Hands-on with the THL T100S

During the THL Cyborg launch, we also got to play around with its smaller sibling, the THL T100S aka Monkey King II. Check out our first impression of this handset, as well as its benchmark test results, right after the break.

Design and Construction

Even at first glance, we already noticed a faint similarity between the THL T100 and CM Cosmos Z2 in terms of design. Both handsets have a minimalist look complemented by a matte black paintjob that’s predominantly seen on its removable back panel. Furthermore, these two handsets have almost the same dimensions, though the T100 has a slightly thicker waistline (8.4mm) than the Cosmos Z2 (7.5mm).

THL T100 philippines

But despite of these subtle similarities, distinguishing one from the other is fairly easy though because the Cosmos Z2 has this noticeable strip of plastic on its chin while the Monkey King II has a pair of thin strip of metal both on the top and bottom portions.

The power button and volume rocker occupies a small portion of the T100S’ sides. Meanwhile, the two ports (Micro-USB and Audio jack) are situated at the top neighboring the front-mounted camera, the handset’s sensors and its earpiece.

THL T100S philippines

The back panel is home for the 13MP rear camera and its accompanying flash which is located at the top-left corner of the device. There’s a tiny speaker grill which sits below the company’s “Technology Happy Life” branding.

The three card slots (1x Mini-SIM, 1x Micro-SIM and 1x Micro-SD) and battery pack can be accessed by removing the back cover. Prying it open though can be a little challenging at first as the back cover doesn’t seem to want budge, but it gets easier once you get the hang of it.

Benchmark

And while we’re at it, we’ve also ran our usual benchmark test to get an idea of what this handset has to offer as far as performance is concerned. Here are the scores we got:

AnTuTu: 25,716
Quadrant Standard: 11,374
NenaMark 2: 59.7fps
Vellamo: 1958 (HTML5) / 624 (Metal)

Considering that all of these tests were run only once, the results listed above were actually pretty respectable. We’ll run each of these tests again to see if we’ll get higher score from it and we’ll post the results on our full review which should be up in a week or two.

THL T100S specs:
5-inch fHD IPS OGS display @ 1920×1080 pixels, 440ppi
Gorilla Glass 3
1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 octa-core processor
2GB RAM
Mali 450MP GPU
Expandable 32GB internal storage
up to 64GB via microSD
3G/HSPA+
Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby, Dual-3G
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
FM Radio Tuner
GPS w/ A-GPS
USB On-The-Go support
13MP BSI rear camera, LED flash
1080p video recording @ 30fps
13MP front-facing camera
Li-Ion 2,700mAh battery
Android 4.2.2 Jellybean
144.3 x 70.4 x 8.4mm
145g

After our brief encounter with the THL T100S, we can see why a lot of people have been raving about this handset ever since it made its local debut. We can probably sweep its generic design under the rug considering that it has bigger internal storage (32GB vs 16GB) and beefier battery (2700mAh vs 2000mAh) compared to the Cosmos Z2 all for an addition Php500 (Cosmos Z2 = Php12,999 vs T100 = Php13,499).

But before we can definitively say that one is better than the other, we have to take a closer look at the THL Monkey King II and we’ll share our thoughts about the handset on our full review.

Ronnie Bulaong

This article was written by Ronnie Bulaong, a special features contributor and correspondent for YugaTech. Follow him on Twitter @turonbulaong.

https://www.yugatech.com

7 Comments

Haji says:

8 years ago

Saan makakabili ng THL T100s battery?? plss reply to my post
- Reply
Sandro says:

11 years ago

Nice and good review. Hope to read some and more good and honest reviews.
- Reply
abuzalzal says:

11 years ago

Specs are quite good sa presyo, pero nganga ka sa KitKat update dito…..Soooooo sa halagang Php13,499…you’d be better off with a phone from a company na nag u-update talaga
- Reply

archie says:

11 years ago

Oks lang naman kahit wala silang kitkat update, honest naman sila at inamin din naman ng sales nila sa SM Fairview yun noong nagtanong ako. Meron namang cyanogenmod hehe

Easy E says:

11 years ago

naexperience ko na ito sa showroom sa Gateway Mall (Novo7 near sony). May nakainstall na Antutu Benckmark lahat ng THL phones dun. Hands down na mas maganda ito sa CM. After-sales service nalang ang tanong.
- Reply

ifive user says:

11 years ago

as for aftersales i got an ifive mini 3 from them and sadly the charging port of mine gave out for some reason and has to be rma-ed and i would say they’ve got the bestest aftersales after getting my tab back in 9 days from service center. i mean i was kind of expecting it to be months tbh. they even answered my text msgs politely. that put me into ease and i’ve heard others of the same feedback regarding their service.