Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 first impressions

Alcatel OneTouch thoroughly surprised the Android world earlier this year with the release of the Idol 3 5.5. We weren’t blown away with its specs, benchmarks, or flagship killing, but it is a beautifully simple budget phone with a great design that works. There are no gimmicks, and it’s a cheap, well-designed phone that performs.

Back at Mobile World Congress in March, Alcatel OneTouch announced two variants of the Idol 3, with one of the headlining features for both devices their usability upside down (which I guess could be called a gimmick). The Idol 3 5.5, the bigger variant with a 5.5-inch display was released in April. Now, the smaller version, with even less horsepower under hood has been released as the Idol 3 4.7. So, the big question on my mind for Alcatel OneTouch is this: Can lightning strike twice?

Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7-1
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7-2
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7-3
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7-4

Let’s start with the specs:

Network Technology GSM 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSPA+ B1/2/4/5LTE B2/4/5/7/12/17
Dimensions 134.6 x 65.9 x 7.55 mm
Weight 110g (3.88oz)
Display 4.7″ HD (1280×720) TFT-IPS, (312ppi)
Internal Memory 1.5GB RAM + 16GB ROM
Expandable Memory Yes microSD (up to 32 GB)
OS Android Lollipop 5.0.2
Camera 13MP Main Camera w/ Autofocus + 5MP FF
Removable Battery NO
SIM Type Micro SIM
Video Recording 1080p@30fps
Battery 2000mAh
Processor 1.2GHz Quad-Core MSM8916 w/ Adreno 306 400MHz
Sound (Supported Formats) MP3/AMR/MIDI/ APE/AAC/AAC+/FLAC/Hi-Fi Sound/FM Radio RDS/Handsfree/Vibrator
Additional Features Dual Speaker Front Facing Speakers with JBL Audio

What I like:

  • I love the size. Love, love, love the size. I’ve been using the Nexus 6 for several months and I’m not a fan of the size. Using a device this size is a breath of fresh air. It’s so easy to hold and use with one hand. The slippery back issue I had with the Idol 3 5.5 doesn’t matter anymore. The back is made of the same materials, but the size of the phone makes it easily grippable.
  • Performance has been great thus far. I’ve been doing a lot of gaming on the device (NFS Most Wanted, Granny Smith, Hill Climb Racing) without any stutter or lag. If you have another game you like to benchmark performance with let me know.
  • The display. You’d think having about three-fifths the pixel density of the Nexus 6 would bother me, but it’s not. Viewing angles are great, the display gets bright, and 720p looks fine on the 4.7-inch display of the Idol 3 4.7.
  • Unlocked price of $179.99. I like that.
  • Expandable memory. I’ve been a long-time user of Nexus devices without expandable memory and forgot how nice it is to have an extra place to store photos and media content. It’s handy.

What I don’t like

  • I’m disappointed by the speaker sound quality. The Idol 3 4.7 has dual firing front speakers that get loud, but they’re very tinny. I don’t remember this issue with the Idol 3 5.5. Comparing the sound to the now $500 Nexus 6 with dual firing front speakers, the Nexus 6 clearly sounds better.

An obvious competitor to the Idol 3 4.7 is the recently-released Motorola Moto G (3rd Gen.), which offers the exact same unlocked price point of $179.99. The Idol 3 4.7 is smaller in all dimensions including display size, is lighter, and has the dual front JBL speakers. The 2015 Moto G looks like it has two front speakers, but it doesn’t. However, the Moto G does have lots of tricks up its sleeve, like Moto Maker customization, water resistance, and a larger battery. Additionally, the Moto G comes with two memory options: 8 GB of ROM with 1 GB of RAM for $179.99 or 16 GB of ROM and 2 GB of RAM for $40 more. The Idol 3 4.7 comes with one memory option: 16 GB of ROM and 1.5 GB of RAM.

Options are good and both devices have their trade-offs. Both phones have lots of similarities and deciding between them is going to come down to personal preference and overall performance. And as reported, so far performance has been great with the Idol 3.

That’s all I have to report on now. The Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 is available now unlocked for $179.99 on Alcatel’s website as well as on Amazon. So far the Idol 3 4.7 feels like another winner, especially at the size and price point, but I’m not ready to give it my full recommendation yet. Stay tuned in the coming week for a full review of the device. And be sure to let me know if you want anything specific covered in the full review.

Are you in the market for a small budget unlocked device? Do you feel like 4.7-inch is too small? Or do you find smaller devices refreshing in a world of phablets? How does the $180 price point feel to you? Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!

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HTC Desire 626 is now available at Verizon for $192

It’s been known for quite a while that the HTC Desire 626 will eventually be sold by Verizon too in the US. After HTC announced a few mid-range Desire-branded options for that market back in July, Big Red unveiled its plans to stock the Desire 626 alongside the Desire 526 a few weeks ago.

And today the Desire 626 joins the already available Desire 526 in Verizon’s roster. The Desire 626 can be had for just $192 outright.

If you’d rather use the carrier’s installment plan, then you pay $8 per month for the device for 24 months. There’s only one color on offer, namely white with gold accents.

The HTC Desire 626 comes with a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, an 8 MP main camera with LED flash, a 5 MP selfie shooter, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 210 chipset with a 1.1 GHz quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU, 1.5GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, and a 2,000 mAh battery. It runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with HTC Sense 7 UI on top.

Source |…

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Top 10 new Android games this week: Flats, Framed

Welcome back to Android Gaming Weekly, our weekly recap of new game releases. We still plan to cover upcoming releases and games we’re playing, but this column is dedicated to new games that you can start playing right now. Check out our top picks and let us know in the comments section if you have any suggestions for next week’s post.

