Introducing TCL’s Innovative Flip Phone: Now with USB-C Connectivity & Enhanced 4G LTE

There aren’t nearly as many options for flip phones as there were in the early 2000s, but a few companies are keeping the form factor alive. TCL just released a new option running KaiOS: the TCL Flip 3.

This isn’t a folding smartphone in a flip phone shape, like the Galaxy Z Flip 5 or Moto Razr . It’s a basic flip phone with real physical buttons and an affordable price tag of $80. It has an external 1.77-inch preview screen for alerts and notifications, and opening the phone reveals a 3.2-inch screen on the top with a standard T9 keypad on the bottom.

The TCL Flip 3 uses the KaiOS 3.1 operating system instead of Android or iOS, which supports some features you might expect from a smartphone, while still being optimized for keypad input and ease of use. You can make calls, send text messages, take photos with the built-in camera, browse the web, check emails, and use basic versions of Google Maps and YouTube. There’s also an FM player that works when a wired headset is connected—more smartphones should have that feature—and a music player for playing local audio files.

There’s not much to talk about in the hardware department. The main internal display has a resolution of 240x320, the rear camera is 5MP with 720p @ 30 FPS recording, and the whole device is powered by a Qualcomm QM215 chipset. It supports 4G LTE, but not 5G, as well as Wi-Fi 4 (802.11 b/g/n). There is one sign of modern technology, though: you get a USB Type-C port for charging instead of microUSB.

TCL says the 1850mAh battery should give you 10.5 hours of talk time and “more than 17 days” of standby time. It takes around 2.5 hours to fully charge the battery. That’s definitely better than most smartphones, thanks to the more limited software.

You can get the TCL Flip 3 starting today from Verizon at Walmart, Spectrum Mobile , and U.S. Cellular. It’s not clear when (or if) the phone will be available as an unlocked device for use on more carriers.

Source: TCL

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