I WAS first introduced to Alcatel as a brand in the 1990s at around the same time we acquired the first-generation Playstation and when the beeper was passé.
The first Alcatel phone I knew of was busty and looked like one of the gadgets the Power Rangers produced when they were about to transform, replete with a wee antenna and a screen a kiss shy the size of a barcode. Alcatel was the Apple of those days and the introduction of the phone in question was a revolution, because it allowed for wireless remote communication wherever a user is, the best part being that you could put the device in your pocket. It was, however, just a short spell in heaven. Eventually, Alcatel was displaced in the advent of analog cellular-phone brands, like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Erricsson. I had not heard of, or maybe, otherwise, paid heed, to Alcatel’s comeback until only recently when it released its headliners on the touchscreen phones category.
Even by all measures Alcatel is considered an underdog. I find I always have a penchant for the underdog. It is like, as David Sedaris so wittily puts it, choosing a religion: something that speaks of one’s character, something unpretentious and something, well, me.
Take Alcatel’s flagship Idol 4S, this doesn’t really have to be lesser champagne, or a copycat of the real McCoy and deserves a merit of its own.
The takeaway is that the Quad-HD (1440×2560 pixels) 5.5-inch Idol 4S is inexpensive but nary has a trace of a “budget” smartphone. It is characteristic of the always-wonderful fusion of oleophobic metal and Dragontrail glass, polished with in-mold spin-effect texture that quite explains why it sits on the palm of your hand like a queen. Its Amoled (active matrix organic light emitting diode) 16M color display just surfaces on two layers of glass even with the glare of the sun, and the 16-megapixel (rear) and 8-MP (front) cameras can hold a candle to just about every phone in the market that simply cuts it these days. These cameras could be conjured pronto by tinkering twice on what the Alcatel calls the “Boom Key” on the grills, an easy tap-on access that also corresponds to other multifarious shortcut commands.
What really floored me is that, remarkably, you don’t pull the Idol 4S out of a box; you pry it from an Alcatel VR headset, also one in a series of its firsts, which serves as its package, a take-home treat. There you stand wondering upon laying your fingers on the device: “Huh? A bonus?” and then you realize that the innocuous box should merit a review of its own.
