Alcatel is the newest entrant in the North American smartphone/tablet market place, they’re the fifth largest smartphone manufacturer in North America. We’ve previously reviewed an Alcatel tablet and their Idol X+ smartphone, the company now brings us their latest phone, the OneTouch Idol 3. We spent a couple of weeks reviewing their latest offering, the Idol 3 smart phone, which went on sale in Canada on June 30, 2015 and is available at Bell, Telus, and Videtron stores and online.
The Alcatel Onetouch Idol 3 is a slick smartphone with a great design. It sports a clean, sophisticated look that will appeal to a wide variety of smartphone users. Its thin, metallic and chrome framing adds some class to the smartphone market. It also has a matte finish on the back of its plastic body and the Idol logo which adds to its uniqueness. It has a 5.5 inch LCD IPS screen and 1,920 x 1,080p HD resolution. It measures 152.7 x 75.1 x 7.4 mm, and weighs in at 141 grams. It’s surprisingly very light considering how large this phone is and the fact that it has a non-removable 2,910 mAh battery pack, which is quite big. The Idol 3 runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop operating system. It has 16GB of storage and a 3GB RAM. For extra storage, up to a 128 GB microSD card can be inserted into the same little spot that houses the SIM card.
The Alcatel Idol 3 has many great features, which may not be found in some of the other smartphones in this price range. One of the main features of the OneTouch Idol 3 is its reversibility. It can be flipped upside down and the display will automatically change so that you can continue to use the phone. This even works when you answer the phone, thanks to a microphone and speaker smartly placed at the top and bottom of the screen. If this feature is turned on, it doesn’t matter how you pick up the phone, the orientation is automatically adjusted and ready to use. The only thing that may be a bit awkward to use, if the phone is upside down, is the camera since the camera is only located at the top right corner. But if it’s awkward to use for you, you can always just flip the phone and you’re ready to snap away.
Another great feature is you can light up the screen by double tapping. Again, thanks to the Idol 3’s reversibility, it doesn’t matter how you pick it up, just double tap the screen and start browsing away. However, the power/lock button is in an awkward position on the left upper corner. But the double tap screen feature makes up for the awkward placement of the unlock button. I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s not on the right side. But use it for a day and you adapt to the phone pretty quickly. Another great thing about this smartphone is the amazing sound quality thanks to Alcatel’s partnership with JBL. The double front-facing speakers delivers great sound. Listening to music delivers stereo like sound. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to test out the JBL earphones on this phone as they did not come in the package.
I also really enjoyed using the camera. It has a 13-megapixel Sony sensor that takes color rich and high quality photographs. Photographs can be taken in different modes which include HDR, Panoromic, Time-lapse, Face beauty and manual mode. Something interesting that I accidentally stumbled upon while trying to use the volume key to zoom in while taking a picture was that it can take up to 20 pictures in a matter of seconds. This is different from the best shot feature found in other phones, as this saves all of the pictures rather than choosing the best photo. I like this features better as sometimes the best shot chosen is not always the best quality. Although I enjoyed taking photographs with this camera, the downside was that the pictures couldn’t be viewed until I closed the camera and opened the gallery. I was left to second guess whether I actually took a photo at times. Usually, there is a small icon that offers a thumbnail preview. I also really enjoyed the video recording quality of this phone, which is a 1080p HD resolution. Its visual and sound quality are colorful and clear. However, once you press the video button, record starts right away and there is no way to pause recording.
Viewing these pictures and videos on the screen were rich in color and resolution, thanks to the 5.5 inch LCD screen which has a pixel density of 400 ppi. The screen is run by Technicolor which makes the brightness and color saturation of images crisp and clear.
Overall, I would recommend buying Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 smartphone, it’s priced well at $350 without a contract and $0 with a two year contract on Bell, Telus or Videotron. It’s affordable and doesn’t look cheap. It has great features that make the phone easy to use. Although there are some flaws, the unique features and the price make up for those minor flaws. You can visit Alcatel website at alcatelonetouch.ca for more information.
