THL 4000 Smartphone Review
A quad-core smartphone for under $100 was a mere pipe dream just a few years ago, but the ubiquity of quad-core SoCs have allowed for a wide range of devices from budget to high-end to begin sporting multiple processors. Chinese manufacturer THL (Technology, Happy, Life) offers such a device with their inexpensive THL 4000 smartphone. For just $99, the THL 4000 offers all the basics including a 4.7-inch 960 x 540 resolution IPS display, 1 GB RAM, a 1.3 GHz MTK6582M SoC with integrated Mali-400 MP graphics and 5 MP and 2 MP rear and front cameras.
Ideally, all phones should be reliable regardless of price. While this is an issue with a number of Chinese smartphone brands, the THL 4000 surprised us with its stability and usability. We take this budget model out for a spin and see how it compares to some more popular alternatives.
Case
According to THL, the manufacturer aims to build a "first-class brand" for "the lowest price". Our initial impressions are indeed favorable as the THL 4000 feels good to hold with a very solid and tough plastic construction, especially for the price. The silver edges around the perimeter feel thick and the phone barely creaks or bends when applying twists or pressure on the faces. The textured matte back cover also gives the phone a slightly more premium feel as opposed to just smooth plastic and it negates fingerprints very well as an added bonus.
The distinct downside to the sturdy build is its thickness. At 11.2 mm thick, the THL 4000 is noticeably thicker than most other 4.7-inch smartphones including the HTC Desire 510 and LG G2 Mini. The LG L Fino is one exception, though the THL has the advantage of a removable back cover. Its weight of 158 grams is also hefty compared to 145 grams and 129 grams of the LG L Fino and iPhone 6, respectively. Even the popular HTC One M8 with its aluminum body, glass display, and larger 5-inch screen is only 2 grams heavier than the THL.
Connectivity
Physical ports include the basic 3.5 mm audio and micro USB 2.0 interfaces. Removing the back cover will also reveal dual SIM slots and a microSD reader, which are definite surprises for a sub $100 price tag. The USB port supports OTG, so users can connect generic mice and keyboards in a plug-and-play fashion. We were able to use our external Microsoft and Logitech devices with no major latency issues.
Communication & GPS
Wireless connectivity includes 802.11 b/g/n with expected Bluetooth and Miracast options. Connecting to a home wireless network with the THL 4000 is straightforward with no random disconnects or stability issues. Range is also quite good as it is comparable to the LG G2 and slightly longer than the budget ECOO Focus E01.
Similarly, the GPS radio locks on to satellites reliably even without WLAN or 3G support. We had no issues using the THL for driving or other location-based applications like Yelp.
Telephone & Speech Quality
The THL is officially compatible with 2G GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and 3G WCDMA (850/900/1900/2100MHz) bands. This leaves CDMA users out of luck, so most U.S. users will be using AT&T with this particular smartphone. Furthermore, users expecting 4G connectivity will be out of luck as well. The model has dual SIM slots (1x micro SIM, 1x mini SIM) adjacent to the microSD slot behind the removable back cover, but the battery must be removed first before any SIM or SD cards can be inserted.
Call quality is good with sufficiently high volume and no significant static. Users on the other end also had no issues listening clearly, though we did sound a bit muffled outdoors with traffic nearby. Call connection is spot on as far as AT&T goes as we experienced no random drops or breaks in speech that may be specific to the THL 4000.
Cameras
The front 2 MP and rear 5 MP cameras take good pictures even for a budget phone. However, it is still a couple of steps below cameras found on flagship smartphones like the LG G2. Colors are less natural and bit on the cool side with evidence of purple fringing and a slightly grainier picture overall. And like most cameraphones, the THL will typically overexpose images and lose background details in the process. The phone should be held very still when taking pictures indoors due to lower ambient lighting and the built-in flash, of course, is insufficient in most cases. In this situation, pictures will have much more noise compared to outdoor shots.
It's worth noting that although the manufacturer specifies the rear camera as 5 MP and the front as 2 MP, the camera app itself allows for pictures up to a resolution of 4160 x 3120 (13 MP) for the rear and 2448 x 3264 (8 MP) for the front. Users can customize White balance, sharpness, contrast, saturation, hue, shutter sound, HDR, and ISO down to 100.
Video recording supports up to 1080p with files saved as .3gp. Unfortunately, there is far too much blurring for it to be practical in most cases as moving or panning the smartphone will produce unacceptable quality. Additionally, the video preview on the phone is far too slow with stutters and laggy processing that was common when taking pictures with older generation cameraphones. For shorter videos with little movement, however, the video mode should get the job done albeit barely satisfactorily.
Input Devices
Touchscreen
The 5-point capacitive touchscreen operates precisely and responsively including around corners and edges. Inputs are registered quickly enough to catch up to fast touch-typists without lag or delays. Thus, we had no issues navigating through menus or surfing the web on the THL. The onscreen keyboard can be a bit small in portrait mode and does not include Swype out-of-the-box.
