TL;DR
- TCL and Metro have launched the Ion X smartphone.
- The phone brings a removable battery, microSD support, and a 3.5mm port.
- You’re otherwise looking at a very unremarkable handset in other areas.
Phones with removable batteries are a rarity these days, as even the vast majority of low-end devices offer fixed batteries. Fortunately, US consumers now have one more handset to choose from thanks to TCL.
TCL has teamed up with Metro to offer the TCL Ion X (h/t: XDA-Developers), and it’s definitely a low-end proposition when you look at the spec sheet. Expect to find a weak Helio G25 4G processor, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Fortunately, there’s reportedly a microSD card slot on-tap for expanding your local storage.
Other notable specs include a 6-inch 720p LCD screen, a solitary 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front-facing shooter in the top bezel.
What else does it offer?
But perhaps the most noteworthy feature here is a 3,000mAh removable battery. This is pretty handy as it means you can easily switch to a new battery if the old battery has degraded down the line. It’s also useful if you don’t want to wait for the battery to charge.
Finally, the TCL Ion X completes the trifecta of handy old features by offering a 3.5mm port so you can easily listen to music with wired accessories. All that’s really missing is an IR blaster and we’ve got a full suite of older smartphone features.
The TCL Ion X will apparently retail for $119 from Metro in the US and goes on sale from today (January 26). We hope to see the device go on sale off-contract as well. Nevertheless, the phone joins other devices with removable batteries like the Samsung Galaxy XCover 6 Pro, Fairphone 4, and Nokia C21.
