The TCL Stylus 5G is TCL's first stylus smartphone and promises a pocket-friendly handwriting experience at a low price. With prices starting at $258, it is below the Moto G Stylus (2022), one of the few budget stylus smartphones, while shipping with Android 12.

While it is far from a replacement for the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, it is still an option for note-takers who delight in the feedback of pressing pen to paper, or stylus to screen. And with price-appropriate specs (though we are wary based on our past experience with MediaTek's chipsets), the TCL Stylus 5G could be one of the best budget phones, offering what the Moto G Stylus lacked.

We plan to demo the TCL Stylus 5G briefly, collect benchmarks, score photo comparisons, and measure performance before doing a full review. But for now, here are our first impressions of the TCL Stylus 5G.

The TCL Stylus 5G is available as of June 2, 2022. It will initially debut for T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile customers, priced at $258 and $269 respectively. It is expected to be available on other mobile carriers later this year.

It comes in one configuration, 128GB/4GB, and one color, Lunar Black.

While the flat screen and chin make it clear that it is not an Android flagship, the TCL Stylus 5G is still a rather sleek looking phone. Most of this is due to the matte back casing, which is fingerprint resistant and sparkles slightly in sunlight. The camera bump, while noticeable, is not the thickest we have seen. It is located in the upper left corner of the phone.

On the left edge of the TCL Stylus 5G is the SIM card slot, and on the right side is the SD card reader and side button. (This button also serves as a biometric fingerprint reader, but can also be unlocked by face.) At the bottom is a USB-C port for charging, a stylus housing, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Speaker grilles are also visible on the top and bottom edges of the phone.

The TCL Stylus 5G has a 6.81-inch Full HD display that promises real-time upscaling from SDR to HDR, video and other benefits from the company's Nxtvision panel. Nxtvision is TCL's TV division that It's called the company's own display engine on loan. Most of our observations about the display came from stylus testing, although it didn't seem to brighten up much in our short demo.

Not surprisingly, the TCL Stylus 5G has a stylus and a collection of stylus-driven tools to match. The experience is perhaps best complemented by its partnership with the Nebo app, which is one of the best note-taking apps and is loaded with features that justify the $11.99 download fee in the Google Play store. However, Nebo comes preinstalled for TCL Stylus 5G users, offering cloud-based note-taking, scribble-to-text conversion, support for multiple file types, and more.

Users also get MyScript Calculator, another typically paid app that allows users to write down mathematical equations and calculate them in seconds. For other simple notes and numbers, users can pull out the stylus and utilize the phone's native note-taking program, even when the phone is unlocked.

After testing the stylus for a few minutes, we were surprised at how fast it was; TCL does not provide latency specs, but we expected a lackluster experience given the phone's price. However, taking notes on the Nebo felt smooth. It wasn't as instantaneous as with Samsung's latest S Pen, but it was suitable enough as far as we were concerned.

We didn't have time to test the TCL Stylus 5G's camera, but here are the specs. On the back is a quad camera system with a 50MP main camera, a 5MP super wide, 2MP depth, and 2MP macro lens. Video can be shot at 1080p and 30fps. These are all fairly typical specs for a phone of this price.

Instead, the standout camera may be the 13MP front-facing camera. Since this phone is targeted at young business professionals, it seems to prioritize video chatting over selfies.

If you are interested in the best camera phone for less money, you might want to wait for the Google Pixel 6a, which will be available in July.

The TCL Stylus 5G has a battery life of 16 hours. In-house battery tests give a definite rating for battery life, but expect the stamina to be much shorter. For comparison, the Moto G Stylus and Moto G Power (2021) have the best overall battery life at 12 hours and 30 minutes and 14 hours and 4 minutes, respectively; TCL's smartphones are not currently on the list of best smartphones for battery life.

According to TCL, the TCL Stylus 5G can be charged from 0-100% in about 2 hours when charged with the included 18W charger.

Since there are not many inexpensive stylus smartphones on the market, TCL could successfully cater to those who want to enjoy a note-taking device but do not want or cannot spend much money. That said, our recommendation of the TCL Stylus 5G will depend on benchmark testing and a lengthy hands-on experience; MediaTek's chipset has yet to impress, but perhaps TCL's latest smartphone will write a different story.