The standard Options, Home, and Back buttons have dedicated keys below the display, which is definitely a good move in order to preserve as much of the low resolution display as possible for applications. While we're not fans of having the Back button be on the right side of the phone, this particular layout should feel familiar to most Samsung users.
Display
The THL 4000 utilizes a 4.7-inch display with a pixel resolution of 960 x 540 for a density of 234 PPI. This sub HD resolution is significantly less dense than 4.7-inch smartphones with more standard 720p displays and the differences are easy to see. Images and text are simply not as sharp as they would appear on a denser 720p or 1080p display. This becomes more apparent when browsing text-heavy webpages like our review pages or other sites that may not be optimized for mobile reading.
Despite the low resolution, display quality is subjectively good with no unintended blur or other issues. Brightness, however, is very good at over 400 nits on average. This is very bright and compares well against more well-known smartphones like the iPhone 6, HTC One M8, and Xperia Z3.
|
Brightness Distribution: 86 %
Center on Battery: 437.8 cd/m²
Contrast: 865:1 (Black: 0.506 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 8.74 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5
ΔE Greyscale 10.7 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
Gamma: 2.44
Color analyses with an X-Rite spectrophotometer reveal generally inaccurate colors. Teal is especially inaccurate much more so than other colors at all tested saturation levels. This leads to a poorer RGB Balance with a very skewed reproduction of Blue. Other colors like Red and Yellow perform well in comparison, especially at higher saturation levels. For most users, however, color accuracy should not be a determining factor for a smartphone.
Outdoor usability is very good due to the bright display. The THL 4000 can be used under sunlight at maximum backlight brightness, though text and images will have to be zoomed in for more comfortable viewing. As usual, glare should be avoided to maximize usability.
Viewing angles are very good as expected from an IPS display. Colors do not shift dramatically when viewing from obtuse angles to allow for both portrait and landscape orientations. Brightness will take a small dip if viewing from the corners and at shallower angles, though viewing from such an unusual orientation should have no affect on everyday use.
Performance
The quad-core MTK6582M SoC in the THL 4000 can also be found in a few other budget smartphones including the Vphone I6, LG L Bello, and the larger 5.5-inch Huawei Ascend G730. Raw performance is roughly on par with the older Tegra 3, which was Nvidia's premier mobile processor just a few years ago. If the THL is idling, three of the four cores will be disabled with the last remaining core operating at 600 MHz to preserve power. Otherwise, all four cores are fully capable of running at 1300 MHz simultaneously should the application demand it. The MediaTek SoC includes a Mali-400 GPU for mainstream 3D gaming as well. More specifications and benchmarks on the MTK6582M SoC can be found on out dedicated page here.
CPU benchmarks like LinPack and GeekBench place the MTK6582M right between the HTC Despire 510 and its entry-level Snapdragon 410 SoC and the LG L Fino and its Snapdragon 200 SoC. Thus, the THL 4000 is in the expected performance ballpark compared to its Qualcomm competitors. For reference, the HTC One M8 and its Snapdragon 801 SoC is at least two to three times the raw performance of the THL 4000 according to the same benchmarks.
Geekbench 3 | |
32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino | |
32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino |
Linpack Android / IOS | |
Multi Thread (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
Single Thread (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
Smartbench 2012 | |
Gaming Index (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
Productivity Index (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
AnTuTu v5 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 |
AndEBench | |
Java (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
Native (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
Quadrant Standard Edition 2.0 - --- (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 |
PassMark PerformanceTest Mobile V1 | |
3D Graphics Tests (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
2D Graphics Tests (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
Memory Tests (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
Disk Tests (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
CPU Tests (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
System (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
Vellamo 3.x | |
Metal (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Multicore Beta (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Browser (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 |
System Performance
Subjectively, system performance when navigating through applications and menus is fast and responsive and much better than what we were expecting from a budget smartphone from a Chinese manufacturer. We experienced no crashing or random reboots during our time with the THL 4000. Much of the stability and responsiveness can be attributed to the Android 4.4.2 default software. After just reviewing the Ecoo Focus and the Sharp Aquos Crystal, the THL 4000 performs much more fluidly than the former and is comparable to the latter. The lower resolution display of the THL may have a part in it running a bit more fluidly than the more demanding 1080p display of the Ecoo.
Our test 1080p .mov and .avi files play smoothly without playback issues, though audio from .avi files may not be compatible with the built-in video player. The built-in multitasking feature allows picture-in-picture playback while other apps are running. Videos running in this minimized mode appear smooth as well.
