This 5G Tablet Is An iPad Air Alternative For Under $300

With a significant percentage of the market share, Apple's iPad lineup — which includes all of the company's tablets ranging from the iPad, iPad Mini, and iPad Air to the iPad Pro models — has dominated the tablet space for over a decade now. The only significant competition to Apple's iPads comes from Samsung, which has a fairly wide array of Galaxy Tab-branded Android slates in its arsenal. The rest of the tablet space continues to be populated by smaller players like Amazon, Huawei, and Lenovo — none of which have products that could hold a candle to superior offerings from Apple and Samsung.

Of late, however, there have been several new entrants into the tablet space, with a significant chunk of the push coming from traditional smartphone makers like Xiaomi, Realme, Motorola, and Nokia. If you haven't heard of any tablet models from these relatively established brands, it is probably because none of their tablets have officially made it to the U.S. market. Given that Apple's dominance in the market is even more prominent in the U.S., it is understandable why these companies are reluctant to compete with it.

However, one company that seems to be paying no heed to Apple's dominance in the U.S. tablet market is TCL. The Chinese brand recently launched a new 10-inch $300 tablet called the TCL Tab 10 5G in the United States. With modest specs and an equally modest price tag, the TCL Tab 10 5G does not target the average iPad buyer who typically spends more than $500 on a tablet. But does this product have what it takes to lure potential iPad and iPad Air buyers away?

As evident from the name, the TCL Tab 10 5G gets a 10.1-inch display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels. At 490g, this is a reasonably heavy tablet as well. Powering the device is a MediaTek Kompanio 800T, a mid-tier processor designed for tablets and Chromebooks. This chipset was announced alongside the more powerful Kompanio 1300T and 900T chipsets less than a year ago. The Kompanio 800T is based on TSMC's 6nm manufacturing process and offers support for UFS 2.2 storage and LPDDR4X RAM. In addition to these features, the Kompario 800T chipset enables comprehensive network support for the Tab 10 5G with native support for 3G, 4G, and 5G networks.

The TCL Tab 10 5G comes in a single 4GB variant with 32GB of onboard storage, with an option to expand the storage further using microSD cards. The device runs Android 12 and comes with a bevy of sensors, including an accelerometer, GPS, light, and gyro. The tablet also gets a competent camera setup that includes an 8MP rear-facing camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. As expected of a tablet this size, the TCL Tab 10 5G sports a massive 8,000 mAh battery that claims a standby time of over 50 days. The model will go on sale starting Friday, August 26, at T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile with a starting price of $299.99.