The Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 has garnered a lot of attention this year as an affordable phone with surprisingly good specs.

Now Alcatel OneTouch is launching a new model that has the same basic design elements, but a smaller case, a lower-price tag, and somewhat less impressive hardware.

The Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 launches in the US and Canada Friday for $180 and up.

idol 3 47

 

The new model has a 4.7 inch, 1280 x 720 pixel IPS display, 1.5 GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor.

It has stereo front-facing speakers with JBL audio, features a 2,000 mAh battery, a microSD card slot, a 13MP rear camer and a 5MP front-facing camera. The phone supports 4G LTE networks and should work on AT&T or T-Mobile in the United States.

While the phone doesn’t have the full HD display, Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM, or 2,910 mAh battery of its big sibling. But it still packs a lot of power for a $180 phone.

How does it stack up against one of the most popular phones in that price range? The Motorola Moto G 2015 smartphone has a starting price of $180. But at that price, you only get a model with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. If you want a Moto G with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, you need to pay $220 or more.

Still, it would be nice to have an option to buy a phone with all the same features as the OneTouch Idol 3 in a smaller package. Not everyone wants a 5.5 inch phone. Unfortunately, the screen and price tag aren’t the only things that are smaller in the Idol OneTouch Idol 3 4.7.

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6 replies on “Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 is a smaller, cheaper Idol 3 for $180”

  1. There is a tendency to see anything smaller than a canoe paddle sized phone as a “budget” device. So anything close to the 4.5″ range (which isn’t small at all but almost as small as they come any more) gets stripped down features and a lower price. I’m not sure how anyone can convince the manufacturers there is a big enough slice of the market for a more premium 4″ to 4.5″ phone though, because now we have a chicken and egg situation: anyone buying smaller phones is buying cheaper phones because that’s nearly all you can find.
    So the low brow market segment wanting its “low rider” paddle phones is driving the entire market. They don’t want a cheaper phne because, like, the kids can fend for themselves, eh? Daddy gotta have his Cadillac. Where is dat FEMA check anyway?

    1. I think there is anohter aspect to the size issue. Thin is “in”. And when you go thin, you run into battery issues. That is, unless you stretch the device in the other two dimensions.

      And the funny thing is that going up in physical screen size do not affect the battery drain much. The backlight is pretty much fixed.

      It’s the resolution that hit the battery, as the GPU has to work harder to render each frame that is to be displayed.

      Thinking about it, i suspect that variable refresh rates would do wonders for mobile battery life. Then a largely static image would just see the GPU go “nothing new”, and the screen electronics cut its refresh rate to a minimum.

  2. Moto G has a significantly larger battery, is waterproof, and Moto has a pretty good track record with pure Android. And it will come out in a CDMA variant (important for Spring MNVOs like Ting). But its great to see this option.

    1. Yes it is! I just wish alcatel made their phones more durable. My sister cracked her screen while it was in her bag…
      So that was $100 to repair. Ordered a tempered glass which will be put on once it gets back in.
      This smaller model still seems like a great phone, does it have nfc?
      I wonder if alcatel will make a CDMA variant.

    2. That’s not an issue on Ting now as they also have GSM, but it’s a great option for the CDMA-only MVNOs.

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