Each phone also has four cameras around back, though the specific sensors each phone uses vary. The standard 10L seems to use a 48MP sensor as its primary, along with an ultra-wide, telephoto and macro camera. Meanwhile, the slightly upmarket 10 Pro relies on a 64MP main sensor. I wish I had more to tell you about these cameras, but TCL wouldn't budge.

Calling these 10-series phones "thrilling" would be a stretch, but they're decently impressive upper-mid-range smartphones. At the very least, there's nothing overtly objectionable about them. But how does a company like TCL plan to make a splash with its smartphones in the US -- one of the toughest mobile markets to crack, period -- with devices that might best be described as "good, but inoffensive"?

Well, there's the whole money thing, for one. All of these phones, even that 5G model, should cost $500 or less when they launch in the US this year. As with the Galaxy Note 10 Lite and S10 Lite, we can't say for sure whether these phones are good deals since so many details have been unspoken. Still, when you look at brands like Motorola clawing their way back to profitability thanks to sub-$500 smartphones, it's not hard to imagine TCL finding some measure of success with this strategy.

And let's not forget that TCL has one key advantage over would-be competitors like Motorola: It makes a ton of other things. Imagine walking into a carrier store and being told that, hey, if you buy a TCL smartphone, we'll throw in an Alcatel tablet and a TCL TV. Sure, you could still choose to splurge on a pricey, premium smartphone, but a lot of people wouldn't turn a deal like that down. I didn't just make that up as an example either; TCL's GM of marketing Stefan Streit offered it as a potential strategy to jump-start the company's mobile business in the US.