TCL 505s

The TCL 505s has a straightforward physical design, measuring 168.3mm tall, 76.7mm wide, and 8.3mm thick, with a total volume of around 107.14 cm³ and a weight of 190g. It is a standard candybar-style handset with no folding mechanism and no rugged certification. The device offers no water resistance, so it is not rated for protection against moisture or dust. Operating temperatures range from 0°C up to a maximum of 40°C, which reflects a standard indoor and everyday-use thermal tolerance.

The TCL 505s features a 6.75-inch IPS LCD touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels and a pixel density of 260 ppi. The panel runs at a 90Hz refresh rate and reaches a typical brightness of 400 nits. It does not include branded damage-resistant glass, and there is no support for HDR10, HDR10+, or Dolby Vision. Always-On Display is also absent, and the device has no secondary screen.

The TCL 505s is powered by the MediaTek Helio G36 chipset, built on a 12nm process with an octa-core CPU configuration of 4 cores at 2.2GHz and 4 cores at 1.8GHz using big.LITTLE technology, supported by 8 threads and multithreading. It comes with 4GB of DDR4 RAM running at 1600MHz across 2 memory channels, with a maximum memory bandwidth of 13.9 GB/s and a maximum supported memory amount of 8GB. Internal storage stands at 256GB on eMMC 5.1, expandable externally up to 2TB. Graphics are handled by the integrated PowerVR GE8320 GPU clocked at 650MHz with a turbo mode reaching 680MHz, supporting DirectX 12, OpenGL ES 3.2, and OpenCL 1.2. The chipset also integrates LTE, and the platform supports 64-bit processing, NX bit, and TrustZone security. Geekbench 6 scores are 229 single-core and 842 multi-core.

The TCL 505s has a dual rear camera system consisting of a 50MP lens at f/2.4 and a 2MP lens at f/1.8, both using a CMOS sensor without back-illumination. Autofocus options include phase-detection and touch autofocus as well as continuous autofocus during video recording, though laser autofocus is not present. The rear camera supports manual controls for exposure, ISO, focus, and white balance, along with HDR mode, burst shooting, panorama, timelapse, and slow-motion video, while optical zoom and manual shutter speed are not available. Video recording tops out at 1080p at 30fps, with no support for HDR10 or Dolby Vision recording. A single LED flash is included at the rear, with no dual-tone or RGB flash. On the front, there is a 5MP single-lens camera at f/2.2 with no flash and no under-display placement, and it does not shoot RAW or capture 3D content.

The TCL 505s runs Android 14, an open-source platform that supports multi-user operation, split-screen multitasking, Picture-in-Picture, widgets, and dynamic and custom theme options including dark mode and extra dim mode. Privacy features include clipboard warnings, location privacy controls, camera and microphone access management, and the ability to block app tracking, though cross-site tracking blocking and Mail Privacy Protection are not available. The OS also offers on-device machine learning, offline voice recognition, voice commands, customizable notifications with a media picker, full-page scrolling screenshots, live text selection from images, and phone tracking. Users can play games while they download, check battery health, share content via sharing intents, and enable a child lock. Wi-Fi password sharing, focus modes, app offloading, Quick Start, and desktop PC mode are not supported, and the device does not receive direct OS vendor updates.

The TCL 505s houses a 5010 mAh rechargeable battery with a built-in level indicator, and a charger is included in the box. It supports fast charging at 10W, though wireless charging is not available. The battery is non-removable and cannot be swapped out by the user.

The TCL 505s includes a 3.5mm headphone jack and stereo speakers, along with a built-in radio. On the wireless audio side, the device does not support aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, or LDAC, so higher-quality Bluetooth audio codecs are not available.

The TCL 505s connects to cellular networks via a dual SIM setup with download speeds up to 300 Mbit/s and upload up to 150 Mbit/s, though 5G is not supported. Wi-Fi covers both 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) and 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5), and Bluetooth 5.1 is on board alongside NFC. The device uses a USB Type-C port running USB 2.0, and there is no HDMI output. For navigation, it supports GPS and Galileo, while a compass, gyroscope, and barometer are absent; an accelerometer is included. Security is handled by a fingerprint scanner, with no 3D facial recognition or iris scanner present. The device also has an external memory slot but lacks ANT+, DLNA certification, an infrared sensor, a heart rate monitor, a built-in projector, and a stylus, and it does not offer crash detection or emergency SOS via satellite.

The TCL 505s includes a video light for use during video recording. The display is flat and does not use sapphire glass or e-paper technology.