T-Mobile's most affordable 5G smartphone will go on sale this Friday (also at Metro)
The day bargain hunters have been waiting for since early January is finally here right around the corner, with T-Mobile's ultra-affordable TCL 30 XE 5G officially scheduled for a commercial debut this Friday, February 25, at both the "Un-carrier" itself and prepaid subsidiary Metro by T-Mobile.
Intriguingly, Magenta will charge slightly less than its daughter operator, at $198 compared to $199.99, thus allowing the brand-new 6.5-inch mid-ranger to undercut the 6.8-inch T-Mobile REVVL V+ 5G (by the same trivial two bucks) and technically claim the title of the cheapest 5G-enabled phone available on the nation's second-largest wireless service provider.
Not to be confused with the 6.67-inch TCL 30 V 5G, which is one of Verizon's most affordable 5G handsets, at a $299.99 list price, the 30 XE 5G sports a predictably modest HD+ display capable of refreshing your content at a silky smooth (by low to mid-end standards) 90Hz rate.
To be perfectly clear, the screen resolution is not impressive by any standard, at 1600 x 720 pixels, and the same goes for the outdated V-shaped notch and relatively wide "chin" making this thing's design pretty hard to swallow for all but T-Mo's least demanding customers.
On the decidedly bright side of things, the TCL 30 XE 5G packs a hefty 4,500mAh battery with support for reasonably fast 18W charging, and the MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor doesn't sound like a pushover either, powering considerably costlier devices from various other brands outside of the US.
Stateside, this bad boy will probably have to compete against the likes of Samsung's Galaxy A32 5G and the OnePlus Nord N200 5G in addition to the aforementioned T-Mobile REVVL V+ 5G for the title of best budget 5G phone available in 2022.
Unfortunately for TCL, most of its direct rivals in the sub-$300 price bracket have much better-sounding cameras to offer than a triple rear-facing arrangement composed of 13, 2, and 2MP sensors and a single 8MP selfie shooter. Something tells us T-Mobile and especially Metro will look to lower the $200 price point even further before long with 4 gigs of RAM and 64GB internal storage space also in tow, so it might be wise not to get your order in on February 25.
Give it a few weeks and you could well score T-Mo's most affordable 5G smartphone completely free of charge, at least with a new line of service and/or a number port-in.
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