TCL P80 series finally marries eye-friendly NXTPAPER tech with an AMOLED panel

NXTPAPER meets OLED while peaking at 3,200 nits of brightness. TCL's P80 Pro and Ultra sound like winners in a niche category.

By Nadeem Sarwar Published September 3, 2026

TCL P80 series smartphone — TCL

TCL has been hawking smartphones equipped with the eye-friendly NXTPAPER screen for a while now. The key attraction is the screen, which offers a look and feel inspired by paper, and works in color as well as monochrome modes. The tech, which has now been ported over to tablets and even monitors, has so far remained limited to LCD panels. At IFA 2026, the long-awaited OLED upgrade has finally materialized with the new TCL P80 series smartphones.

The company is launching three phones in total — the vanilla TCL P80, the mid-tier TCL P80 Pro, and the camera-focused TCL P80 Ultra. The Pro and Ultra models are getting the upgraded NXTPAPER panel built on OLED foundations. The end result is a panel that cuts down on glare and blue light exposure courtesy of the underlying NXTPAPER tech while delivering the saturated colors and high contrast that are typical of OLED panels.

Coming to the specs, the TCL P80 Ultra and its Pro sibling share most of their core specs. You get a 6.83-inch 1.5K NXTPAPER AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Both phones draw power from MediaTek’s Dimensity 7400 Elite processor (which also appeared on the TCL NXTPAPER 60 series in the non-Elite avatar last year), while the onboard storage maxes out at 512GB. A fairly large 5,800mAh battery keeps the lights on, and there’s also support for 45W fast charging in wired mode.

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The biggest difference between the Pro and Ultra models is the camera hardware. On the TCL P80 Ultra, you get an optically stabilized 50-megapixel telephoto camera with folded-lens periscope optics and 3x optical zoom output. The 50-megapixel main, 8-megapixel ultrawide, and 32-megapixel selfie snapper are shared across both phones.

The build is fairly sturdy, offering IP68-tier dust and water resistance, alongside an MIL-STD-810H clearance for drop protection. Both phones retain the physical NXTPAPER Key, which lets users switch between paper-like display mode and the black-and-white Max Ink Mode. Worryingly, the RAM capacity peaks at 8GB on each model.

Once again, the display emerges as the silver lining, offering an impressive peak brightness of 3,200 nits. The TCL P80 Ultra is priced at €549 (roughly $640), while the P80 Pro hits the shelves carrying a price tag of €429 (approximately $500). Unfortunately, there is no word on when these phones will launch in the US market.

Managing Editor

Nadeem is the Managing Editor at Digital Trends.

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