[Review] First 24 with THL w200s

[rossturv]

Hi Again!
My phone finally arrived and I have now had a chance to play around with it for over 24hrs.
Now I have always been an iPhone user so when I thought about looking at getting an android phone from China I wasn't expecting quality, it was purchased purely due to it being a 6th of the price of a new iPhone.
However I am happy to say that I am not disappointed with my new purchase!
The phone itself doesn't look cheap and feels fairly solid (as solid as plastic construction gets anyway). The front of the phone is simple and unbranded constructed with a single piece of gorilla glass. It appears to have a notification LED but it is only used to indicate when the battery is charging and when the battery is running low. The viewing angle of the IPS screen is excellent and the light distribution is almost spot on.
All the buttons feel positive and have a nice metallic finish.
The only bit that lets the phone down in terms of its looks is the silly "technology happy life" quote on the back that gizbeat pointed out in his review and the "8M" printed on the camera lens. I don't see a point in that!
In terms of performance the OS is very snappy and responds nicely. So far i haven't encountered anything that causes it to slow down, which I was slightly worried of due to only having 1 gig of ram.
The camera works relatively well and takes reasonable pictures in all light conditions with the autofocus working really well, I have yet to put it through a proper test though.
Battery life seems ok, but I have been using it non stop so will have another look at that after I am a little less obsessed with it!
The only negative I have found so far seems to be the quality of audio when listening through headphones. I can always hear white noise whenever audio is being outputted. This is quite annoying for me but I will keep looking into it as it could just be a software problem somewhere.
Overall I am very impressed with the w200s. I think in terms of value for money it will be hard to beat, I also like that it comes with a hard protective case and screen protector included. I won't use the screen protector but the case helps hide the quote on the back!
If anyone has any questions about it let me know!

[WuddaWaste]

In regards to the indication light: have you guys tried using LiteFlow Lite? On my Nexus 4, LightFlow really helped me use the indicator light for things I wanted to see. If that isn't an option, perhaps GravityBox Mod for Xposed Installer could be used.

@rossturv: I have an inherent Anti-Apple complex, so hearing you coming from that world and loving this one so much gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling all over. Haha! Does your headphone white noise problem happen for all audio apps (YouTube, Pandora, iHeart, Google Music, etc), or just one specifically? Sorry to hear about that problem. It does sound SUPER annoying. I'll try to Google around for it later and see if I stumble on anything.

[snifer]

nice review!! can i ask u, the touch screen work with gloves? can u try different type? leather, wool and so on?

[rossturv]

nice review!! can i ask u, the touch screen work with gloves? can u try different type? leather, wool and so on?

Hi Snifer,

Dont have any gloves! However I have just given it a go with various cloths over my finger and the screen responds well with most thin materials. I know it probably doesnt help you much but I think you should be fine with thinsulate style gloves but mittens and ski gloves are probably out of the question!

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I would also just like to add that now I have had the chance to use my phone normally the battery is more than capable of getting through a 9 hour working day without needing a charge. That includes about 30 mins of calls, messaging throughout the day and a few bouts of (high end) gaming depending how quiet the business is!

[snifer]

Thank you!!! With Leather ? can u try please?

[rossturv]

In regards to the indication light: have you guys tried using LiteFlow Lite? On my Nexus 4, LightFlow really helped me use the indicator light for things I wanted to see. If that isn't an option, perhaps GravityBox Mod for Xposed Installer could be used.

@rossturv: I have an inherent Anti-Apple complex, so hearing you coming from that world and loving this one so much gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling all over. Haha! Does your headphone white noise problem happen for all audio apps (YouTube, Pandora, iHeart, Google Music, etc), or just one specifically? Sorry to hear about that problem. It does sound SUPER annoying. I'll try to Google around for it later and see if I stumble on anything.

Hi WuddaWaste,
Just found out what was causing the noise through the head phones. In audio profiles there is something called BesAudEnh. Now I'm not sure if this a standard android app but as soon as it was disabled the sound corrected itself. I assume this program simply increases the output level of the headphone jack, which will make it louder but also distorts the source.
A bit of fine tuning with the built in equalizer and everything is sounding great!

[WuddaWaste]

NICE! Glad you figured it out, and double-glad you posted up here!

I just got a THL T200S yesterday. Hadn't plugged in headphones yet, but after reading this post I went and scoped out the settings. BAM. Right where you mentioned, I had that option too. I will not be checking the box thanks to you. Disaster avoided! Thanks, dude!

In other news, I also just found out that my headphones aren't compatible with my Earbuds+Mic. When I was plugged in, they sounded really awful and distant. I just typed this up with more detail in [Only registered and activated users can see links Click here to register], but the bottom line is that these earbuds aren't gonna work with this phone. Bummer.

I don't normally use the mic anyway. It just stinks 'cuz these are by far my favorite earbuds.

[GizBeat]

Wudda, if they don't have a control button, then try with adapters. Local Radio Shack should have them and let you try before buy.