ThL W200 Unboxing Pictures and Video

I recently decided I had enough of my Nokia C6-01 phone, and decided to look for a Chinese smartphone with the following specifications: quad core processor, 5″ to 5.5″ display (720p resolution), at least 1 GB RAM, at least 8 GB flash, GPS, Wi-FI and 3G (UMTS) support, all that for about $200. It also had to run Android 4.2.x as I want to give Miracast a try. Ideally, I would also have liked a phone with Bluetooth 4.0 LE in case an Android 4.3 was in the work. But since Bluetooth versions are rather a game of luck in Chinese websites, I did not put too much importance to this last point. I finally went with ThL W200 as it matched my minimum specifications, the price was right, and it got a few people excited over at XDA Developers Forum. I bought the white version for $187.20 on DealExtreme, but there’s also a black version which was more expensive at the time, but now costs $185.50.

ThL W200 Specifications

Let’s go through ThL W200 specifications first:

SoC- Mediatek MT6589T quad core Cortex A7 @ 1.5Ghz with PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU
System Memory – 1GB RAM
Storage – 8 GB Flash + micro SD card slot (up to 32GB)
Display – 5.0″ capacitive touch screen, with 720×1280 resolution, 16 millions colors.
Networking – 2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, 3G: WCDMA 850/2100 MHz. Data Transfer GPRS, EDGE, HSPA. 2 SIM card slots
Connectivity – Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS,
Camera – 8MP rear camera with flash, 5.0MP front camera
USB – Micro USB
Audio – 3.5mm headphone jack, microphone and speaker
Sensors – Proximity sensor, orientation sensor, light sensor, 3-axis accelerometer, and 3-axis magnetic field sensor
Misc – FM radio
Battery – 1800 mAh (Talk time: 320 min, standby: 120 hours). DX.com says it is actually 1750 mAh, not sure how they found out.
Dimensions – 141.5 cm x 7.1 cm x 0.94 cm
Weight – 118g without battery, 152g with battery.

It matched all my requirements, and MT6589T is the turbo version of the older MT6589, clocked at 1.5 GHz (vs 1.2 Ghz), with the GPU clocked at 357 MHz (vs 286 MHz). (Source). The main concern is the battery capacity (1800 mAh) which may be on the low side for this type of device.

Since Mediatek never releases source code (correct me If I’m wrong), “ROM” modifications will be limited, but one dev called ro.edi released ThL W200 – RO.EDi ROFuSiON RoM. The original firmware for ThL W200 is available on needrom.

ThL W200 Unboxing

ThL W200 Smartphone and its Accessories (Click to Enlarge)

The phone comes with two 1800 mAh batteries, a pair of headphones (120 cm cable), a 5V/1.5A power adapter, a USB cable for charging and data, a screen protector, and a rather useless Quick Start Guide in English as it just shortly explains how to use Android. The headphones do not have a vol +/- button which can be somewhat annoying.

Let’s have a closer look at the device.

We’ve got three buttons under the display: menu, home, and return, and on top the 5MP front camera, status LEDs, and the light sensors. The 8MP camera and flash, as well as the microphone, can be seen at the back of the device. The headphone jack and micro USB port at located on the top side, volume +/- on the left, and the power button on the right.

To insert a micro SD card, and/or one or two SIM card(s) remove the back cover. Even with the battery in place, which came with about 60 % charge, the phone feels very light.

I’ve also shot an unboxing video.

That’s all for today, I’ll give the phone a try for a few days before writing a review. I plan to write something similar to what I did for the Zopo ZP900S Leader review, but I’m obviously open to suggestions.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.