THL W3
THL are one of those brands which make fantastic phones but manage to keep flying under our radar. The W3 is on sale now for around $250 and features all the great features of the other dual-core MT6577 phones featured here.
The 1280 x 720 CPU is a 4.5 inch unit, plus there is 1GB RAM on board along with 4GB ROM and space for a micro SD card.
Gizchina News of the week
THL have given the THL W3 a rear 8 mega-pixel camera while the front is a 2 mega-pixel unit, with a 2000mAh battery sitting in the back keeping the phone running.
Conclusion
As you can see there are plenty of low-cost phones with dual-core CPU, 1GB RAM and high-resolution 1280 x 720 displays on the market but not all phones here are suitable for everyone.
The phones which really stand out to me are the Pulid F13 thanks to it’s 12 mega-pixel rear camera, good-looking design and low price, however the battery should be larger.
Then the UMi X1 for being the thinnest and 2nd lowest priced phone in it’s league.
And of course the JiaYu G3 for being such a pain of a phone, yet everyone (including myself) still secretly wants!
Are there any other phones you would like to see written about or listed? Let us know in the comments below.
Andi, you have certainly outdone yourself, with this excellent informative piece. Everyday I make a point to always drop by your site. I have been window shopping for china phones every single day and growing frustrated on which to buy, of course the obvious winner should be the oppo find5, but due to my control freak of a wallet it won’t allow me to(not enough money really for the hefty price of hte oppo, sigh). With this piece you clearly have lightenn the guessing on which to buy. I seriously need get a new phone soon going to a meeting with an overly jurassic phone is embaressing (you need to luck good all the way to your gadgets to impress your client amd ultimately sell your product). Also i noticed sommething on the list with the umi x1 an jiayu g3 the two original beautiful desiggn this both company are having trouble supplying for their custom. Cheers!
Would like to edit, 1: embaressing>embarrassing 2: luck>look, 3: sommething>something.
Andi pls. put a edit or delete comment for us your fans, thanx. ciao
Yes we need “edit feature” here.
You forgot: desiggn>design 😛
Or a simple Spell-Check functionality 😉 ?
Spell check? What’s that? 😉
Andi, could you add the approximate or supposed dates these unreleased phones are coming out? A regular calendar for these things would be an amazing feature on this site!
Won’t hold out as these companies involved here never keep to said release dates and shipping dates. Probably the only best thing Andi could do is give rumor dates which are also not good enough.
hi andi, is jiayu G3 available on chinesse market? or is it just for pre-order buyer?? I’m tired and confusing to wait jiayu G3..
Too bad most of them are S3 clones. If they had their own design i would have purchased them
My thoughts exactly. The s3 clones are way too much.
It is also interesting to note that the Zopo ZP300+ is a clone of the LG Optimus LTE LU6200 as well.
Yeah Nikolai just said whats on my mind. Why do they have to copy other phone with such specs all they need is an original design which shouldnt be that hard all all phones just rectangles with some differences
Hi Andi, I recently came across the Star B92M, and for what I recall it had similar specifications. Do you know anything about it?
Thanx, Andy, for Top7. It’s very pointedly that 3 of 7 presented phones are Samsung clones. Top phone wars are trendy and for clones. In my painful waiting of Jiayu G3 your reviews are music for my ears 🙂
Hey Andi,
I think you forgot the Amoi N820. You had your hands on one of these, what do you think about it?
Regards.
Don’t think he has forgotten that one, the Amoi N820 doesn’t have the 720p resolution. It only has a 960*540 screen.
If you don’t limit the selection to only 720p phones you could have some other interesting phones such as JiaYu G2 Plus, Newman N1 or Amoi N820. Those prices are a lot better and the phones are currently available.
Jiayu G2 is spot on from those 3. For the price and specs it’s a no brainer. I read many users complaining they can’t charge the newman n1 with other cables except the ones the phone came with.
Don’t know much about the Amoi but it looks very good on paper and the 2 youtube videos google pulled for me.
This is the reason
Display reulotion: 960*540 pixel
Am I the only one who wants a phone with these specs but a smaller screen, 4″ or 4.3″ max ? and a nice big battery
Still waiting for my JY-G3 it looks good, and the screen will not break like my current phone, I will only wait another 2 weeks before giving up then I will cancel and try one of the alternatives.
Thanks for all the good info
Waiting from july for Jiayu g3.. but it disapponted me a lot.. now looking out for another good alternative for 200 usd
You neglected to add the Star B92M or just B92M. Similar specs as far as I know. And I am waiting to receive it after a fiasco with the ulefone v1277
Should be good if you also post links where you can buy or pre-order this phones
Hi Andi,
There I was thinking it was Christmas.
All those big 1280×720 screens and NOT A SINGLE 6 INCH SCREEN BETWEEN THEM.
