Alcatel kicks off the Mobile World Congress press conferences today in Barcelona, Spain with the announcement of a few new devices. Mainly the Idol 4 and the Idol 4S. Alcatel also changed their name from Alcatel OneTouch to just Alcatel, for those wondering. The company came to Spain looking to continue building on the success of the Idol 3 which the company announced in Barcelona last year. The Idol 3 was a pretty popular smartphone, mainly because it was coming in at under $300 for a 5.5-inch device that had pretty high-end specs. Now the Idol 4 and Idol 4S are here and they continue the low-end of the high-end market with Snapdragon 617 and Snapdragon 652 processors running the show, respectively.
This year, the theme appears to be about “BOOM” as you’ll see in the features that are included in these two smartphones. One of those features is Boom my Camera, which will instantly take photos on standby mode by pressing the Boom Key. Pressing and holding that Boom Key will put the camera into burst mode. There’s also Boom my Gallery, which artistically shuffles photos in the gallery for instant sharing. These can be shared as a short slideshow or a photo collage. For Boom my Music, Alcatel worked with Waves to create an automatically optimized audio experience across all media on your smartphone. Through apps, webpages and more. They have even built the Boom Key into games like Asphalt. So now pressing your Boom Key will allow you to release nitro and then boosting the car’s speed in the game.
Alcatel is also touting the augmented multimedia features in their Idol 4 and Idol 4S. As mentioned earlier the Idol 4 features the Snapdragon 617 and the Idol 4S with the Snapdragon 652 processor, they both have advanced features and capabilities allowing users to experience 3D gaming like they were on a console. These processor both feature the X8 LTE model along with 802.11ac WiFi connectivity, which will give you the fastest speeds possible. Lastly, the packaging for the Idol 4 and Idol 4S actually turn into a pair of virtual reality goggles. So when you buy your Idol 4 and Idol 4S, you get your VR viewer as well. The Idol 4 and Idol 4S are going to be available in metal, but they will have different colored frames. Which include dark gray, gold, rose gold and silver. The Idol 4 and Idol 4S have a glass front and back similar to the Galaxy S6 from last year, and is pretty slim. Coming in at just 6.9mm.
As far as the spec sheet goes, the Idol 4 packs a 5.2-inch full HD IPS display, with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor (which is a 1.7GHz quad-core and a 1.2GHz quad-core processor), 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage which Alcatel notes that 10GB will be available to the user, and there is a microSD card slot available. We’re looking at a pretty hefty 2610mAh battery inside, which Alcatel also notes it’ll charge within about an hour using Quick Charge 3.0. It’s running Android 6.0 Marshmallow and features a nano SIM card slot. As far as the bands go, we’re looking at GSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 1/2/5/8, LTE 1/3/7/8/20/28A/38/40. Camera wise, we have a 13-megapixel shooter around back, with a 8-megapixel shooter on the front.
Onto the Idol 4S. We’re looking at a 5.5-inch AMOLED 2560×1440 resolution display, this one is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor (that’s a quad-core 1.8GHz and a quad-core 1.4GHz processor inside), along with 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage of which 25GB will be available to the user, and a microSD card slot will be available. This one sports a larger 3000mAh battery, and will charge in about 1.6 hours with Quick Charge 3.0. We’re looking at a 16-megapixel camera around back with a 8-megapixel front-facing shooter. Also running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and using a nano SIM. The bands include GSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 1/2/5/8, LTE 1/3/7/8/20/28A.
Currently there is no word on availability or pricing, but we should know more in a few weeks once we get closer to a release date.
