- I found the TCL 60XE NXTpaper 5G phone at the CES show, as I didn’t want to leave Las Vegas without seeing it.
- Switch from a color screen to a grayscale one in seconds.
- It won TechRadar’s Best Mobile Phone award at CES 2025.
Between hands-on time with Sony’s Xyn prototype headset and the remote walk through Las Vegas, I headed to TCL’s extravagant booth at CES 2025. Because? Well, the answer is in the GIF below, which shows a smartphone switching from a color screen to a grayscale one that quickly extends battery life.
This is the TCL 60XE NXTpaper 5G Android Smartphonewhich, thanks to custom display technology, can be transformed from an FHD+ to one that resembles a newspaper-like matte grayscale. Still, it’s a fully functional Android phone with TCL’s UI, although you’re limited to using seven apps in this mode. The good news is that you can choose them and it takes just a few seconds for the screen to transform.
I can’t stress enough how clean and intuitive this simple change is and the benefits that are supposedly associated with it, as other TCL NXTpaper devices have plenty of battery life, which is a trait of this upcoming smartphone. In my brief test in the exhibition hall of the Consumer Electronics Show 2025Although it’s clearly in black and white mode, animations still render smoothly and it’s quite responsive to my touch inputs.
Aside from the shock and awe of the screen transformation, What’s really interesting is that TCL is pushing its NXT role into new ways.and potential battery life wins here. TCL says it can last a full week, seven full days of constant use, or 26 days on standby. That’s pretty impressive and remember, it’s still an LCD screen with a few extra layers that allow it to go from color to this more power-efficient mode.
It’s a decent-sized phone, with a 6.8-inch display that includes a front-facing selfie camera and a rear stack with a 50-megapixel unit on the back. It also supports wireless charging and has a USB-C port on the bottom. The TCL 60XE NXT paper felt quite good in my hand and even for a larger smartphone, it was quite easy to handle.
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I also appreciated that the switch was easy to find on the bottom right to switch between the two screen types. I moved it around several times without problems, and viewing it in a bright showroom was easy.
Between the potential for an ultra-long runtime and two display options from a single screen, there’s a lot to like here on the 60XE NXTpaper and it’ll be interesting to see if this makes its way to future TCL phones as well. Not to mention, it also won our best mobile phone of CES 2025. Check out our other 24 picks here.
