 700 5G processor, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage are included in the Stylus 5G. There’s a 4,000mAh battery — far smaller than Motorola’s stylus phones’ 5,000mAh capacity — as well as a MicroSD slot for storage expansion and a headphone port.
A few stylus-centric pre-downloads are included with the phone, including an AI handwriting-to-text app developed in collaboration with Nebo. MyScript Calculator 2, a calculator tool that can read written equations and save findings for later use, is also available. Plus, you can use a stylus to do everyday things while making everyone around you believe you’re incredibly important.
The TCL Stylus 5G has a 50-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel ultrawide camera on the back panel – two potentially useful rear cameras! A 2-megapixel macro and a 2-megapixel depth sensor are two other less-useful cameras. There’s a 13-megapixel selfie camera on the front. TCL promises a one-year OS upgrade as well as two years of security upgrades for the phone, which comes with Android 12.
For aficionados of stylus phones that can do just about anything, the year began with Samsung adding a stylus to its high-end S22 Ultra. The TCL Stylus 5G joins two Motorola choices at the lower end of the price spectrum: the midrange Motorola Moto G Stylus 5G and the less-priced 4G-only Moto G Stylus. Despite the absence of LG, 2022 is shaping up to be a terrific year for stylus phones.
