Vernee has made quite a few budget phones over the time and the Thor Plus is one of the latest models that has an enormous 6200mAh battery and all-metal design for about $130. Learn more in the full Vernee Thor Plus Review.
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VIDEO REVIEW
UNBOXING
The phone ships with all the usual stuff including a fast charger.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
The Vernee Thor Plus does not look fancy or anything, especially if we compare it with some budget full-screen phoenes. It sports a classic design with the bezels on each side. However, its main selling point is a huge 6200mAh battery that is crammed in an all-metal profile that is surprisingly thin measuring at just 7.9mm at its thinnest point.
Also, I just love the 5.5” AMOLED display. Even though it’s only 720p, it’s sharp and vibrant and it looks much better than the majority cheap 1080p panels.
As for the camera, we have a 13MP shooter.
Now a few features in a nutshell: a fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate, and it doubles as a home button. You can also choose between on screen and physical capacitive keys. There is also an 8MP selfie camera, LED notification light and a dedicated button that triggers an ultra-power saving mode that allows you to use the phone for days.
Finally, the loudspeaker quality is kind of mediocre, like on most of the budget phones. Also, it’s placed on the right side, so you will easily cover it up if you hold the phone in the landscape mode.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The Vernee Thor Plus has pretty much standard budget phone specs that include octa-core MTK6753, 3GB of RAM and 32GBGB of expandable storage.
The chipset is mediocre but it’s all about optimization. On most of the budget phones, games like Asphalt 8 stutter or lag on the highest graphics, but the Vernee Thor Plus performs surprisingly well. Also, other 3D games I tested run just fine.
BENCHMARKS
USER INTERFACE
I usually love Vernee phones because they run on almost stock Android. The Thor Plus is no exception. The Android 7.0 based UI runs fast and fluid, there are no hiccups whatsoever. Besides all the usual stuff, there are some gesture and motion controls that work quite well.
CAMERAS
Image quality is kind of mediocre like on most of the budget phones. Although I took all the pictures on a cloudy day, I still expected pictures to be sharper and have more detail. On the other hand, it’s possible to take some good looking images for social media needs with both main and front-facing cameras.
1080p video looks quite ok for a budget phone but don’t expect any stellar results.
The selfie camera can shoot videos only in 480p resolution and the quality is quite bad.
Download full resolution camera samples
CONNECTIVITY
I found the call quality to be kind of mediocre. Also, sometimes it may take some time to get the GPS position but the navigation works quite well.
Also, the phone has only a few sensors and there is no gyroscope, meaning that the phone does not support VR headsets.
BATTERY LIFE
The battery life is one of the best you can get on any phone, especially if you use that ultra power saving mode.
You can literally use the phone for days without the need to recharge it. I was able to achieve a 5-day battery life on an average use and turning on that ultra power saving mode from time to time. I’m pretty sure that it’s possible to get even more out of this huge battery.
Finally, it takes about 1 hour and 40 mins to fully charge the battery with the supplied fast charger.
CONCLUSIONS
The Vernee Thor Plus does not have any exceptional looks but it excels in features other budget phones lack.
That gigantic 6200mAh battery performs very well, the display is one of the best in class, a metal construction of the phone feels nice and sturdy and I’m quite impressed with the overall performance.
A few weaknesses are common to most of the budget phones – mediocre camera and subpar loudspeaker.
Other than that, I was pleasantly surprised that the Vernee Thor Plus is a pretty good budget phone with some standout features that other phones lack, even though it’s not a perfect device.
