TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD Smartphone Review

For the original German review, see here.
The TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD is not only slim but also light. It runs on an entry-level SoC from Qualcomm and attracts the eye with its HD display and 8 MP camera. Furthermore, this is a Windows Phone 8.1 but Microsoft does not make it. The manufacturer cites a recommended retail price of 149 Euros (~$161). At Notebooksbilliger, you will receive a 32 GB MicroSD card with the purchase.
The competition includes the Honor Holly, the Motorola Moto E, the Sony Xperia M2, the Acer Liquid Z5 and the Lumia 630. The successor of the latter, the Lumia 640, has now been released and we looked at the camera quality in our review.
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Case
The case of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD is quite slim at 7.5 mm (~0.3 inches) and light at 97 grams (~3.4 oz). The synthetic material used for the back of the device looks and feels cheap.
The smartphone is quite sturdy despite being skinny, but pressure on the case leads to some distortions on the screen. The gaps in the case may not be small but they are even and the WinPhone looks good.
The back of the device is removable. The user will find a removable battery, a MicroSD card slot and both Micro SIM slots. The device has three available backs: black, red and yellow.
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Connectivity
The Micro USB 2.0 port is for charging the device and transferring data. It does not support video streaming or peripherals.
The MicroSD card reader supports cards up to 128 GB, which is quite generous for this price class. The good memory management of the Windows Phone OS allows installation of Apps directly on the external memory.
The details on the sensors are sparse. We believe the device has a position and a gyro sensor. Furthermore, a proximity and ambient light sensor are included.
Software
The OS for the smartphone is the Microsoft Windows Phone 8.1 (8.10.12400.899). The manufacturer has not made many special tweaks to the OS. The Action Center is an exception: instead of the usual four segments, we have five. There are no special apps preinstalled. The device comes with the Bing Apps for news, sports and heath. Unfortunately, despite all the latest updates, Cortana is not on-board as it is in the Alpha phase and is reserved for Lumia smartphones for now. Thankfully, the smartphone will receive the update to Windows 10.
Communication & GPS
The TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD supports HSPA for Internet connectivity. However, it is slower than LTE, which is not available for this device. The supported frequencies are limited as well. The manufacturer specifies the 2,100 MHz frequency for mobile data use, but the 900 MHz is probably also supported. Quad Band GSM ensures smooth calling quality.
The WLAN module supports the IEEE-802.11 b/g/n standards and uses the 2.4 GHz frequency. The range is average and Bluetooth 4.0 is included.
The GPS receiver is surprisingly accurate in a test App and outdoors, it was accurate up to 6 meters (almost 20 feet).
Telephone & Speech Quality
The speech quality of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD is decent. Our audio came across without distortions but it was a little quiet. The user has to speak close to the microphone to be clearly understood. Furthermore, the voice resonates slightly. On our end, the audio was easy to understand.
Cameras
The front camera of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD has a 2 MP resolution and offers a modest picture quality. The pictures are not clear and their colors are tinted red. In weak lighting, the pictures can easily turn out blurry.
The main camera on the back is an 8 MP module (3264x2448 pixels) with auto-focus and an LED flash. The pictures are not clear even in daylight and the colors look dark when the pictures are put on a big screen. Smaller pictures are decent but the colors are still too pale.
The weak lighting makes this effect worse and details can become muddy when zooming in. The Lumia 640 does a better job and although its pictures are quite dark and pale, they are detailed.
Videos can be recorded at 864x480 pixels.
Accessories & Warranty
The accessories for the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD include a modular power adapter (5 W, 5 V, 1 A), a data cable, two additional back covers, a protective display plastic flap, a short manual and a handout with some legal and security information on it.
The manufacturer offers a 24-month warranty on their product.
Input Devices & Interface
The capacitive touchscreen of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD reacts reliably to input and translates it quickly into action. However, now and then, the device requires an extra tap to recognize the desired action. The finger can slide easily over the screen, leaving no room for complaint.
The keyboard layout is the standard one for Windows Phone 8.1 and cannot be changed. Swyping gestures are understood and word suggestions are displayed at the top of the keyboard.
The sensor keys under the display are not clearly labeled which makes it hard for unfamiliar users to differentiate between the back and the search keys.
Display
The 4.7-inch IPS panel of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD has a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The resolution is very high, considering the pricing of the device and similarly high levels of resolution are offered by few other devices (Honor Holly). A display ratio of 16:9 and pixel density of 313 PPI round off the panel.
The brightness of the display reaches up to 443 cd/m², which is quite high. The illumination is balanced at 89%.
|
Brightness Distribution: 89 %
Center on Battery: 418 cd/m²
Contrast: 449:1 (Black: 0.93 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 6 | 0.55-29.43 Ø5.1
ΔE Greyscale 6.36 | 0.57-98 Ø5.4
Gamma: 2.46
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD Adreno 302, 200 MSM8212, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Honor Holly Mali-400 MP2, MT6582, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Nokia Lumia 630 Adreno 305, 400 MSM8226, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Sony Xperia M2 Adreno 305, 400 MSM8926, 8 GB SSD | Acer Liquid Z5 Mali-400 MP, MT6572, 4 GB Flash | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Screen | -0% | -1% | 32% | 6% | -25% | |
Brightness middle | 418 | 472 13% | 355 -15% | 217 -48% | 483 16% | 339 -19% |
Brightness | 420 | 455 8% | 350 -17% | 204 -51% | 467 11% | 307 -27% |
Brightness Distribution | 89 | 87 -2% | 91 2% | 55 -38% | 93 4% | 85 -4% |
Black Level * | 0.93 | 0.77 17% | 0.73 22% | 0.15 84% | 0.93 -0% | 0.62 33% |
Contrast | 449 | 613 37% | 486 8% | 1447 222% | 519 16% | 547 22% |
Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 6 | 8.23 -37% | 7.19 -20% | 4.12 31% | 5.74 4% | 10.95 -83% |
Greyscale dE 2000 * | 6.36 | 8.84 -39% | 5.63 11% | 4.87 23% | 6.83 -7% | 12.53 -97% |
Gamma | 2.46 89% | 2.12 104% | 1.97 112% | 2.38 92% | 2.2 100% | 2.29 96% |
CCT | 7974 82% | 6819 95% | 6293 103% | 6019 108% | 9470 69% | 15632 42% |
* ... smaller is better
Unfortunately, the black value of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD is quite high at 0.93 cd/m² and prevents the device from having a good contrast ratio.
