ONE TOUCH IDOL X

French manufacturer Alcatel is once  again in mobile gossips with its latest addition to One Touch range  "One Touch Idol X". Previous was the "One Touch Idol ULTRA" discussed in the previous post.

Its a quad-core 5-inch Full HD handset. With this Alcatel is ready to compete in the cut-throat world of high-end smartphones. Lets find out the things one by one.

Design

The One Touch Idol X's every nook and corner is as good as most of the high-end phones in the market today. It is just 7.1mm thick (means 0.5mm slimmer than an iPhone5 and a 1.5mm thinner than the GalaxyS3.

On top of that the Idol X sports a tiny screen bezel, just 2.4mm thick which makes it one of the most compact 5-inch phones out there.

It is available in a variety of colours. The soft-touch plastic on the back of the Idol X is pleasing to hold and gives the Idol X some additional grip that's sorely lacking in the majority of phones on the market today. It also gives the phone a surprisingly premium feel, unlike the sensation of smooth plastic which often feels cheap.

Screen

The 5-inch 1920x1080 Full HD IPS display is stunning, and not just for a budget phone either. Unlike on some AMOLED displays colour reproduction is excellent. With full HD, contents also looked particularly lively. Viewing angles are very good with no noticeable colour shifts.

Software and Performance

 With a 1.5GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM on board the Idol X runs Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean smoothly with no jerks or lags when opening apps or scrolling quickly through the phone. There's no lag with multitasking either.

 Idol X offers 16GB of internal memory, expandable to 32GB by adding microSD card, which is more than enough to quench the memory thirst.One concern about One Touch X, as with so many smartphones, is battery life. Alcatel have managed to fit a 2000mAh battery into such a slim phone. But with 5-inch Full HD screen and quad-core processor, this phone will be power hungry w/o any doubt and thus we can imagine the battery draining fast.

Camera

8-megapixel camera is there which won’t exactly be cutting edge when it comes to mobile photography. Moreover 8 mp is now a common feature of budget phones. So don’t expect good hi-fi performance in low-light conditions, but it should be perfectly adequate for basic snapshots. Full HD video recording is there.

But wait, 13-megapixel dual-SIM version of the phone (sans microSD slot) will also be released for Asia Pacific zone.

Perception

It's safe to say that specs and build-quality make it to be an absolute bargain. The four colour options and sleekness of design will appeal to the style conscious who don’t necessarily want to spend more than twice the money on an iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4 for features they’ll never use such as NFC, 4G or  eight-core processor. Except an issue with battery life, the Idol X is going to be a super hit in the mid-range phone category. The price-factor can further glorify this product if fits nicely into budget.