// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
TCL’s paperlike OLED phone made me more excited for the iPhone Duo
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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.
The P80 Ultra’s screen is special because it’s the first to combine the Nxtpaper tech with an OLED panel. That means it’s the best-looking Nxtpaper screen yet, with deeper blacks, better contrast, and richer colors. Previous models have felt a little visually compromised; this one doesn’t. It also finally enables an always-on display. Always-on displays have been the norm on Android for years, and the fact that TCL’s Nxtpaper phones didn’t have them was a dealbreaker for many.
I’ve used a couple of Nxtpaper phones over the last few years, but usually found the tradeoffs — both across the specs and in the screen itself — never quite made sense. In some respects, that’s still true for the P80 Ultra, which I can’t entirely recommend as a phone in its own right. Performance has been sluggish and stuttering, and while the triple rear camera has decent enough specs on paper, photo quality is distinctly average.
The difference now is that the display feels like all upside. As an OLED, it’s bright and beautiful, with enough color and contrast to suit both scrolling and streaming. But the matte finish keeps it comfortable to look at, even at cranked up brightness or in a dimly lit room, with less flicker and blue light than most other displays. Nxtpaper’s anti-glare effect actually makes this a really excellent phone to use in brighter environments. It looked great under the bright lights of TCL’s IFA tradeshow booth, no mean feat. And the viewing angles are truly excellent, with good visibility even when the phone is almost entirely side-on. That’s without touching on the texture, which is smooth and satiny, so your finger sticks just a little less when swiping. It’s a small thing, but a welcome one.