The 15Eur Smartphone I got (TCL 501)

Tue, 16 Dec 2025

So I really like testing the limits of with how little I COULD get away with living comfortably, especially in terms of hardware/tech.
This time I was thinking about phones. I have not really kept up with phone releases, especially not the cheap stuff.
After a bit of internet search I stumbled across the TCL 501. Apparently released in 2024 with an MSRP of 70Eur to mediocre reviews, quickly dropping to 50Eur and now selling for about 30Eur it intrigued me.
After a couple days of looking on ebay I stumbled across one for 15Eur. 15Eur shipped that is. Basically new.
And it actually arrived, it actually had a pristine box, a charger still in the plastic wrap, a USB-C charging cable and the phone with one tiny mark on the back.
That's it. For 15Eur.
And honestly, I am quite impressed, and would be even for 30Eur. I didn't expect much, especially with like 80% of reviews being quite negative, but I was surprised.
Sure, it needed some basic debloat and setup, but after that it's actually a phone I could probably rely on as a daily.
Discord runs well, YT at up to 1080p streams perfectly fine, Telegram works, Firefox runs pretty well, Spotify can stream at lossless (unless I am downloadign at the same time).
The battery life is really nice I think. They claim (and AccuBattery measures) 3000mAh capacity which at mixed use lasts a couple days, and with minimal use as just a pocket phone it will last a week.
Well, it kind of needs to, because it only charges at about 5W, and only with the charger it came with. My Powerbanks and wall plugs all were confused and tried "charging" with 0.0075W. Still trying to figure that one out..

In terms of specs it really only has one big drawback. 2GB of RAM, that's all you get.
Otherwise it has a low end 2x4 core CPU, a low end dedicated GPU SoC, 32GB flash, a removable 3000mAh battery, dual nano-SIM and an micro SD card slot they claim works up to 1TB. I was only able to test up to 256GB since I have no larger SD cards.
The screen is a glossy, 6", 540x1092 pixel, LCD. Simple, not amazing but good enough. The viewing angles are suprisingly good!

The entire phone is made from plastic, some kind of glass on the screen and rear camera and very little PCB.
The backpanel is clipped on and can be removed to acces the SIM and SD slots and to remove the battery (oldschool style!):

Removing all the screws and the palstic covering the internals reveals the phone is seriously simple, just some very basic PCBs, modules puzzled together like LEGO, all in a plastic skeleton frame:

The part I find most interesting is how the phone feels. SInce it's all plastic with a clipped on backpanel you might expect flimsy, but it feels solid, almost nice even.
The entire backpanel has this funky texture, same with the sidebuttons (they are part of the sidepanel). I am not convinced it helps a ton with grip, but it helps a bit with sweaty ahnds like mine and its fun to play around with with my fingernails. Makes a sound liek a sportsbag if you know what I mean.


The sidebuttons feels snappy, no wobble at all. You can shake the phone as hard as you want and it makes no noise, other than my clacking Samsung S23 Ultra..
There is no twist, no sharp corners and it only weighs in at 167.7g. For comparison my S23 Ultra weighs in at about 235g, an even an iPhone weighs a tiny bit more at 170g or 199g for the Plus.
Sure thats because there is so little phone, but still, for a 6" phone that just feels very, very nice to me. In my pockets I can barely feel it at all.
It is a bit thicker than most modern smartphones though, 9.8mm to be exact or 10.2mm at the rear camera. As a comparison, my S23 Ultra without a case is 8.9mm, 11.4mm with a Spigen case. An iPhone 16 or 16 Pro is 7.8mm without a case.
With it's round corners and backpanel at least with my big hands it feels very nice though.

The rear camera is a glorified webcam. Sure it takes pictures, if you really have to, but don't be too dissapointed. Extremely poor low light, poor contrast and colours, poor resolution.
The front camera has about the same resolution and quality as a GameBoy camera, without the charme.

The TCL 501 has a USB-C port and an actual 3.5mm audio jack! The quality of the audio is alright, as far as I can tell. Not an audiophile phone but for Spotify or most mp3s it's good enough.

The speaker, yes singular, makes sound. Yup. It's acceptable in sound and loud enough.

There is a flashlight at the back that works.

I've been using the phone for a couple days now in the gym, when running, when being out and about and I kind of love it. Sure, sometimes you need to be a bit patient for something to load, but it never gets bad enough that I was ever annoyed. When you download something the phone comes to a crawl sometimes, but otherwise it's been perfectly fine.
I'll be using it for a while longer now, see how far I can push it as a daily or at least as a cheap party phone eg.

If you have around 30 bucks to spare and want to try something fun or different, maybe you are looking for a more capable dumb phone, want to get away from phone addiction or something similar, get a TCL 501! Find one as cheap as possible and just run with it :)

Cheers!