AlcatelOneTouch Idol 3 Global GSM Unlocked 4G LTE Smartphone, 4.7 HD IPS Display, 16GB - Gray

Pros-Smooth Performance-All Day Battery Life-Excellent Build Quality-Good Quality Screen-NFC (Android Pay Compatible)-Decent Camera-MicroSD ExpansionCons-Awkward Button Placement-Squeaky Vibrating Motor-Updates not guaranteed-No Gorilla GlassShould you buy: YESActual Value: $220I loved my Moto G. It made me always question why people spend over $600 on phones when a $200 could work just as well. With the new Moto G, I was willing to buy it right on the spot. But what turned me off was the nearly 3 weeks I’d have to wait for one to be delivered. So I started my search for the next best phone under $200, which lead me to this phone. I’ve had some experience with Alcatel phones, so I didn’t have much expectations with this phone. That being said, I’ve had a couple of days with it and I can say with absolute confidence that I love it.-Design-This is one light phone. I’m starting with that because you have no idea how light it is until you hold it in your hand. I actually thought for a moment that the battery wasn’t inside it yet. But it is pleasant to hold in the hand. The design is all plastic, so don’t expect anything premium on this phone like metal. But it is solidly built, rivaling even the Galaxy S5 in build quality. Speaking of which, this phone is lighter and slimmer than the S5. If the phone were sold for more money, I’d still be satisfied. It’s not just good build quality for the price. It’s excellent build quality. Period. The chrome accent is a nice touch and the speaker grills are slightly angled towards the phone, which add a bit of sparkle to an otherwise black phone. No soft touch plastic on this phone, but it does land on a middle ground where the plastic is nice to touch and is resistant to fingerprints. The design is completely symmetrical, which is important for a certain feature that is unique to it. I’d love it even more if it were available in a different color such as white, but that is personal preference. Overall, I can’t find much to complain; especially for the low $180 price.-Performance-If you have seen the Moto G’s specs, you’re pretty much getting the same hardware. It uses a Snapdragon 410, 720p display, microSD expansion, Android Lollipop, and even the same camera module (Sony IMX 214). However, there are a few key difference that make this a better phone than the Moto G. For instance, this phone has 1.5 GB of RAM (Moto G=1GB), actual front facing stereo speakers, a 4.7” compared to the 5”, NFC, and 16GB of storage(Moto G=1GB). In benchmarks, I have gotten similar results to the Moto G in both CPU and graphic performance. But benchmarks are only one side of the performance experience. The other is daily user experience. Based on the couple of days with it and after installing many apps, I can tell you that this phone is snappy. It’s not as fast as the current flagship lineup, but it never lags or clips the graphics. Apps open relatively quickly and the animations are smooth, as well as the transitions from one app to another. In my testing of multitasking ability, it opened Chrome, Angry Birds, Pokemon Puzzle, and YouTube with no lag and each app open where I left them off. Opening more will force the phone to suspend one of those apps to save RAM, but 4 apps at once without closing is pretty good for the cost. Games also perform good, as long as you have reasonable expectations. 2D games such as Angry Birds, Pokemon Puzzle, and Clash of Clans run smoothly and without an issue. Other games like Asphalt 8 and Real Racing 3 will run smooth, but not at the highest quality setting. But that’s to be expected from a midrange phone. Signal quality is good. I was able to get 62 Mbps download speed and 8 Mbps upload on T-Mobile’s 4G LTE around Pasadena, CA. Thanks to band 12 support, cell signal in buildings is good with the signal almost never going under 3 bars. The speakers are also amazingly good and loud, coming close to matching HTC’s Boomsound phone speakers thanks to the help from JBL. Overall, it performs close to flagship specs, albeit a bit slower. Most people should be happy with this phone.-Display-The phone itself has a beautiful HD display with a 312 PPI (note that the iPhone 6 has a 324 PPI) and it is advertise as being calibrated by Technicolor. While they aren’t at the S6’s quality display, it does come close. The display has a nice color calibration, with vivid colors and nice blacks and whites. It is also bright enough for using even in direct sunlight and the good contrast means you can clearly see what you are doing. It isn’t perfect since there are a couple of issues. The colors do have a VERY slight cool tone, meaning that the whites do have a TINY bit of blue to them. Another small issue is that there is a slight amount of light bleed on one side of the displace. But it isn’t noticeable in daily use and it is good for the price of the phone. One crucial one is the fact that they aren’t using Gorilla glass on this display, opting for the more discreet Dragontrail Glass. Since this is going to be my daily driver, I didn’t want to test the toughness (if Alcatel provides me a unit, I’d gladly test it) but I’ve looked into it and it trades scratch resistance for toughness. It might be easier to scratch it, but it is more resistant to shock. Only time will tell and I will update this review as time moves on.-Camera-The camera is a back-facing 13 MP camera and a front, wide angle 5 MP camera. The rear camera uses a Sony Exmor IMX 214, which is the same unit found in the new Moto G and the more expensive Nexus 6. The results are mixed though. On one side, outdoor pictures are good. Whenever there is good lighting such as outside or a well lit room, the pictures do come out high quality with colors mostly accurate and the camera absorbing a lot of details. However, during the night, the picture quality takes a hit, with the camera struggling to get any details from the lack of light. It will get some details if they is ANY type of light, but not much. The lack of OIS also contributes to this issue, but there is no phone with OIS at this price range at the moment. The flash is okay, but since it isn’t a dual tone unit, the light tends to overflow and photos tend to lose their details. Videos are also a similar story, with good lighting providing good results and the opposite being true. There is EIS, but the effect isn’t that noticeable and it doesn’t really help with the quality. This isn’t a camera you’re going to use for important, memorable moments. But for things that most people use, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it works great. This is especially true for the front facing camera, with the selfie cam grabbing a lot of details, provided there is good amount of light.