I believe smartphones have reached a point where there isn’t much differentiation between the product offered by different manufacturers, most of the new smartphones come with similar features and even look very similar to each other. In terms of operating systems, the main competitors are iOS and Android, there are others like Windows etc, but they’re small players.
The bigger manufacturers do try to set their phone apart by offering biometric scanning for turning on the phone and a few other features, but there hasn’t been a revolutionary feature offered recently.
So how do consumers decide what they want and how to phone makers get customers to buy their products? Other than loyalty to a brand, manufacturers rely on phone size, the promise of better graphics, better battery life, and price. I personally like to buy a mid-range phone, that’s not too expensive and offers decent features. If you’re looking for a mid-range phone, there are a lot of great phones out there right now that are pretty affordable and they offer great design, good battery life, and good cameras.
A couple of weeks ago we received a brand new Alcatel Idol 4 smartphone for a review; we’ve previously reviewed the Idol 3, Idol X+, and even an Alcatel Pop 8 tablet. I was impressed with the Idol 3 smartphone, the Idol 4 has taken things to a whole new level.
Design
The Alcatel Idol 4 features an all-glass front and back, with a brushed metal frame around the glass. The metal frame is thin in the middle of the phone and as it approaches the top and bottom, it gradually thickens, the metal frame overhangs at the top and bottom of the phone, housing the two front facing speakers.
The all-glass body of the phone gives the phone a premium look, but it creates the problem of having to clean not only the front glass but also the rear glass. I personally can’t stand fingerprint covered screens, with this phone I got double the fingerprints. One solution to this problem is a case, which covers the back, reducing finger prints by 50%.
Specs
The Alcatel Idol 4 features a 5.2” 1080 x 1920 p screen, which is on the smaller side in today’s “bigger is better” thinking, but I personally like it compared to my Nexus 6P. I think the Idol 4’s size is the perfect size for a smartphone, it’s big enough to do most of the things you’d want to do with a phone and not too big where it doesn’t fit in your pockets. In terms of size, I prefer the Idol 4 over my Nexus 6P. The Idol 4 is 7.1 mm thick and weighs 135 grams, giving it a nice weight, but still keeping the phone very light.
The Idol 4 is powered by Android OS v6.0 (Marshmellow), and has a Qualcomm MSM8952 Snapdragon 617 processor with Octa-core (4×1.7 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.2 GHz Cortex-A53) CPU and Adreno 405 GPU.
The phone comes with 16 GB of ROM and 2 GB of RAM; 16 GB storage may not seem like much with HD pictures/video and large apps, but the Idol 4 does come with a Micro SD slot, it can handle up to 128 GB Micro SD card. In my opinion the SD slot is a great alternative for those that don’t want to pay the enormous markups some phone makers charge for selling you a higher capacity phone, SD cards are cheap and you can decide how big of a card you want/need.
The Idol 4 has a 1080p 13 MP rear camera and a 1080p 8 MP front camera with flash on both sides. The Idol 4 is also equipped with two 3.6 watt front facing speakers, and a 2610 mAh Lithium-ion battery pack.
Performance
The Alcatel Idol 4 performs quite well, I personally haven’t had any problems with it so far in the last 2+ weeks. The screen is bright and it has crisp graphics, on par with my Nexus 6P. I installed a few apps that I have on my other phone and everything worked fine. I did notice the Idol 4 getting very warm when playing a graphics heavy game called “Driving School Test Car Racing”. I installed the same game on the Nexus 6P, it also got warm but not quite as warm as the Idol 4.
The phone itself is pretty easy to use, if you’re familiar with Android powered phones you’ll feel right at home. The phone comes with the usual suite of pre-loaded apps like Google Drive, YouTube, Calendar, Twitter, Facebook etc. The phone comes with a power on/off button on the left side and the volume buttons on the right side, below these buttons is the “Boom Key”, which is a customizable key that can unlock the phone, take pictures, and take screen shots. You can pick and choose which features you want with this key or have it completely off.
Like the Idol 3, the Idol 4 comes with double tap screen to turn on the phone and “reversibility” feature. The phone 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.
Battery Life
The Idol 4 has a pretty decent sized battery, with moderate use, I was able to get 2 days of usage out of the phone, and with heavy use I got one day of use out of the phone. Which is about what the industry standard is nowadays and this is same amount of time I get out of Nexus 6P, which costs almost three times as much as the Idol 4.
Camera
The main camera on the Idol 4 is a 13 MP unit, it can shoot HDR, panorama, burst shots etc, the usual features found on Android powered phones. The camera shoots video at 1080p at 30 fps and has a mini-video feature which lets you edit your videos.
The pictures are pretty decent quality, comparing photos taken by my Nexus 6P, with the same settings etc, I found the pictures taken by the Idol 4 to be a bit brighter but they are less detailed in the background, see images below.
Sound
Thanks to the Idol 4’s front facing speakers, the sound quality is very good. I’d say it’s almost as good as my Nexus 6P’s, which also comes with front facing speakers, but remember the price difference. The speakers are pretty decent for listening to music and really good for using the speaker phone.
Overall Impression
I’m very impressed with the Alcatel Idol 4 smartphone, it looks very sleek and performs really well. The phone looks like a high-end phone and the materials used are high quality. The phone comes with all the features found on any modern Android powered phones and it also adds in a few extra features. All this is made even better when you consider it only costs $299 CAD to buy it outright.
If you’re looking for a new phone, I highly recommend the Alcatel Idol 4. My wife is looking for a new phone and this phone is definitely at the top of her shopping list. For more information on the Idol 4 and other products offered by Alcatel, check out their official website: alcatelonetouch.ca
