Alcatel Idol 4 Phone For Everyone Review

Alcatel has recently provided me with an Idol 4 to review, so let’s get started on the Alcatel Idol 4 Review!  The Alcatel Idol 4 is the latest device in the mid range phone series from Alcatel. For those not familiar with Alcatel they have been around for 12 years now and they are currently the 4th largest mobile handset manufacturer in North America.

Initial Thoughts on the Alcatel Idol 4

My first thoughts on this phone was how nice it looked. It has a sleek silver finish improvement form the black finish on the Alcatel Idol 3. It reminds me a lot of the higher priced Samsung Galaxy 6 Phones, and it looks a lot like the previous Alcatel Idol 3. This version, the Alcatel Idol 4, is slightly smaller than the Idol 3 5.5 but to be honest, I really don’t see a difference in the size between them. The Alcatel Idol 4 S is still 5.5 inches and has a few different options in terms of screen and other. There is also a VR headset purchase option.  Interesting but since that’s not the model I have to review, that will have to wait for another day. 😉

Android 6 at It’s Finest

One of the things I like most about the Alcatel phones is how little they add to the core Android platform. This phone ships with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. There are not tons of apps or bloat to make it “Alcatel”. That is something that plagues all to many phones on the market these days. It does include a specific music player and gallery. All these items have a clean material design finish. Music and Gallery work and look an awful lot like Google Music and Google Photos though, so I personally just switched on over to those. The phone is quick and responsive in terms of loading things.

Audio, Video and Camera on the Alcatel Idol 4

The camera on this phone is 13 Megapixel same as the Idol 3, so not much improvement on that front. What has been improved is the front facing flash. Late night selfie takers rejoice because this phone now has you covered. Easily snap a selfie from the lock screen or via the camera app and get a nice bright burst of light to take a selfie in any light. It also includes a beauty feature that smooths your face with no extra filters needed. Be pretty easier. 🙂 The camera is a serious contender. In decent light or outside the camera takes clean crisp pictures that are easily better or comparable to phones that cost more than double. You might have an issue in some low light with no flash – but that is to be expected.  The quick focus and higher zoom on this camera is much better than the Idol 3 as well. Something I am glad to see improved. The Idol 3 zoom was seriously lacking as shown with these two pictures here. Believe it or not both of these pictures are taken from the same spot at max zoom. Big difference!

Idol 3

Idol 4

There is a new “Boom” button on the side of the phone that can be programmed to do all kinds of things in different apps.  I found this button was best used though,  to be a great photo taking option. You can program it to take a picture or a screenshot without launching the camera app – which is great for those QUICK TAKE A PHOTO moments. Sure there is a quick launch camera option on the main screen of most devices, but I still found I would miss things waiting those few seconds for the app to load up. Not with this option. Simply hold up the phone and hit the boom button twice and snap. Picture taken. The app didn’t even need to load. Just like it would be with a ‘real’ camera. Of course you can hit it once and load the app up and take more advance functionality and zoom photos, but I found this to be a nice little feature.

The audio has been improved on this device over the Idol 3 – the bass is deeper and there is more volume on the speakers. You don’t need to connect this phone to bluetooth speakers to have great clear loud sound. I even compared it to some Google Nexus phones and found the Alcatel Idol 4 was louder and crisper sounding. They have done a lot of work in this area.

Alcatel Idol 4 Review Summary

The Idol 4 is a serious phone contender and Alcatel means business. I am constantly impressed with Alcatel’s line of phones and frequently find myself back on them after switching to different higher priced phones. They are stylish, snappy and responsive. Alcatel works as a  great replacement phones (scratched screen? lost phone off contract?)  and you are not sacrificing any quality even if this was your first choice main phone.

 The Alcatel Idol 4 is retailing for $299 at Bell with no contract or 0$ with a 2 year contract! Amazing!  If you have cracked your phone screen, need an upgrade, or you are looking for something new, check this Alcatel Idol 4 review out.

Check out this Product on Amazon

I received this product From Alcatel. Thoughts as always are my own