Could I persuade you to repeat this article – but only dealing with the 6 inch market … PLEASE ?
That would certainly save me dozens of emails and hours daily looking for my IDEAL 6 INCH TABLET !!
The 6 INCH models do exist – but they seem only to deliver low resolution screens.
Can you – or my co-readers – keep an eye open for the elusive 6 INCH SCREENS – HIGH RES SCREENS – PLEASE !?
Hey, am I the only one who is a little worried about buying a MTK6577 phone with a 1080×720 display.
Mediathek says the CPU would support displays of up to 960×540.
Are those phones not too laggy, especially when gaming?
The Umi X1 for example has a Nenamark2 score of 15.5 fps.
What´s your take on this?
btw where would you buy/preorder the Umi X1. I am in China for a few months. (Taobao or something different)
hi I have heard the exactly same thing mtk6577 can’t support hd screen if you look in u tube you will find the phones with screen problem, jiayu g3, thl w3+
now I’m thinking if the screen is not too bad on zopo zp900 then I will go for,plz can someone confirm this?
http://mtksj.com/html/MTKshoujizixun/1551.html
nick ,thanks for reply but i didnt get it!!
well that was obviously not the best link about it,but
here:
http://www.mediatek.com/en/Products/product_content.php?sn=1074
says that mtk6577 supports up to 1280×720 I dont know if they would lie about their products though
Thanks, as always. Good read!
Another one that always gets ignored is the Alcatel OT-986. Very similar to the above, but using the Ti processor, same as the Nexus.
I think my very first mobile phone was an Alcatel! Wonder if it’s the same company?
Hi Andy
What would be Jiayu G3 alternative with a metallic body. I don’t like how the plastic phones feel in hand and most of the phone in the list have plastic body. Can you suggest some good phones with similar specs but metallic body.
Hi, I’ll buy a mobile phone this year. Which brand provides a good update service?
Just sold off my old LG Optimus One and ordered a ThL W3+ yesterday, expect it to be here by Thursday. Pretty excited to review it, if it is good I might well sell it off in a fortnight and order another MT6577 or maybe a Tegra 3 if it gets launched.
can you tell me which store you used.
i found only fastcardtech.com but …i don’t know
I’d suggest you stay clear of fastcardtech. I ordered mine from AliExpress.com, supplier name: candy gao. If you wouldn’t mind waiting till around Thursday, I’ll let you know how my purchase went.
Btw, this is the second time I’m buying from AliExpress, it feels very safe to buy from there because they release your money to the seller only after you’re satisfied with the goods you receive. Apologies if you already knew =)
thanks, I’ll wait till Thursday. have fun with your phone;))
Thank you, sir.
what about cellular and wireless connectivity.
do these phones use DC-HSDPA, HSPA, HSPA+
or LTE(i don’t think so;))
i have noticed you mention UMi X1 for $150 but when i search it on aliExpress couldnt find it below $230 to $280.
Bro TripleThreeNine waiting for your review on ThL W3, i am in market for over a month to buy a best phone as cheap as possible.
The UMi is yet to be released, in my knowledge. But it does look like a promising contender, keeping in mind the sleek looks. Sorry for the stereotype, but it doesn’t look Chinese! I had my eyes on that one too. But the small battery is a shame.
thanks for saying that, I just got the tracking number, hope to get the phone soon.
Cheers
i think UMi is released, its in stock on most of the sites
Yeah just checked uredeal.com and they have it in stock. Got it wrong in the previous post.
Found this on XDA Developer site “http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1684049”
hardlive: I am using THL w3+ (6577 version) , very regretted to bought this phone, 2 major problems:
1. It got very hot(not warm!) from the bottom of the phone after few mins of use, especially browsing desktop version of websites.
2. The dualcore cpu and gpu doesn’t take up well with a 1280×720 display resolution, most of the time it appears LAG if compare with a 6575 device@800×480 using the same app/game.
Very disappointed and I really would prefer to go back to my earlier 6575 + 800×480 device.
above is not my comment,
Yeah I’d read that too.. got a bit disappointed. But that was before I placed the order, so no regrets. And by far that was the only negative comment I’d read, so I think it’s okay..
there’s a nice review on the ThL here: randomness0110.blogspot.com/2012/08/thl-w3-and-mtk6577-review.html
I’m looking at JiaYu 3G with the same 6577 processor so do you think it is safe to say that I’ll have the same problem.
http://www.antelife.com/free-shipping-pre-sale-jiayu-g3-mtk6577-android-4-0-3g-dual-core-4-5-qhd-capacitive-touch-screen-white-1.html
also has anybody used antelife.com
Same processor, same screen res so I’d say it’d have same or similar problems.. My two cents.
And I’ve heard quite a lot of praise for antelife.com, although never bought from them myself. =)
I bought from Antelife as well. Could be waiting a while.