The Alcatel Idol 4S is a sign of the times. Rather than coming in a typical cardboard box, the phone is affixed directly inside a companion VR headset. It's also bundled with a bunch of other free accessories including JBL earphones, a collection of Incipio cases, and a tempered glass screen protector.
With all that swag, you might worry Alcatel is trying to distract you from the quality of the phone itself. But the Idol 4S has a sleek glass-and-metal build, a gorgeous Quad HD AMOLED display, and strong overall performance.
If it wasn't for the Alcatel logo on the back, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that the sleek Idol 4S is the successor to the far less glamorous Idol 3. The front and back are both covered in glass, which is held in place by a strip of metal running along the sides.
The back of the phone doesn't feel slippery, though it picks up fingerprints and smudges, so you'll probably want to use one of the cases that it comes with. At 6.06 by 2.97 by 0.28 inches (HWD) and 149-gms, the 4S is remarkably svelte. I had no problem using the phone with just one hand.
You'll find a variety of buttons along the metal edges. There's a volume rocker on the right and a Boom key below that. The Boom key activates several different functions depending on the app you're in. On the home screen it generates live wallpaper effects; using it in racing game Asphalt 8 activates your turbo boost; and tapping it while listening to music or on a phone call kicks up the volume.
The functions are programmable, so you can also have it turn the screen on with one press, take photos with a double press, long press for burst shots, or launch any app on your phone. You can also disable it entirely.
There's a power button on the left, and a combined SIM/microSD card slot below that. The 4S had no trouble working with a 200GB SanDisk card, and Alcatel says it can handle cards up to 512GB. The bottom is home to a micro USB charging port. The back of the phone is made of black glass and features a fingerprint scanner below the camera lens, which works quite well.
The Idol 4S has a gorgeous 5.5-inch 2,560-by-1,440 AMOLED display, which works out to a dense 534 pixels per inch (ppi). It looks both sharper and more saturated than some phones available on the market. Viewing angles are great, and I had no trouble seeing the screen outdoors. Overall, it's as good as any top-tier phone we've tested.
As mentioned earlier, the 4S comes packaged in a VR headset. The headset is made of sturdy white plastic and includes a comfortable, cushioned velcro strap. If you wear glasses you can keep them on, which is a nice selling point compared with alternatives such as Google Cardboard and the Samsung Gear VR.
The headset features two capacitive forward and back buttons on the bottom with haptic feedback. The 4S recognises when it has been placed into the headset and immediately launches into VR mode, which includes Games, Video, Photo, 360-degree Video, 360-degree Photo, a Tutorial, and Littlestar, an app that plays select movies and videos in VR.
There's also a VR Store that essentially pulls VR apps from Google Play. Two games are also preloaded, Lamper VR and Titans of Space. Using the headset was comfortable and intuitive, though the phone will heat up and feel warm to the touch after extended periods of use.
The Idol 4S supports LTE bands in the region as well. We tested the phone on an Etisalat network and it worked well with reception and call quality being good. The phone also supports dual-band Wi-Fi. You also get NFC, which is useful for quick pairing and Android Pay.
Call quality is strong. Transmissions are clear and free from any crackling or distortion. Voices sound natural, and noise cancellation is great at blotting out background noise. The earpiece delivers ample volume; you'll have no problem using it in noisy environments.
Similar to the Idol 3, the 4S features front and back speakers nestled along the top and bottom edges of its frame. As far as phone speakers go, these are positively booming, and more than capable of filling a room with sound.
Wired audio is even better. Plugging in the included earbuds makes for a pleasant listening experience thanks to hi-fi audio. Music sounds excellent, with good bass and clarity across a variety of genres. You can customize sound profiles using the Waves MaxxAudio app, which is a further boon for audio-minded users.
The 4S is powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor. On the AnTuTu benchmark, which tests overall system performance, the phone scored 81,515. Those numbers show that the phone delivers a lot of power.
With 3GB of RAM under the hood, the 4S can handle multitasking without issue. You'll notice occasional sluggishness when playing a high-end game—Asphalt 7 and GTA: San Andreas push the phone to its limits.
Battery life is solid. The phone managed to last for 8 hours of streaming full-screen video over Wi-Fi. You should have no trouble getting a full day's usage out of the phone, and the included adapter supports Quick Charge 2.0, which fully charges the device in 95 minutes.
The 16-megapixel rear camera is quite good, too. It has manual controls, supports 4K video capture at 30fps, and has a bunch of unique modes, including 360-degree video and live photos. Outdoor imagery was good, while we did notice a bit of noise. The 5-megapixel front camera is good enough for shooting selfies.
The Idol 4S comes with Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow onboard and Alcatel has promised that it will get an update to Android 7.0 Nougat. While this is encouraging, fans of stock Android will likely be turned off by Alcatel's heavy UI layer and custom launcher.
I actually like the look. App icons are quite different, as are screen transitions, animations, and the notification shade. And that's not to mention the lock screen images that change every time you turn on the phone, and the wallpaper with live effects.
In addition to the UI overhaul, Alcatel doesn't skimp on additional features. It includes a range of new functions such as gesture controls, drawing on the screen with your finger to launch certain apps, a Glove mode that makes the screen more responsive when you're wearing gloves, and a Reversible mode, in which the phone interface flips when using the phone upside down.
You'll also find a bit of bloatware on the 4S. There's the VR Store, of course, which you can't uninstall. You also can't remove Littlestar, Fyuse, TiZR Lifecasting, and NextRadio. The two VR games can be uninstalled, as can Facebook, SwiftKey, Twitter, and WhatsApp. You're left with 23.53GB of storage available, out of a total of 32GB.
It's not a terribly heavy load, and the phone supports Android's Adoptable Storage, so you can use a microSD card to expand the memory capacity, without having to worry about what's stored in the phone's memory and what's on the card.
The Alcatel Idol 4S is a sleek Android phone with a beautiful display and lots of useful accessories for the price. At $436, it's a relatively affordable way to get into VR. Finally, if you're tired of smartphones that all look, feel, and act the same, the Idol 4S is a breath of fresh air.
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