Alcatel One Touch Idol 3 hands on and first look

We’re here at Mobile World Congress 2015, where we’ve seen all sorts of excellent devices from Samsung, HTC, Sony and countless others. We aren’t leaving the smaller players in the industry out though, as we spent a little time hanging out with Alcatel ahead of the start of MWC. While there, we had the opportunity to check out the Alcatel One Touch Idol 3. With that in mind, here’s our first look at the One Touch Idol 3.

The Idol 3 comes in two different variants, a 4.7-inch model and a 5.5-inch model. Both phones carry over the same aesthetic and many of the same features, though the 4.7-inch version has a smaller battery, lower resolution display and a few other changes. During our hands-on time with the Idol 3, we decided to focus most of our time on the bigger model of the two.

The first thing you’ll notice is the phone has a very simple and minimalistic design that’s entirely made of plastic, but feels great in the hand and is very light in weight.

Turning to the specs, the Idol 3 5.5-inch variant offers a 1.5GHz octa-core Snapdragon 615 and packs 2GB RAM. There’s also 16GB storage, a 1080p display, microSD, a 2910 mAh battery, and an 8MP front cam. For those wondering, the 4.7-inch version has a 720p display, a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 410 with 1GB RAM, a 2000 mAh battery, 16GB storage, and a 5MP front cam.

Moving on to software, you’ll find Android 5.0 Lollipop with Alcatel’s slight customizations on top. This means you aren’t getting stock Android, but it’s not too far off and retains a lot of the design language you’d find with a stock offering. Some of the stand-out software additions include the ability to swipe over to the left most screen to get to the Touch Stream. Here you’ll find weather, news, calendar and things of that nature.

However, the feature that really stood out to me was Alcatel’s Mix application. This app takes advantage of the dual front facing speakers and lets you mix tracks. Basically, Mix lets you become sort of a makeshift DJ. Certainly a unique feature, and one that’s complimented by fairly loud speakers that deliver a rather high quality sound.

As far as pricing is concerned, Alcatel will offer the Idol 3 4.7-inch for less than $200, and the 5.5-inch for less than $250. No exact details on launch date, but expect the device to land sometime in Q2 of this year.

So there you have it – a quick look at the Alcatel One Touch Idol 3! Stay tuned with Android Authority as we continue to bring you more great coverage from MWC 2015!