TCL’s ultra-affordable 60XE uses NXTpaper to potentially break all kinds of battery life records
- TCL unveils its TCL 60XE NXTpaper 5G Android phone
- The NXTpaper technology enables a battery life of one week
- The price is impressive
I’m happy to celebrate the day-long battery life I get with most flagship iPhone and Android handsets, but what if they offered a week’s worth of battery life and cost $199? Impossible, right? Apparently not if you’re TCL. Today at CES 2025, the Chinese electronics giant best known for its affordable large-screen TVs is bringing the TCL 60XE NXTpaper 5G Android phone to the US and Canada and yes, it ticks these boxes.
This active 6.8-inch handset has a 7-day battery life using TCL’s proprietary NXTPaper technology. TCL calls it E Ink-like, but this is not electronic paper technology (I saw it before on the 14-inch TCL NxTPaper 14 Pro). The FHD+ screen is still an LCD screen, but uses a series of layers to reduce reflectivity and remove blue light. The combination gives NXTPaper-based screens an almost matte paper, magazine-like appearance.
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So yes, they are easy on the eyes, but also a lot less bright. NXTPaper’s technology makes it more of a powerful display. However, the TCL 60XE will not always operate in this mode. There’s a physical switch on the phone to enable the NXTPaper effect, and battery life would be 7 days if you used it 24/7 in NXTPaper mode (standby would be an astonishing 26 days).
Interestingly enough, this new phone won’t even have the latest edition of TCL’s NXTPaper technology. TCL told us that NXTPaper 4.0 will be released later this year, but only on the new TCL NXTPaper 11 Plus tablet, also announced at CES. NXTPaper 4.0 uses nanomatrix lithography, a new screen etching process to create microstructures on the cover glass that effectively kill reflections without compromising visual quality.
It is not clear when NXTPaper 4.0 will appear on mobile phones. The next best thing, NXTPaper 3.0, is available on the TCL 60XE, as well as a few other attractive features that could make it a surprise winner in the 2025 Android market.
Specs like a 50MP front camera, a 32MP rear camera, 256GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM (expandable to 16GB) would normally equate to a phone costing at least $800. But TCL is bringing in the TCL 60XE for $199 in the US and Canada.
That’s an unheard of price for a phone that can last for days on a change (depending on how often you use NXTPaper mode). As for build quality, camera capabilities and overall performance, I’ll know more when I get my hands on the new Android handset.