THL T11 Review

[moley10]

I'm typing this response with a keyboard connected via the otg port. Will check with a usb stick and update soon.

USB stick works good too.

What device are you using?

Sent from my thl T11 using Tapatalk

thanks, i havent tried keyboard yet.. however i just got a USB and mouse to work, but they only seem to work when wifi is on? is this a requirement? surely should work without.

[900supersport]

I'll try that and get back to you.

Sent from my U65GT using Tapatalk

[900supersport]

No problems with wifi off either.

Sent from my thl T11 using Tapatalk

[moley10]

No problems with wifi off either.

Sent from my thl T11 using Tapatalk

oh right,

are you rooted, running stock rom etc?

just wondering as i have flash a rom from needrom.

[900supersport]

I'm on a rooted stock rom with notification fix.

I'll be starting to rework ROMs soon.

Sent from my U65GT using Tapatalk

[moley10]

I'm on a rooted stock rom with notification fix.

I'll be starting to rework ROMs soon.

Sent from my U65GT using Tapatalk

excellent, i look forward to that! my knowledge of roms unfortunately only goes as far as following the instructions to flash them...

i was running the T11 CM rom when i first tried OTG and didnt work at all, then i now have flashed the THL T11 Fix DEODEX which is working with wifi, I presume you arent running either of those?

i also tried to use a xbox 360 wired controller, green light flashes but doesnt seem to work.

[900supersport]

No, I'm basically running the ROM that came with it. I rooted it, added cwm recovery and then the notification fix. To be honest I'm pretty impressed with it, the issues I have are minor when you look at the cost of the phone.

Sent from my U65GT using Tapatalk

[moley10]

yeah i agree, i only flashed the rom due to wanting the notification fixed and didnt think it was possible without a custom rom. ?

i tried to fix notification with the app flow light but didnt work.

i also just tried to restore my cwm backup of my stock rom, wont let me.. md5 mismatch! so i tried to flash stock rom with sp tools, pc wont let me install drivers.. just keeps connecting and disconnecting the phone!! argggggghhhhhh

[sti.que.c.pas.facile]

Hi all. I got this phone 2 days ago.
Works fine except for earphone jack to car auxiliary socket ( male - male 3.5mm cable). It plays for 2 or 3 sec then the earphones icon disapear.

I tried my iPod and my girlfriend old THL W3+ and its 100% working. My step father as another THL T11 and its doing the exact same problem. I've read on XDA DEVELOPER forum another guy complaining about the same situation and third one on needrom.com so I think its more a software(or kernel) or hardware bug . I'm not an audio specialist but earphones have an intern resistance and these kind of cable have not.
That's the only difference.

To push a little further, i took a pair of old earphone, i pluged it and music played, then i cutted the wires that goes to the earphones so only the male 3.5mm connector would remains with 1 feet of wire. The earphone icon on notification bar disappeared after less than 5 sec. So definitively its the phone who expect to "see" an earphone/speaker ( resistance? Or closed circuit? ) rather than an "open wire" that could be plug into any auxiliary jack.


Is there something to look up here with software management or is it hardware related, I don't know. I'd like to here from someone who's a (ROM / electronic / audio) specialist.

[900supersport]

I'm no specialist but you could try an adapter to allow two sets of earphones and plug both the earphones and the car to the phone.

Sent from my thl T11 using Tapatalk

[sti.que.c.pas.facile]

Never though of that...... Gonna try this week end and post result.

Thanks for the idea

[Amy chou]

Unboxing
The T11 comes in a sturdy cardboard box. Included with it are

• Euro power supply
• USB cable
• Headphones
• Screen protector
• A 'sleeve' that covers the rear and sides
• Some NFC labels
• Colour getting started booklet in english
• Also included are a UK adapter for the charger, and a cheap plastic wrap around case. Surprisingly I expect these to be really useful to me.

First impressions
The first thing I noticed on picking up the T11 is how light it is compared to my Motorola RAZR I. After removing the film from the screen you're greeted with a glossy black front. The front camera is visible to the left of the top bezel with a slot for the speaker centred in the top bezel. The screen itself takes up most of the front of the phone, the top and bottom bezels being about 1 and 1.5 centimetres deep, left and right bezels are just a few millimetres wide.

On the right edge is the power button and a rocker button on the left. These are textured and give a good response. Somehow, not certain why, they do feel a little cheap.



On the bottom of the phone is a small hole, presumably a microphone and a narrow slot to facilitate removal of the back cover.