-Software-This is basically running a close to stock version of Android Lollipop. It is running version 5.0.2 with a Stagefright patch already added to protect the phone from foreign attacks. There are a few changes to the software. For instance, the icons look like similar to the iPhone, which can be both a good and bad thing, depending on whether you love or hate that style. Other than that, everything works just like stock Android. Except for one feature that I’m surprised isn’t universal to all phones. That is the fact that this phone is reversible. It doesn’t sound as exciting as fingerprint sensor, but it is a rather practical and underrated feature. I’ve answered the phone to test the sound quality and it wasn’t until after I hung up that I realized the phone was upside down. It sounds equally good on either orientation and it is brilliant. Of course, if you don’t like this (for some reason) there is always the option to turn it off. Overall, the light touch that Alcatel added onto Android hasn’t hurt it much and any problems can be easily fixed.-Conclusion-I wasn’t expecting to get a high quality phone, especially after my experience with an old model that I can’t even remember the name. But Alcatel did deliver a high quality experience and an astonishing device. It does have some compromises, but Alcatel chose them wisely and the overall result is great. There is a couple of phones that compete in this range, but the biggest one is the Moto G. Is this better? Yes and no. For power users, I would still recommend the high end Moto G because of the extra RAM or even a OnePlus One, which is on sale now for $299. But if it must be under $200, like for college students like me, this beats the $179 low end Moto G due to the higher quality speakers, display, NFC, and the slightly more RAM. This phone helps to answer the question: Do people really need to spend over $800 on a phone to get a high quality experience? The answer for most people is no. They don’t. There is a market for people who need to have the latest and greatest with all the new extras like fingerprint sensor and DSLR-like quality cameras. But for the rest of us, there are phone that does what we ask from it and reasonably well not just for the price, but just overall. If you are on the fence and frustrated from searching like I was, let me help you. Go for this phone and you won’t be disappointed.

This phone has blown away my expectations. In a world full of phablets and cell phones that seem to just be getting larger and larger (and more and more expensive as well), it's becoming seemingly harder and harder to find a small phone that will actually perform. This phone does just that, and does it well.Initially I had owned an LG G4. I thought about it and realized, man this is insane that I am spending $600+ on a cell phone. I decided to return the LG G4 and give the Alcatel Idol 3 5.5 a try. While I loved the phone, it was still larger than I was hoping, and the 4.7 had not yet been released. Then one day I checked Amazon, and the 4.7 was out, so I made the exchange (and I couldn't be happier).People may complain about the specs when compared to some current flagship phones. Are they as good? No. But here's the thing, just a year and a half ago or so, if you saw the specs on this phone, they would have blown you away. Think about the flagship phones from a year or two ago. Were they bad, slow, etc? No, they were top of the line. This phone has the same specs, if not better, that those phones had. That being said, I have not experienced a single hiccup with this phone yet. No lag when switching screens or apps, no delay in taking pictures, no freezing or apps crashing. So ask yourself, do I really NEED a phone with specs that the $600-900 phones are offering?Pros:Screen - It's beautiful. Is it 1080P? No, and it doesn't need to be. At 4.7" 720P is gorgeous, and looks just as nice as my LG G4 did. Know what is awesome about the screen being 720P? Battery life. The "lower" resolution will greatly improve battery life.Sound - The JBL front facing stereo speakers are magnificent. The sound is very loud, and very clear. Watching music videos, listening to music, and even the alarm are all very impressive with the volume and clarity. The JBL headphones that come with the phone also have excellent sound and come with different size earbuds to ensure a good fit.Speed - It's fast. There's no lag when switching apps, browsing the web, multitasking, sending emails, etc. One review I read elsewhere of the phone stated that when typing, the phone would sometimes lag and have to "catch up" to his typing. I am a very fast typer, and I have yet to experience this, so YMMV.Size - Perfect. Everything can be done with one hand. It fits well in your palm. Very thin.Camera - 13MP rear, and 5MP front. Both take excellent photos. Most importantly to me, they both take photos QUICKLY. I have a one year old, and having to wait 2-3 seconds after pressing the capture button will often times make me miss the shot, or have them end up blurry. The Idol 3 takes it almost instantly 95% of the time.Battery Life - Very impressed. Having the "slower" processor, and the "lower resolution" screen, both help to improve the battery life greatly. I have been using the phone pretty much non stop since getting it. I am a heavy texter, social media user, and I use the music player with both a bluetooth speaker and a bluetooth stereo headset for 2+ hours a day. I have been setting the phone up and redownloading all the apps on my previous phones, so I have been on it constantly. End of the day it still has plenty of charge left to it. I imagine the average user will have no problem getting through a day, and a heavy user may be able to as well.Cost - Can't be beat, obviously. $179 for this phone is an absolute steal.Cons:Brand - Not because Alcatel is bad, but because it isn't popular. This means little 3rd party support for accessories and whatnot. Currently the only tempered glass screen protector available on Amazon is by Mr. Shield, and the fitment is very poor. There are not a lot of cases available at this time. Hopefully this will change as more people realize what a gem this phone is and actually start buying it.Overall, this phone is amazing and well worth your money. I can't imagine what you would be doing that requires a phone that costs $600 more than this phone, honestly. The size is perfect, it's fast, the sound is incredible, and the battery life has been awesome. Alcatel has a real winner in this phone. The only competition I see at this price point would be the new Moto G, however I love the form factor and design of the Alcatel.