Merchants of Space

DescriptionBuild and develop your space station, mine resources, trade with astronauts and aliens, challenge your friends in the weekly competitions and be the biggest space merchant ever!

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Free Fur All

Description:  Race for the finish line, spice up your selfies, flip the perfect pancake and more in this collection of We Bare Bear games. It’s a regular Free Fur All!

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Whispering Willows

DescriptionPlay as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solves the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.

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Blitzcrank’s Poro Roundup

Description Blitzcrank must save his fluffy poro friends from Baron Nashor’s belly. Why? Well, because robots have hearts too… or maybe their programming is just telling them that they do. This is getting confusing.

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Lara Croft GO

DescriptionLara Croft GO is a turn based puzzle-adventure set in a long-forgotten world. Explore the ruins of an ancient civilization, discover well-kept secrets and face deadly challenges as you uncover the myth of the Queen of Venom.

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Flats

Description: Flats is a Multiplayer / Singleplayer FPS. Multiplayer : Including Deathmatch,Team Deathmatch,Territories,Capture the Flag, Blow up the Base (Bomb). Singleplayer : Shoot enemies and survive every phase. Enemies become stronger gradually.

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Tales from the Borderlands Pt. 4

DescriptionTales from the Borderlands is a five part episodic game series from the creators of The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead – A Telltale Games Series.

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Rescue Quest

DescriptionJoin two wizard apprentices on an epic quest by matching gems and casting magical spells to help rescue the captured spritelings from a malevolent sorcerer.

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Framed

DescriptionFRAMED is a multi-award winning noir-puzzle game where you re-arrange panels of animated comic book to change the outcome of the story.

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Scribbled Arena – PocketEd

Description  Disguised in the playful doodle is a thrilling multiplayer experience where high skills are rewarded. Take charge of your tank and head-on for real-time challenges with your facebook friends or any other player.

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Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf: llega la primera beta

kubuntu 15.10 beta 1

Tal como estaba previsto, llegó la primera beta de Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf, la cual fue anunciada hace apenas un rato en la lista de desarrolladores por parte de Martin Wimpress. Se trata de una versión de prueba en la cual llegan varias novedades y que sorprende en el sentido de que es bien diferente de acuerdo al sabor de Ubuntu que utilicemos, ya que para casi todas las variantes han habido cambios distintos.

Lo más extraño del caso es que las novedades no abarcan a la versión oficial de Ubuntu, es decir a la que cuenta con el escritorio Unity, sino que estas llegan a algunos de los otros sabores como es el caso de Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Cloud, Kubuntu y Lubuntu. Y antes de detallar lo que le llega a cada una de ellas, recordar que se trata de una beta así que podrá haber algunas cuestiones sin pulir y fallos inesperados, que para eso están las versiones de prueba.

Ubuntu MATE: el escritorio MATE llega a la versión 1.10 para casi todos sus paquetes y librerías (con lo cual finalmente se podrá disfrutar del soporte para pantallas múltiples) y se ha actualizado la herramienta de bienvenida de MATE y la de personalización MATE Tweak Tool. Por otro lado llega una característica muy esperada: se integra la herramienta de backups Deja Dup en el gestor de archivos Caja, y se mejora el soporte para temas al añadir decoración de ventanas del lado del cliente (CSD).

Ubuntu GNOME: llega el escritorio GNOME 3.16 y gran parte de su capa de software, además de la herramienta de inicio de GNOME y GNOME Photos instalado por defecto como la herramienta de gestión de imágenes predeterminada (a pesar de lo cual también se incluye a Shotwell). También llega Bluez 5, pero lo más interesante de esta beta es el hecho de poder disponer de una sesión Wayland, la cual podemos probar al seleccionar ‘Gnome on Wayland’ entre las opciones disponibles en el gestor de inicio.

Xubuntu: aquí lo más destacado es el abandono de Gnumeric y Abiword por LibreOffice Writer y LibreOffice Calc, dos herramientas sin duda de corte más profesional, aunque no han faltado las críticas por el hecho de ser más pesadas, algo que no buscan quienes se decantan por este sabor de Ubuntu. Luego tenemos el escritorio XFCE 4.12.2 y algunos fallos que ya nos advierten en las notas de lanzamiento (por ejemplo, Parole Media Player inicia con una pantalla en negro).

Kubuntu: trae el escritorio Plasma 5.4 (recién salido del horno y del cual nos ha comentado nuestro compañero Joaquín), además de la suite de apps KDE Applications 15.08.

Lubuntu: aquí los cambios son menores, aunque se ha trabajado bastante para mejorar la integración del escritorio LxQt para futuros lanzamientos (ya sabemos que será el escritorio por defecto para este sabor en 16.10).

Descargas

Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 beta 1

Ubuntu Kylin 15.10 beta 1

Kubuntu 15.10 beta 1

Lubuntu 15.10 beta 1

Ubuntu MATE 15.10 beta 1

Xubuntu 15.10 beta 1

Ubuntu Cloud 15.10 beta 1

El artículo Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf: llega la primera beta ha sido originalmente publicado en Linux Adictos.

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An Unchecked IRS Raises The Stakes for Business

As hard as it may be to believe, Microsoft remains in a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over an audit from ten years ago. The extensive audit by the IRS stems over how tax is calculated for income made by Microsoft overseas. Granted Microsoft is large international company with revenues of nearly $94 billion last year and more than $60 billion in cash on its balance sheet at the end of June. Normally, tax law allows three years for an audit to be conducted. In this case, however, the IRS requested the company to waive the time period resulting in an almost decade long audit.

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