ThL W200C packs an absurdly large battery

Chances are you came here because of the battery, the price, or both. If not, here's the lowdown: ThL W200C packs an absurdly large 5,000mAh battery and retails for only $149 unlocked. That's a potent combo for anyone looking for an affordable starter smartphone, or even a spare phone for emergencies and travel. Of course, all that comes with some compromises—namely, the lack of speedy 4G LTE connectivity and uninspiring overall performance. Still, with top-notch battery life and a surprisingly high-quality LCD, ThL W200C is a great unlocked option for entry-level Android smartphones.

Design, Features, and Network Performance
If you're looking for a beautifully crafted, svelte phone, you've come to the wrong place. The thl  is a utilitarian slab of drab gray plastic. At 5.69 by 2.82 by 0.41 inches (HWD) and 6.35 ounces, the phone is rather chunky and dense, but all that bulk is in service of the outsized battery.

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Along with battery capacity, another area Blu didn't skimp on is display quality. The Studio Energy's 5-inch, 720p LCD is sharp, bright, and benefits from the wide viewing angle of IPS technology. Color reproduction and contrast also are strong here, making for a great overall viewing experience. It matches up well with the display on the Motorola Moto G. A rear-mounted speaker gets impressively loud, but ultimately sounds pretty brittle and lacks low end oomph.

The Studio Energy is unlocked and supports GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and HSDPA (850/1900/2100MHz) networks. There's no 4G LTE and it's missing the 1700MHz band that T-Mobile uses for its faster HSPA+ 42 network. It worked with both AT&T and T-Mobile SIM cards in my tests, but mobile speeds were thoroughly 3G, with downloads rarely cracking 5Mbps and uploads between 1-3Mbps. Call quality was also simply average, producing harsh tones in the earpiece and some pops and hissing on transmissions through the mic. Noise cancellation wasn't very good, letting through a large swath of noise both indoors and out.

Rounding out the connectivity options are single-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. There's no 5GHz Wi-Fi compatibility, which is a bummer if you live in an area with congested airwaves.

Performance and Android
Nearly every entry-level and midrange Android smartphone is sporting a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip, so it's almost refreshing to see a MediaTek design here. Unfortunately, that's about where the excitement ends—the quad-core, 1.3GHz MT6582 processor and 1GB RAM just don't seem to cut it compared with Qualcomm-powered devices. And with a pretty minimal skin running over Android 4.4, it's hard to fault the software side of things. I noticed persistent stuttering and jittery animations, even for basic home screen navigation. There was a noticeable pause between pressing an app icon and when it would launch. This proved especially annoying every time I accidentally launched into Google Now from the lock screen, causing the phone to hang for far too long before I could exit to the default home screen.

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As mentioned above, Blu doesn't coat the software with a ton of customizations, but there are a few curveballs if you're used to stock Android. The menu system has been completely changed, splitting options into Quick Settings and All Settings tabs. The notification shade is also divided into two tabs, one for notifications and one with access to toggles for features like Wi-Fi. The Studio Energy also uses dated capacitive buttons for Menu, Home, and Back, assigning the Recent Apps function to a double-tap on the Home button. Some useful gestures are built into the software, like double-tap to wake, but are not enabled by default.

Internal memory is divided into two partitions, one 5GB "system" partition and one 2.43GB "phone storage" partition. There's a microSD card slot under the back cover, which accepts cards up to 64GB.

The ThL L969 4G LTE phone feature here is the 5,000mAh battery, which is built-in and non-removable. In a rundown test, where we streamed a YouTube video with screen brightness set to max, the Studio Energy lasted 8 hours, 48 minutes. That's the best result we've seen in a smartphone. The Oppo N3 packs a much smaller 3,000mAh battery, a larger 1080p LCD, and LTE connectivity and managed 6 hours, 51 minutes in the same test. So while the Studio Energy is our new endurance champ, it doesn't appear to be making the most efficient use of the extra capacity.

Blu also includes a reverse charging feature, something we first saw on the Huawei Ascend Mate2 4G. In my tests, the Studio Energy was able to charge a Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact's 4,000mAh battery about 15 percent in one hour, while losing 20 percent of its own charge.

Camera and Conclusions
The 8-megapixel, rear-facing camera is passable for this price range, but quality suffers greatly in anything but bright, outdoor lighting conditions. Under typical indoor lighting, shutter speeds get painfully slow, leading to far too many unusably soft or blurry shots. Image noise wipes away fine details and leaves an unpleasant graininess over remaining details. Dynamic range is almost non-existent, and even in well-lit outdoor shots I routinely saw blown out highlights and muddled shadow details. Video resolution tops out at 1080p and 24 frames per second. It looks fine for candid moments, but it's not something you want to rely on for capturing precious memories.

Battery life, display quality, and performance are what I'd consider the three essential pieces to the smartphone experience. Blu nails down battery life and display quality, but holds the Studio Energy back with a low-end, off-the-shelf processor. The good news is that performance is still totally bearable, though just not as buttery smooth as we've come to expect from entry-level models using Qualcomm's affordable chips. And for just $149 unlocked, direct from a reputable retail channel like Amazon, the Studio Energy stands as a strong choice for affordable, unlocked Android smartphones. A good alternative is Motorola's new $150 Moto E, which now sports LTE connectivity and double the memory. We're still in the process of testing it, but based on Motorola's recent track record, we expect it to deliver solid bang for the buck. If you can stretch your budget and like larger handsets, the Huawei Ascend Mate2 4G is a nice $250 cheapest mobile shopping site with especially strong battery life.