REVIEW: Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 in 2019: Budget Value? By OSReviews

Hey all hair OS reviews here watching our throwback review of the Alcatel idol 3 here in 2019. This was a smartphone released in 2015. So once again, it's four years old and has the snapdragon 615 processors, it's an outscore chipset, it's a mid-tier CPU, and it has 2 gigabytes of RAM, along with a 5.5-inch full HD display, just like the HTC One a9 that we did a throwback review on recently. This is a kind of forgotten phone for many people. It was a mid-tier device to begin with, but in my opinion, Alcatel has also been on a downward trajectory. Yes, they have a lot of partnerships with prepaid carriers at Cricket, Wireless and Verizon these days, but more of their offerings in the US are now very much low.

End budget phones, a lot of Android Go devices versus in 2015-2016 up until the idol 4s, they were still trying to make inexpensive but premium feeling smartphones. If you guys remember the idol, 4s Windows, Phone Edition had a snapdragon 820 processors and a AMOLED display, which are both really flagship attributes that he simply won't find on other phones for under $200 that Alcatel was targeting, but today most of their offerings are a lot cheaper, and they have MediaTek chipsets they're, just not as exciting in terms of the specifications and the uniqueness that they once tried to offer when breaking through the US market. The reason why we're revisiting this phone is because of its price right now, it's selling on Amazon and eBay for under 40 bucks, which is just extremely cheap, and even when it was new at around 250 dollars, it was still considered at great value. So for the really budget-conscious buyer, it still might be an interesting option to consider it's definitely cheaper than the idol 4s, which is still fetching for around $100 currently. But this one has very similar overall design just slightly weaker performance, but so as aforementioned, this phone does look very expensive, but it is made entirely out of plastic.

So it is very much lightweight and reminds me a little of the earlier Samsung phones, which also used mostly plastic, even though it's incredibly slim. It also packs a three thousand William hour capacity battery. That can definitely last you, through the entire day, without problems on the front. We have the aforementioned IPS Full HD display, which is actually a joy to look at it's one of the most bright and punchy IPS displays I've seen- and this is only at believer or not under 50% in terms of brightness. If you turn it on at maximum, this thing can definitely be read even under glaring sunlight.

Another interesting feature of the idol 3 and the idol 4 are the front facing speakers which are powered by a JBL. So just like the HTC boom sound speakers, it is a highlight on this phone in terms of the audio quality. It's truly one of the loudest that you'll find out of any smartphone. So you look very closely you'll see underneath the grilles here, the first speaker and then the second speaker here on the very top, so it blasts out very impressive. Sound also supports Dolby Atmos for sound enhancement.

Another unique feature is reversibility, because it's a perfectly symmetrical top and bottom Alcatel built and microphones on both sides. So if you hold the phone in the other direction, it can simply flip over, and you can still make a phone call. You can still interact and play games with it. It just makes the overall interaction experience of just grabbing the phone and going very seamless, because you don't have to worry about the orientation and saves you some extra convenience, a very thoughtful UI, UX design. What's also cool, is this animation, which can be changed under settings to give you over 10 different transition effects that you can play around with so again, very thoughtful touches, IR different from other companies and phones you'll find on the market.

The track down notification drawer, as you can see here, allows you to turn off a Wi-Fi. The typical settings there's also built-in NFC GPS Bluetooth 4G LTE on this device. So pretty typical stuff. The phone is currently running on Android 6.0, so it's definitely no longer the most up to date. In terms of the software experience, but all the latest games and titles can still be downloaded without any problems in this store.

It's just some security patches might be a little more out of date. As you can see here, we also have virtual controls for going back home, multitasking and back that take up a portion of you display underneath the overall software experience is spotless. Alcatel also built in some other extra tricks, like double tap to sleep very similar to LG's NOC code, and it's implemented really well. The lock screen also gives you quick launch shortcuts to access the camera and some other quick utility tools, but otherwise we get some custom as well as some Alcatel zone animations for their folders, which looks pretty sleek as well as these really colorful rounded-off icons. So if we take a closer look at the camera performance, first, let's jump right in as a for mentioned.

