Alcatel One Touch Idol X Plus

I find a lot of Reviews in flipkart unreliable,so wanted to write an unbiased review. I sold my Moto G for Good price (nothing wrong with Moto G) and was urgently in need of a phone.Tried to buy Mi3 but honestly, found it next to impossible,Then read a lot of Reviews and thought i would give Alcatel One touch Idol X+, a try. Here are the pros and cons from my experience with Alcatel.nn# Great Display, In this department it is better than mi 3,which i am 99% sure as seen from video reviews,GSM arena rated its sunlight legibility as 5th all time great and it is true.Second only to Nokia pure view, Apple iPhone 5, Galaxy S5 and Note 3.nn# Loud speaker Performance is just above average,there is this HiFi and stuff like that,but it isn't really that great.The JBL earbuds,Honestly are just average too.May be that is because i am used to a pair of sound magic E10's and senheissers.nn# Processor is not really a match for snapdragon 800,The OCTA core is really based on older cortex A7 architecture and because of that performance per core is less than stellar. Also i faced minor lags when going through App Drawer and later found out that,in settings an option called Limit CPU Usage is checked to reduce battery consumption, hence the experience is not as smooth as say, Moto G. You can always uncheck it, though it drains battery faster.nn# Camera in reality performs like a 5MP, Pictures taken by Moto g and Alcatel is almost similar. One tip to improve Camera performance is avoid full screen mode ie 16:9,There is a lot of softness around the edges.In normal 4:3,Images looked better.But say samsung galaxy grand 2 can take way better photos than this one. Video recording is somewhat better but colors are over saturated. The flash is too weak,weakest i have seen,Moto G's Flash was 3 times more powerful than this.nn# Battery, This is the Achilles heel of alcatel one touch,Battery drains very Fast when the display is on,i Guess that nice bright display takes quite a lot of juice to run. In Standby it is OK. Again comparison with Moto G is inevitable. Moto G has double the battery longevity even though it is fitted with a lesser powered one.nn# Body is very Thin, Light Weighted.Mi3 in comparison is difficult to handle single handedly. Dimensions are also very Compact. Also I think that this phone is extremely fragile. My Moto G suffered several falls and came out unscathed, But i don't think One touch Idol X+ will survive a fall.nnEdit: The camera is actually better than moto G's,Given the right situation,it can take some decent shots.There is a heating issue also,if you run any intensive task for 3 mins the area beneath the camera heats up. No network issues so far, Call sound quality is better than Moto G. Strength of vibration alert is weak that you might miss a call or two.nnEdit2: Kitkat Update, After kitkat update,1.2 GB RAM is free always.Graphics performance got slightly improved. App drawer scrolling has become perfectly smooth,no lags what so ever. Camera interface has changed,cant say about any improvement in photo quality as of now. Battery life has definitely Improved,not by a huge margin though.nKitKat update means this phone deserves 5 stars.nnEdit 3: Many guys here complained about the lack of stereo speakers. In reality Alcatel one touch idol X+ has only one speaker with a pair of grills in the bottom side. One grill houses the microphone while the other houses loud speaker. When Alcatel says JBL branded stereo speakers, they mean the headphones. nnEdit 4: Android kitkat Features a brandnew runtime called ART as an option to the age old Dalvik.While android kitkat was launched it wasnt completely tested and from Lollipo onwards ART becomes android's default runtime. ART is going to be the reason why android is going to match or even surpass the fluidity of iOS.ART can be enabled in the developer options of KitKat. I am seeing significant improvements in batterylife.

First of all, there are a lot of people rating and reviewing this who have not even bought the phone and are merely reviewing it from seeing the specs, so, most of them are not accurate.nI bought the phone two days back and Flipkart delivery was really awesome, got it in one day.nNow coming to the phone itself :-nDISPLAY:-nThe display is pretty good. Though its not the same as the high end sony or apple phones, for its price range the display is really good. Moreover, there are settings where the saturation and hue can be adjusted, pretty good stuff. The UI is also quite decent and if you dont like the UI there are sufficient launcher apps and themes which can be installed. I also got a software update as soon as I switched on the wi-fi. Videos play seamlessly and pictures look good.nCAMERA:-nOK, the 13 mp is not really the same as a nokia 13mp, but on the other hand its not as terrible as people are making it out to be. I clicked quite a few pics, both in sunlight and flash and the pictures came out quite good. The camera does have some options but its not as many options as available in other phones. But there are lots of apps for camera, so that won't be much of a problem.nPROCESSOR SPEED:-nI could easily run parallel apps, music playing in the background while browsing the net etc., and the basic games such as temple run, candy crush etc., work without glitch. I haven't downloaded any high end games yet. The phone comes preloaded with asphalt 7 and it runs quite well. nLOOK AND FEEL:-nThe phone definitely has premium looks, no questions about it. Though one thing to keep in mind, the screen is smear-resistant, no finger prints on the screen, BUT the backpanel is a fingerprint magnet. Another sad part is that the power button is top, of a 5" phone, so its kinda irritating to lock and unlock while holding in one hand(unless you have a really huge hand)nAUDIO:-nThe JBL earphones are the DEAL! they are extremely good for the price range and the phone has HiFi sound. For 17k the phone is totally worth every buck when it comes to audio.nBOOM BAND:-nIts not a smart watch or anything, It is a simple band with limited functions - a) Pedometer - counts the number of steps b) alarm c) phone locator d) sleep timer e) call notification. Its skyblue color and cant wear it to office and all. Can be used while running and stuff though. Secondly it operates on bluetooth, so naturally affects the battery. its kinda fun, not much use unless u r a regular athlete and its worth it only because it comes for free.nBATTERY:-nDecent battery. Lasted almost an entire day with non-stop usage. But as the battery is sealed, only time will tell as to how it will perform over the long run. nOVERALL:-nFor 17k this phone is a steal. it definitely looks and feels more expensive. The add-on goodies are not much, but definitely add to the value. None of the other phones in the same price range are as good. Only the service network is doubtful and that is a risk.