It’s no secret that Alcatel has great plans for its further expansion into Australia, following the announcement earlier this week in Barcelona of the Idol 4 and Idol 4S. While plans for this particular range to come to Australia aren’t yet detailed, it’s likely we will see them, as we’ve seen previous Idols in Australia and they’ve been quite popular.
We were scheduled to visit Alcatel’s booth yesterday, but with the sheer volume of commitments, it didn’t happen quite in that order. However, we swung by the Alcatel booth this morning to take a quick look, and while the hands-on tables were busy, we got to spend a quick bit of time with the Idol 4 (the smaller of the two announced new handsets) just to feel it in the hand and to play with the feel of the operating system.
You’ll have to forgive the lack of audio track; we’re carrying light gear and editing video isn’t within our capability with just a tablet, so while you’re looking at the video, keep this in mind. The Idol 4 felt very, very refined and polished. It was light and comfortable in the hand, very smooth and gently rounded. The software was fast and fluid, and felt very, very capable. Unfortunately there weren’t many apps installed to play with, but the switch from launcher to app drawer and into the settings app was great.
I feel that Alcatel could be onto a winner here, and we look forward to having more time with the device when a localised review unit becomes available. Given Dan’s success with previous Alcatel Idol reviews, I can’t wait to hear his thoughts on this next installment.
They get all this buzz and then it just fizzles out because they have no information on pricing and availability locally. By the time something comes I will be deciding to wait for a new Sony or a new nexus. The market can’t keep working like this the companies have to move quickly