TCL’s paperlike OLED phone made me more excited for the iPhone Duo
The TCL P80 Ultra is the first smartphone to feature a matte OLED display, combining the paper-like Nxtpaper technology with high-contrast OLED visuals. While the screen quality is impressive, the device suffers from sluggish performance and other hardware compromises.
Why it matters
This development signals a potential shift in mobile display technology toward more comfortable, eye-friendly screens that could influence future flagship devices like the rumored iPhone Duo.
I’ve spent most of the last couple weeks using an otherwise unexceptional midrange Android phone with one amazing feature: a matte OLED display. That screen is by far the best thing about the TCL P80 Ultra, and weirdly, it’s made me more excited for the iPhone Duo and its matte inner display.
2023’s TCL Nxtpaper 40 first brought matte displays to the company’s phones, after they appeared on tablets in 2021. Nxtpaper is more than a simple matte finish on a panel: it also includes a paperlike feel and low-power, monochrome modes that create a reasonable facsimile of an E Ink screen. But the matte effect has always been the biggest draw for me.
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