We checked the colors with a photo spectrometer and CalMAN software. The gray levels are quite bad and prevent the device from offering a good picture. The color accuracy is decent for this price class and the slight blue tinge is recognizable on mainly white pictures, but is not disturbing.
Outdoors the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD is comfortable to use as long as it is not too sunny. In bright surroundings, the reflective surface and poor contrast lower legibility to an unrecognizable level.
The viewing angle stability of the IPS screen is very good. At flat viewing angles, the brightness drops slightly, but we notice a unflattering IPS glowing effect.
Performance
The TrekStor is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 MSM8212 and 1 GB of RAM. The typical SoC hardware means that the integrated graphics chip, the Adreno 302, is not the fastest on the market. The chipset employed in this model is often found in cheap devices. The performance suffices to run Windows Phone 8.1 fluidly for the most part, with the exception of the occasional stutter. If you start an App, you might encounter a pause while the phone starts up the necessary processes. The few benchmarks we could run confirmed our overall impression.
In terms of browser benchmarks, the test model is not great, which is due to the weak SoC. Windows Phones often perform lower in benchmarks than Android smartphones.
The 8 GB memory is quite generous, allowing for 5 GB free storage for users. If this does not suffice, there is the option of a MicroSD card.
Linpack Android / IOS | |
Single Thread (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Multi Thread (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua |
BaseMark OS II | |
Overall (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
System (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Memory (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Graphics (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Web (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 |
GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
1920x1080 T-Rex Offscreen (sort by value) | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
T-Rex Onscreen (sort by value) | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua |
Sunspider - 1.0 Total Score (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Nokia Lumia 630 |
Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Nokia Lumia 630 |
Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD | |
Honor Holly | |
Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 | |
Sony Xperia M2 Aqua | |
Nokia Lumia 630 | |
Nokia Lumia 630 |
* ... smaller is better
Games
Gaming is not optimal on the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD. The integrated Adreno 302 offers good performance for occasional gaming but demanding Apps will force stutters, especially considering the high resolution. It is not possible to run those games at maximum settings.
The sensors are not perfect, which means games like Asphalt 8 cannot be controlled smoothly.
Emissions
Temperature
When idle, the surface temperatures of the TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD are very low, reaching a maximum of 28.6 °C (83.48 °F). At constant load, the temperatures rise up to 36.4 °C (97.52 °F). The smartphone gets just lukewarm - a weak SoC has its advantages.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 36.4 °C / 98 F, compared to the average of 34.9 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 55.8 °C for the class Smartphone.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 36.3 °C / 97 F, compared to the average of 33.7 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 27.7 °C / 82 F, compared to the device average of 32.7 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
The mono speaker on the back of the device has poor sound quality. For the occasional video, the sound quality suffices, but we do not recommend watching long movies or trying to enjoy music on the smartphone. The sound is muffled even at low levels and suffers from distortions. The audio jack does a good job and can be used to enjoy media.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
The TrekStor WinPhone 4.7 HD has relatively high consumption while in standby and when idle. In contrast, at load, the device is quite conservative.
Off / Standby | ![]() ![]() |
Idle | ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Load |
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Battery Life
The battery of the WinPhone 4.7 HD has a capacity of 1,750 mAh. We were anxious to find out how the relatively high power consumption would affect the run times of the device.
In the WLAN test, the brightness is set to around 150 cd/m², which is a problem with our model as it only has three brightness levels. We needed to use the lowest setting (139 cd/m²) to get close to our test value. In our test, the power saver settings were turned on and all modules were turned off, except for WLAN. During the test, our script loads a new website every 30 seconds. The device runs about 5 hours, which is quite good, but if you intensively use the smartphone, the battery will not last an entire workday.
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD Adreno 302, 200 MSM8212, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Honor Holly Mali-400 MP2, MT6582, 16 GB eMMC Flash | Motorola Moto E 2. Gen 2015 Adreno 306, 410 MSM8916, 8 GB eMMC Flash | Sony Xperia M2 Adreno 305, 400 MSM8926, 8 GB SSD | Nokia Lumia 630 Adreno 305, 400 MSM8226, 8 GB eMMC Flash | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Battery Runtime | 63% | ||||
WiFi v1.3 | 311 | 506 63% | |||
WiFi | 363 | 686 | 874 |
Pros
Cons
Verdict
TrekStor offers its first Windows smartphone: the WinPhone 4.7 HD. This slim device boasts a bright display with a high resolution and decent cameras. Once you pick the device up, you will be surprised at how light it is.
The battery life can be improved and hopefully an update will alleviate this flaw. An update to Windows 10 has been announced. We found the limited supported frequencies of the smartphone to be disappointing but if you use the WinPhone as a messenger, you should be fine.
Cheap, ultra-light Windows smartphone with an HD display.
The poor speaker, while the norm for this price class, is annoying for users. Thankfully, it is loud. Overall, the TrekStor device offers a good package for its price and includes two additional back covers.
Trekstor WinPhone 4.7 HD
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04/12/2015 v4(old)
Daniel Schmidt