A TCL-made device identified as the TCL P1 was spotted in the database of Android benchmarking tool GFXBench earlier today, having been listed with specifications that put it in the lower mid-range segment of the market but still make it stand out due to a screen that’s uncharacteristically small for a contemporary smartphone. The handset is listed as featuring a 3.3-inch display with an HD resolution of 1,280 by 720 pixels amounting to a standard widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio. While no benchmarking software has a perfect track record and can be tricked in regards to most smartphone features, display size usually isn’t an area that causes issues for benchmarks and isn’t as easy to fake as something like a model number is.
The surge in the popularity of phablets made both tablets and small-screen handsets largely obsolete in recent times as even screens with diagonals shorter than five inches now represent a niche segment. Sony’s Xperia XZ1 Compact is widely considered to be a small handset, yet its screen is still 1.3 inches larger than the one supposedly found on the newly listed device from TCL. The uncovered smartphone was also tested while running an unspecified version of Android 8.0 Oreo and was identified as being powered by an octa-core chip from Qualcomm clocked at 1.4GHz and featuring the Adreno 505 GPU, with these characteristics being indicative of the Snapdragon 435. That particular silicon was announced in early 2016 and already commercialized on numerous occasions, having ended up in smartphones like the LG Q6, Xiaomi Redmi Y1, and the Huawei Enjoy 7 Plus. According to the same source, the TCL P1 has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal flash memory. The GFXBench listing makes no mention of a microSD card slot but does suggest the device lacks dual-SIM capabilities, NFC, and a heart rate monitor. It still lists it with a 12-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front one, adding that the former is accompanied by an LED flash and supports face detection.
The Chinese tech giant manufactures and sells both Alcatel and Blackberry smartphones running Android, and it also used to make devices under its own brand but struggled to find success with them in recent years. Reports from late 2017 suggested the firm is on the lookout for new investors as part of its plan to make another attempt at selling TCL-branded handsets and the supposed moniker of the newly benchmarked device falls in line with that rumored ambition, being indicative of a new mobile offering from the Huizhou, Guangdong-based company.