Alcatel One Touch Idol 2S

Alcatel, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, has another entry into the mid-range smartphone market with the OneTouch Idol 2S. When they first received the Idol 2S, experts were impressed with its sleek appearance and comfortable matte back. It is also very light at 126 grams and much thinner than its competition – the Motorola Moto G – at 0.3 inches. At only 5.4 inches tall and 2.8 inches wide, the Idol 2S has very narrow bezels, which unfortunately some reviewers found to be more of a hindrance than a feature as they often found their palm touching the screen or menu buttons by accident. Upon further handling, they uncovered build quality issues such as low quality plastic around the device’s perimeter, unsecure back cover and easily scratched camera lens.

For a mid-range phone experts describe the 5-inch, 720p IPS display as sharp, bright and color accurate with good viewing angles and bright light legibility. The only issue they had wasn’t necessarily with the display itself but with the capacitive menu buttons. When they pressed different buttons, the menu would either bring up the selection in the wrong location or simply eliminate the menu buttons altogether.

The 2S comes equipped with a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 512MB of RAM. While there’s no way it can compete with higher end phones, reviewers were able to load apps quickly and scroll through their home screen with no lag. Even browsing the web was a generally pleasant experience for them though they, unsurprisingly, ran into some issues when multi-tasking and using processor-intensive apps. In order to keep the device slim Alcatel opted for a 2,150mAh battery, which experts found was too small, especially for power use. Even with moderate usage they were barely able to eke out a full day’s of use.

Armed with an 8MP rear camera, the Idol 2S actually produced decent daytime and adequate low-light photos for experts. The pictures they took were fairly detailed though with a slightly skewed white balance and a bit over exposed when they used the flash. Still, they add that on the whole the camera was fast and reliable.

While experts did have some issues with the Idol 2S overall they consider it a fairly good piece of hardware. Mobile Syrup adds, “…[it] is an excellent mid-range smartphone that few are going to regret purchasing.”