TCL’s Tab Pro 5G is a $400 5G tablet with 17 hours of battery life

Android tablets are making a comeback. Launching on Verizon, TCL today announced today its $400 Tab Pro 5G Android 11 tablet with notable features like, well, 5G, HDR support, and a huge battery.

While the TCL Tab Pro 5G doesn’t sport the beefiest chip, its Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G chipset is at least more powerful than the Unisoc Tiger 610 chip on the recently announced Nokia T20. The 480 5G is the same chip in the rugged Nokia XR20 smartphone; we found performance from the octa-core CPU to be fine for basic tasks like web browsing, video streaming, and social media.

We can’t say with any certainty how well the TCL Tab Pro 5G handles 3D games — the tablet’s 4GB of RAM is on the low side — but with 64GB of storage, it should handle streaming just fine. If you need more storage for downloading apps or videos, there’s a microSD card slot that supports up to 1TB.

Big, clear screen — Since the Tab Pro 5G is meant for kicking back your feet and streaming your favorite shows, that means one thing: a big, high-resolution display. The tablet has a 10.36-inch display — larger than the iPad 9’s 10.2-inch screen — with an FHD+ resolution (2,000 x 1,200) and 60Hz refresh rate. The display is enhanced by TCL’s NXTVISION, a feature that punches up color and contrast, while also upscaling content to HDR.

The Tab Pro 5G also comes with dual stereo speakers and a fingerprint reader for security.

Cameras for video calls — The TCL Tab Pro 5G has two cameras: a 13-megapixel shooter with LED flash on the rear and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. The front camera is arguably more important in the age of Zoom. While it’s not as cool as the flip camera on HP’s 11-inch Tablet PC, it does shoot video in 1080p at 30fps. Additionally, the noise-canceling microphone should make video calls less noisy on your end.

Long battery life — Using 5G usually means more drain on battery life. Fortunately, the Tab Pro 5G comes with a massive one 8,000 mAh cell that TCL says should get up to 17 hours of mixed-use. It also supports 18W fast charging; it can be fully recharged in four hours. iPads usually average around 10 hours of mixed-use, so 17 hours is sold (on paper at least). TCL says the Tab Pro 5G has several battery management modes to extend the battery further.

One thoughtful addition is reverse charging via a USB-C cable, essentially turning the tablet into a very big external battery bank.

Out now — The TCL Tab Pro 5G is available today for $400, exclusively at Verizon. It comes in one color: Metallic Black.