The back cover is a dark charcoal grey textured plastic. This is both attractive and provides good grip. Rear camera and flash are to the top left, and some slots near the lower left for speaker. All the phones branding, thl logo and slogan 'Technology . Happy . Life', is on the back cover. This is subdued and does not detract from the phone.

So far so good I like what I have seen.

Setting up
The rear cover is easily removed starting from the slot on the bottom edge and working carefully around from this. Visible on the inside of the back cover are two pairs of contacts and a couple of what appear to be areas of black tape, these are presumably the aerials. The battery takes up just over half the space. After removing the battery SIMs and micro SD card can be inserted. From left to right are a full size SIM slot, micro SD and micro sim slot, I loaded up all of these.



The battery has some film across the contacts that needs removing. Not as obvious is the film over the rear camera. I found it after my first disappointing picture.

Replacing the rear cover is easy, just gently work around the edge doing up the clips.

Pressing the power button for a few seconds soon had the THL logo displaying followed by the boot animation and sound and shortly after android 4.2.2. First impressions of the screen during set-up are very positive.

Nothing out of the ordinary in terms of set-up of android. At the top of settings is a SIM management option allowing easy control as to which SIM to use for voice, video, messaging and data. All very familiar and easy to access and configure. Again the screen continues to impress.

On the lower bezel are three capacitative buttons, these light up when any of them are pressed. Their icons/functions are menu, home and back. A long press of home brings up the standard android task switcher. These buttons are either lit or totally invisible so their functions needs to be remembered. Swapping between devices does cause a little confusion.

Headline features
I was attracted to this phone due to the processor, memory, screen and price.

The processor is a MediaTek MT6592 octa core processor running at 1.7 GHz and combining a Mali 450 MP4 GPU running at 700MHz. If your apps are compiled to take advantage of all the cores (chrome and antutu being two exceptions) you should see excellent performance. The Mali 450 is a reasonable GPU.

The T11 has 2GB DDR and 16 GB ROM further expandable by supporting SD cards up to 32 GB. This should meet all my needs. The 16 GB is split 6GB for for apps with the remainder for pictures downloads etc. This seems a good balance to me. it's also easy to choose the default storage location from system, storage.

The screen is 1280 x 720 5 inch IPS display. It's bright sharp, viewable from wide angle and a very impressive piece of kit.

Price, retail is about $230 with shipping, you can pay more for faster shipping. I brought mine from 1949deal.com and am happy with the experience. Order was placed 29 April, including paying for three day DHL shipping, just before a public holiday in China. I received the T11 on 12 May.

Specifications

Model	THL T11
Band	2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz 3G: WCDMA 850/1900/2100MHz
Sim Card	Dual SIM Card Dual Standby
Service Provide	Unlocked
Style	Bar
Color	Black
Shell Material	Plastic
System
OS	Android 4.2
nt-size: small;">CPU	MTK6592, Cortex A7 octa core, 1.7GHz; GPU: Mali-450 MP4
ROM	16GB
RAM	2GB
Screen
Display Size	5.0 Inch
Type	HD IPS Capacitive Multi-touch Screen, Corning Gorilla Glass, OGS
Resolution	1280 x 720 pixels
Support Format
Ringtones Type	Polyphonic/MP3
Audio File Format	MP3/WAV/AMR/AWB
Video File Format	3GP/MPEG4
Image File Format	JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/GIF
E-book Format	TXT/CHM/DOC/HTML
FM Radio	Yes, earphone needed
EarphonePort	3.5mm
Card Extend	Support 32G tf card extend
Data Transfer & Connectivity
Data transfer	USB/Bluetooth
Mobile internet	WAP/WIFI
General
Camera/Picture Resolution	Dual Cameras, 5.0MP front camera; 8.0MP back camera with flashlight and auto focus
Language	English, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Deutsch, Espanol, French， Italiano, Nederlands, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Greek, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Thai, Simplified/Traditional Chinese
Phonebook	500
Message	SMS/MMS
Input	Handwrite/Keypad
TV	No
GPS	Yes, built in, also support A-GPS With EPO assistance to speed up postioning
JAVA	No
WIFI	Yes, 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth	Yes
Gravity Sensor	Yes
Multi-Touch	Yes
Dimensions	144.3 x 70.4 x 8.4mm
Net Weight(Including battery)	145g
Standby Time	About 2~3 days
Other Feature	3G, MP3,MP4,calculator,ES file management, stopwatch,calender,alarm clock, Google play,E-mail, G-mail, OTG, NFC,etc.
Package
Size	158 x 85 x 77mm
Weight	about 400g
Accessories	1 x 2750mAh Battery
1 x User Manual
1 x USB Cable
1 x Charger
1 x 3.5mm Earphone 1 x Screen Protector 1 x Back Case Cover

Screen
To me the five inch 1280 by 720 pixel multi touch IPS screen is the single most impressive thing about this phone.