Sunspider | |
1.0 Total Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino | |
0.9.1 Total Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
WebXPRT 2013 | |
Offline Notes (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Stocks Dashboard (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Face Detection (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Photo Effects (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
Overall (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 |
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino |
Google V8 Ver. 7 - Google V8 Ver. 7 Score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
Peacekeeper - --- (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini |
Browsermark | |
2.1 (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
--- (sort by value) | |
HTC One M8 | |
LG G2 Mini |
PCMark for Android - Work performance score (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 |
* ... smaller is better
Storage Devices
8 GB of internal storage space is included and only about half (4.17 GB) is immediately available for the end-user. Fortunately, the microSD slot supports cards up to 32 GB for much needed additional storage. Results from AndroBench are impressive as sequential write speeds are close to that of the flagship HTC One M8. More high-end devices like the Xperia Z3 compact have notably higher read rates of 133 MB/s.
AndroBench 3-5 | |
Random Write 4KB (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino | |
Random Read 4KB (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino | |
Sequential Write 256KB (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino | |
Sequential Read 256KB (sort by value) | |
THL 4000 | |
HTC One M8 | |
HTC Desire 510 | |
No. 1 Vphone I6 | |
LG G2 Mini | |
LG L Fino |
Gaming Performance
As common as it may be on budget MediaTek SoCs, the ARM Mali-400 MP is ancient for a mobile GPU. Nonetheless, 3D titles will play smoothly and scale well to the low resolution of the display. The Epic Citadel benchmark scores a respectable 54 FPS on a 960 x 544 resolution, while 3DMark Ice Storm is able to bring the THL to its knees to single digit frame rates. More information and benchmarks on the Mali-400 MP can be found on our dedicated page here.
3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 3218 points | |
Help |
Emissions
Temperature
Surface temperatures are relatively cool under standard load conditions. Browsing for 10 minutes, for example, will increase surface temperatures around the back just barely. When under maximum load with Stability Test 2.7, we were able to record temperatures as high as 36 degrees C on the front of the unit near the earpiece. Fortunately, this region is not normally held by the user, especially when in portrait mode. The LG G2 Mini does come in a little cooler at maximum load, but users will never need to worry about temperature or stability issues regardless with the THL.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 36.6 °C / 98 F, compared to the average of 35 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 56 °C for the class Smartphone.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 35.6 °C / 96 F, compared to the average of 33.8 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 27.4 °C / 81 F, compared to the device average of 32.7 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
The mono speaker on the bottom rear of the smartphone is sufficiently loud and clear with no static or significant vibrations at higher volumes. In fact, it is actually quite balanced as far as smartphone speakers go. Users may unintentionally cover the speaker grilles when using the phone in landscape mode due to their positioning, but we'd be lying if we said we aren't satisfied with the overall sound quality.
Battery Life
Runtimes are very good with the THL 4000 and its removable 4000 mAh Li-ion battery pack. This battery is quite dense compared to the 2440 mAh pack on the LG G2 Mini and the 2600 mAh pack on the HTC One M8. The iPhone 6 has an even smaller pack at 1810 mAh.
Our maximum load test includes running Stability Test 2.7 continuously at maximum brightness until automatic shutdown. Under these conditions, the THL 4000 lasted for well over 7 hours. This means that owners will be able to use the smartphone for at least 7 hours under the most arduous of demands. For typical browsing at a more normal 150 nit brightness setting, however, expect this smartphone to last for about 15 hours before powering down. This is comparable to the LG G2 Mini and way ahead of more demanding flagship devices.
THL 4000 Mali-400 MP, MT6582M, 8 GB SSD | HTC One M8 Adreno 330, 801 MSM8974AB, 16 GB iNAND Flash | Apple iPhone 6 PowerVR GX6450, A8, 128 GB eMMC Flash | LG G2 Mini Adreno 305, 400 MSM8926, 8 GB SSD | LG L Fino Adreno 302, 200 MSM8212, 4 GB Flash | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Battery Runtime | -53% | -35% | 7% | -47% | |
Reader / Idle | 1260 | 863 -32% | 1369 9% | 1848 47% | 801 -36% |
WiFi | 941 | 453 -52% | 530 -44% | 1003 7% | 407 -57% |
Load | 428 | 102 -76% | 128 -70% | 284 -34% | 228 -47% |
Verdict
We jumped in with mild expectations and came back impressed with a handful of aspects. We love the tough plastic construction and dual SIM support, but the very bright backlight of the display is brighter than many mainstream smartphones. This unexpected characteristic deserves mention as it allows owners to use the THL under bright outdoor conditions without needing to squint heavily at the screen. Battery life is also fantastic and should meet the heaviest of daily demands.
Perhaps best of all, this phone simply works smoothly on all fronts without hidden issues. There are no hardware or software stability problems tucked away that users may be expecting from a Chinese brand smartphone. Given the aging MediaTek SoC, the THL 4000 performs quite well.
Downsides include its sub HD display and very thick build and bezel. Don't expect Gorilla Glass protection, precision colors, breathtaking pictures or videos, or other novelty features that more expensive smartphones enjoy. A 720p display would have rounded off the package quite well as HD resolutions are becoming the norm. Despite the obvious drawbacks, this is a solid phone that just works and can last for quite a while on a single charge. Certainly one of the better choices for those looking for a very inexpensive and unlocked $100 Android smartphone.