Alcatel One Touch Idol 3
Alcatel One Touch Idol 3
The 5.5-inch, full HD display and 4G LTE connectivity alone make the Idol 3 worth the cost of entry. Fit, finish, and a polished overall experience seal the deal. Thus, it earns our Editors’ Choice for mid-range Android smartphones.
Understated, classy, and well-executed are rarely the first words we choose when describing a budget-friendly Android phone. And yet, all three apply to the Idol 3’s physical design. The subtle, brushed finish on the back and judicious use of faux-metal accents make the best of the all-plastic construction.
At 6.01-by-2.96-by-0.29-inches (HWD) and 140-gms, the Idol 3 feels slender and light for its size, though not at all hollow like some other low-cost phones. It looks and feels like a much pricier handset.
The 5.5-inch, full HD LCD looks superb—colour depth, contrast, and maximum brightness are all top notch. The viewing angle is essentially 180 degrees and everything looks crisp thanks to the display’s 401ppi.
Above and below the display are stereo front-facing speakers, which get very loud and sound excellent for a smartphone. The Idol 3 supports quad-band GSM, HSPA (850/900/1900/2100MHz), and LTE (Bands 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, 17).
Call quality on the smartphone was good, though nothing to write home about. Volume in the earpiece was sufficient, but could be a touch louder for outdoor calls. The Idol 3 preserved natural voice tones well on both incoming and outgoing calls, though we did notice an undercurrent of static on transmissions through the phone’s mic.
Rounding out the connectivity options are dual-band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, and GPS. NFC and dual-band Wi-Fi are somewhat rare in this price range, so it’s nice to see them included.
The Idol 3 uses an octa-core, 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM. Though performance isn’t leaps and bounds above the more common Snapdragon 400, the 615 is a 64-bit chip, so it’s a bit more future proof. General system performance is reliably zippy, though minor delays are not uncommon—this is pretty much the case with even the best mid-range Android phones.
Web browsing performance is solid. Because it has a higher resolution display than most similarly powered smartphones, gaming performance suffers a bit here. Titles like Asphalt 8 are only really enjoyable at lower graphics settings.
It initially appears as though Alcatel threw down a heavy skin over the Android 5.0.2 software, but closer inspection reveals a much lighter hand. Customizations are mostly reserved to visual elements and cartoonish icons.
Otherwise, the only real functional tweaks are a shortcut-laden lock screen and useful gestures such as double-tap to wake. Everything else, including the app drawer, notification shade, recent apps list, and settings menu are all essentially a stock Lollipop experience.
Of the 16GB of internal storage, our review unit came with around 10GB available out of the box. That’s a pretty good amount at this price, and the third-party preloads are mostly useful and easily removable. There’s also a microSD card slot that worked fine with our 64GB card.
In a battery rundown test, where we stream a YouTube video over Wi-Fi with screen brightness set to max, the Idol 3 lasted 5 hours, 20 minutes. With moderate usage during the test period, the Idol 3 easily lasted a full day.
Equipped with a Sony-made, 13-megapixel image sensor, expectations are high for the Idol 3. It mostly delivers, though low-light performance isn’t quite up to the mark. Images taken outdoors and in good lighting scenarios look vivid and full of lifelike detail, with good dynamic range.
Shots start to look soft under moderate and low indoor lighting, while image grain creeps in under your typical office fluorescent lighting. Autofocus is relatively quick, even indoors, and exposure was accurate the majority of the time.
Video quality tops out at 1080p and holds a steady at around 27 fps under low light. Overall, the Idol 3 has very good image quality and we’d be confident using it to capture important moments.
Alcatel is in a rebranding phase, and the One Touch Idol 3 is a statement device. It proves that the company can put its cut-rate OEM roots behind it and create a physically impressive phone that finally lives up to the spec sheets.
The Idol 3 is a top-notch, budget friendly option at AED 1099. We award the Alcatel One Touch Idol 3 our Editors’ Choice nod for budget friendly mid-range Android smartphones.
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