Prior to the T11 I've used android phones when I am out and about but always reached for either my laptop or a tablet when I'm at home. Now I tend to just use the T11 unless I really need a keyboard, windows or Linux. Since the T11 was delivered I've only used my Nexus 7 2013 while I've had the T11 connected to the laptop (rooting, backup,flashing cwm etc). This is largely as I find the screen so easy on the eye. If I'm not careful I catch my self activating the T11 so I can gaze at the unlock screen.

Sound
The two speakers produce plenty of volume. There's no need to have the volume on full. Playing music or watching films on Netflix can show some distortion of sound if the volume is too high. I've also tested the included inner ear headphones both for listing to radio through the FM tuner and music via play music. Overall I'm pleased with the capabilities.

Cameras
The T11 has a 5 mega pixel front facing camera and an 8 mega pixel rear facing camera. I'm no photographer but am happy enough with the quality of the images taken.




GPS
Reading around about THL and MediaTek phones I was expecting the GPS to be poor. Having tried it a few times it's as good as any other phone I've used. I'm quite happy to use google navigate for directions while driving.

Compass
The compass I'm not to certain of, I'll try going through the calibration process on super compass and report back.

Battery
The battery is labled 2750 mAh, the THL is getting at least as much usage as my previous phones and has better battery life.

Firmware
My phone came with Android 4.2.2 few dated 26 mar 14. Other than Chinese keyboard the firmware seems to be pretty much pure android which I view as a good thing. In use Facebook gives regular FCs, I've also had a couple of other lock ups. I see on needrom.com that there was another Firmware from 1 April, I'll be flashing this and see if it improves things at all.

The t11 supports unlock by gestures, swipe up, shake, or double tap to unlock. Swipe down to unlock to camera.

Issues
I've already mentioned that Facebook force closes, though the experience of using Facebook through chrome is good, and a few lock ups. Also in the minus column if the fact that there are no LED notifications, apparently using lite flow will give some notification via LED.

Conclusion
The T11 has been a delight to own and use for the past week, it's pretty much my go to device easily replacing my Motorola RAZR I and demoting my Nexus 7 2013 to second device. The T11 is certainly not perfect but it does feel like a nice piece of kit. Other the minor issues already mentioned my only concerns are lack of manufacturer support, I'd at least expect to be able to find a website for THL with downloadable firmware.

If the hardware holds up for a year or more I'd say this phone is a great buy.

As mentioned above I ordered from http://1949deal.com, I'd like to thank them for allowing me to use some images from their site.

Any questions ask away and I'll see what I can do.

Brian

Yeah, I have used that phone for a quite while. when I see it for the first time, it looks like a phone called xiaomi from its appearance. In fact, it isn't. although it is a little heavy for me, its components are working very well. and the photo are pretty sharping. it is a good chice indeed.

[VaskisCZ]

I'm on a rooted stock rom with notification fix.

I'll be starting to rework ROMs soon.

Sent from my U65GT using Tapatalk

I'm looking forward to your ROM quite a lot since I'm using your ROM on my Cube U30GT and I absolutely love it . My own T11 is currently on its way, so I should have it as soon as next week.

I've read a couple of people saying their T11 screen glass was not sitting very well in the frame and they noticed concaving a bit creating a "bump" in the center bottom part of the screen. Anyone have the same experience?

Has anyone tried putting 64GB SD card in the phone?

[900supersport]

I'm really happy with mine. I have a 32 gig SD card. No problems with the screen.

I should have a spare phone soon so once I have completed a ROM for my cube talk 9x u65gt I'll take a look at the t11 ROM.

Sent from my thl T11 using Tapatalk

[moley10]

I'm looking forward to your ROM quite a lot since I'm using your ROM on my Cube U30GT and I absolutely love it . My own T11 is currently on its way, so I should have it as soon as next week.

I've read a couple of people saying their T11 screen glass was not sitting very well in the frame and they noticed concaving a bit creating a "bump" in the center bottom part of the screen. Anyone have the same experience?

Has anyone tried putting 64GB SD card in the phone?

im using a 32gd card also, and no problems with the screen! i dropped it the other day from a decent height and on concrete! i almost cried before checking it, it was all ok!! result! A cover was then placed on it later that night ha

On a different note, looking forward to you working on a rom, but im moving to usa in like 3 weeks for a few months and was going to buy a chromebook to tie me over because i dont have a laptop.. anyone know if chromebook can be used well with android? flashing custom roms etc?