This is a 13 megapixel sensor, and it's not necessarily a highlight of the phone, but it's a decent enough performer for the price. It's a very clean, almost stock feeling interface, but we have the ability to adjust things like a beauty mode. You can also access a QR code scanner directly from the settings which is pretty cool. You can capture time-lapse footage, there's HDR and even a manual mode, and here are a few samples to take a quick look at all in all. If you hold still again, there isn't optical image stabilization, you can get some pretty decent results takes a moment for it to snap everything into focus, but colors do seem to be rather.

Accurate still can overexpose some lights on the background, unless you use the HDR mode, but all in all for a know very inexpensive phone now, especially today, under 40 bucks. It's you know nothing to complain about good enough to share on social media, but again not really a flagship level performer either, but we'll definitely get you by all. The Google services are now fully updated, so we do have access to assistant and in general, as far as the performance is concerned, the Snapdragon 615 again an outscore chipset still does alright as an entry-level CPU. It's pretty energy efficient. It allows the phone to definitely last through an entire day to use, but it's not quite as powerful as say a Snapdragon 625 or a 660.

So you have to keep those expectations in mind, but general navigation is still, for the most part, pretty speedy and responsive. So as aforementioned the audio quality to the speakers are phenomenal. One of the bests that you'll find even to this day on any smartphone it just gets really loud. It packs surprising bass, depth and clarity, and you get that really immersive effect, especially if you're watching a movie that is recorded with binaural audio and multiple microphones. So a great audio experience.

Let's do a quick web browsing test next by jumping into say the New York Times. It's loading along here actually pretty quickly. Reception quality is excellent, using Wi-Fi, it's doing a respectable job in such a complex web page with lots of ads and again moving elements screen is also pixel sharp. That makes it great for reading again text and interacting with the phone also has a perfect haptic engine. Surprisingly.

So, whenever you tap on something, that's slightly vibrates to give you the sensation of tapping on a physical key or button, and it actually feels very reassuring as well sensitive when you're using it now. If we compare this briefly to the HTC One a9, which we also do the throwback review on previously again having almost the identical hardware in terms of the processor, the 615 617, the only difference is going to be that built in Ram I do find the Alcatel, even though it has a slightly lighter skin. That's more stock fueling. In my opinion, it seems to be slightly slower. Sometimes when opening up programs compared to the HD, which is again kind of interesting I, guess that's, maybe because of the RAM.

You know it's not too bad on here. You can still do some multitasking and jump back and forth, but to improve the performance. I would definitely suggest clearing up your background storage if you're not using it just to optimize on performance, because again, apps are getting more and more power or hungry. Now we'll just end this video on a quick discussion of how the performance works as far as gaming is concerned. So as aforementioned it still downloads any of the titles that you would find from the Play Store without any problems.

But again the performance is not going to be blazing fast, especially for heavier titles like asphalt, 9 or pub G. It will still download and play, but you have to be very patient with it. The Snapdragon 615 was never really a flagship CPU, even back in its day. So definitely keep that in mind. However, for lighter titles like fruit ninja, it still plays back without any problems.

In fact, it's still relatively smooth, as you can see here, in terms of the frame rates and the animation. It's not too many problems. So in terms of light gaming, as well as some regular productivity tools like PDF documents, editing other tools you may download for those purposes fit in his tools, it works without any problems. Just heavier games might be a bit more of a struggle on this device, especially since again, two gigs of RAM is getting a little low here. In 2019, that's more or less it for our throwback.

Look at the Alcatel idol 3. Here in 2019, it's become an ultra budget phone just because Alcatel hasn't been doing too well in terms of brand recognition in fact, house aforementioned they've kind of shifted their strategy from trying to make more premium phones at an affordable price now to just cheaper phones at a cheaper price, which is not the best direction and not the most exciting thing as a tech reviewer to look at. But it does mean that something like this is a little underrated. So I'd say if you're looking for a budget smartphone, mostly for media consumption, and you're, trying to pick between this and a newer Alcatel device that is on the market. I would say this is actually not a bad choice to keep in mind just because a newer Alcatel phone might actually be more expensive, but have very similar internal specs.

That has a MediaTek, know: outscore chip or a Snapdragon 200 or 400 chips. So that's been our throwback of the idol 3, as well as a quick evaluation of the state of Alcatel as a whole. As they move in 2019 in the US market, but for now that's been our video thanks for watching here, OS reviews. If interested, you can find out more details in the links down below, but that's been our video thanks for watching here at oh s, reviews.

Source : OSReviews