This Android Phone's Unique Screen Could Replace Your Kindle

TCL has been challenging established makers of consumer electronics for more than 40 years. And one of its latest releases, the Nxtpaper 60 Ultra takes the company's innovative Nxtpaper technology and brings it to a smartphone that just might replace your Kindle.

The best part of TCL's latest smartphones are the E Ink-like screens. The company has been expanding its options over the years, including the 2025 release of the TCL Nxtpaper 11 Plus Tablet, which featured the latest version of its Nxtpaper tech and a slew of AI functions. However, its newest smartphone, the Nxtpaper 60 Ultra, offers a natural light, zero-flicker display which could be a boon for anyone looking to replace their Kindle with a smartphone.

Beyond being easy on the eyes, the Nxtpaper 60 Ultra opens the door to using your smartphone for more than just calling, texting, and internet browsing. It's a smartphone that can double as your favorite e-reader, offering a few key functions that will make reading on it potentially more enjoyable than using a Kindle.

While Amazon released a new color Kindle in 2024, these E Ink displays are still prone to performance issues. The TCL Nxtpaper 60 Ultra promises a higher level of performance thanks to some impressive specs. Not only does it sport a 7.2-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, the device also comes with a maximum brightness of 780 nits. That may not sound like much compared to the 2600-nit Galaxy S25 Ultra, but with an E ink-like display, you don't need as much brightness to see what's on your screen.

Along with its high-tech display, the Nxtpaper 60 Ultra features a 2.6GHz MediaTek Dimensity 7400 chipset, which is the same high-performance chip used in the Motorola Edge. This means it can deliver smoother page transitions than Amazon's traditional Kindle devices, that are said to run slower 1GHz processors. Some Kindles, such as the Colorsoft , feature 2GHz processors, but still suffer from relatively low transition speeds.

Furthermore, TCL's unique Circadian Screen Comfort system allows for color temperature changes, which combine with its glare- and flicker-free display to create an easy-to-read interface. If you want to take things a step further, you can switch between "paper modes" to allow for colored paper reading — ideal for comics and magazines — vibrant color for smartphone usage, and black-and-white ink for reading books.

TCL's new Nxtpaper technology appears to be a big improvement over the system that Kindle offers. Mainly because it gives you access to Android 15 on a device that should run more smoothly as it is not limited by E Ink's slower refresh rate.