Alcatel OneTouch is the latest company to partner with Cyanogen Inc to load that company’s custom version of Android onto a smartphone. The Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2+ is a 6 inch smartphone with a full HD display, an octa-core processor, and Cyanogen OS software.
It’ll be available in North America in the second quarter of 2015 for $299 and it’ll be sold unlocked.
The Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2+ features a 2 GHz MediaTek MT6592 ARM Cortex-A7 octa-core processor, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a microSD card slot.
Other features include a stylus that fits into a slot on the case, a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front-facing camera. The phone supports 4G LTE.
But the most unusual thing about the phone is probably its software. It will ship with Cyanogen OS 11 which is based on Android 4.4 KitKat. Cyanogen is a company founded by some of the lead developers of the open source CyanogenMod custom ROM which users have been installing on smartphones and tablets for years. But unlike CyanogenMod, Cyanogen OS includes closed source software and comes with the Google Play Store and other Google apps pre-installed.
Cyanogen software comes preloaded on a few other phones including models from Chinese device makers OnePlus and Oppo and Indian phone maker Micromax. The Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2+ will be one of the first Cyanogen OS phones to be widely available in the United States.
Of course, now that Cyanogen and Qualcomm have reached an agreement to load the software on future versions of the chip maker’s reference design hardware, phones with Cyanogen OS could become more common. But for now it’s still unusual enough to find a phone that runs Cyanogen OS that it’s worth pointing out the few that do.
Seems reasonable for a budget phablet, but not all that exciting.
Do the mtk socs have open source drivers?
Wow! TCL have outdone them self this time! I would honestly love to see idiot paying 300$ for this! Price is 2x up then for similar spec with same SoC also Chinese phone’s. The old MT6592 SoC with it’s old MALI MP450 MP4 is suitable for sub HD displays & cortex A7s can’t really fit with Loli. Somehow I didn’t even liked Yi even it brings much more for less money. Only bright thing in this is that it shows how MTK is open sourcing.
+10. Same thing I’m saying everywhere else. Only way I’m paying 250 and up is if it’s packing MT6732/52 at the minimum. The kick in the nuts here is that other Idol 3 are way better at 250 for the SD615 packing 5.5″ model!? But marred by the shipped Alcatel fw/sw.
Whoever’s in charge at Cyanogen Inc’s OEM tie-ups are in serious need of a bitch slap. This was poorly planned and timed.
I am actually in process of getting a 7″ MT8732 generic tablet for 100€. 😉 Also don’t like Cyanogen as they become inc, I am for good old minimal AOSP.