Back in April, TCT Mobile the brand manufacturer of Alcatel OneTouch launched bunch of Smartphones in the Philippines. We got hold of the Alcatel OneTouch Scribe Easy last week, and here’s our quick review.
Design and Build
Presentable and looks very decent; will pass as premium smartphone with a metallic-shining border in front, a scratch-less glass, and the back is curved with a soft touch feel almost like a rubberized finished which becomes easy to hold. “Easy” is a dual-SIM smartphone.
“Easy” is a 5-inch less-powered Smartphone, with only 512MB RAM but runs on an Android 4.1.2 Jellybean. It is has a non-removable 2500mAH battery. The top has power button and the 3.5mm audio port, the left side is the microSD and SIM2 slot, on the right side is SIM1 card slot and the volume rocker.
The unibody design is becoming common nowadays, but I dont have problem with that since I have learned to manage the battery life of “Easy”.
UI, Jellybean, Apps and Display
“Easy” is loaded with almost stock Android OS but Alcatel has managed to add their little tweaks and apps like One Touch Radio, One Touch Media Share, One Touch Backup, Scribe Calculator and Scribe Note. “Easy” is being positioned with a touchpen, but the one shipped to me does not included one. And even if you have a touch pen, you have to keep it on a separately.
Most of the time “Easy” was acting slow and I noticed lags in almost all apps that I used, this is because of the 512MB RAM that was forced to run JellyBean.
With the 5-inch TFT display and a resolution of 480 x 800, “Easy” is good for viewing movies and photos, credits to the large screen however on a sunny day, even if brightness is set to maximum, “Easy” will shy away, you need to cover it for you to see the screen.
Camera and MultiMedia
I am a photographer, I shoot with my DSLR but I like carrying smartphone with good camera, I can manage to take good photos, most of them I used for publishing in my blogs, “Easy” gave me good results using the 5MP camera specially shooting outdoors and indoors with good lighting conditions. But don’t dare using it on low lighting like parties and events in the evening, you will be disappointed.
I dont use my phone as MP3 player or video player, but as part of the review I tried playing couple of songs and full movie clip. It plays just well with a little lag to load your songs and movie, but once it started, it goes on with no issues at all. Ohh, please use your earphones here. Audio playback won’t make you happy.
Sample Photos taken by Alcatel OneTouch Scribe Easy
With a little enhancements techniques it will create really nice print-grade photos, but don’t rely on a low light environment, you will get really disappointed.
There are more sample photos in my Flickr account, you may proceed to this link.
Sample Videos taken by Alcatel OneTouch Scribe Easy
I did not like the audio quality presented by this smartphone, but if you are using this for some fun like taking video clips for your social media networks, it can do the job. Video quality is not impressive though.
Peformance, Battery Life and Benchmarks.
Let the screen captures tell you the stories.
Battery life gave us good results though, a whole day usage with little usage of mobile internet.
Over-all OneTouch Easy wasn’t very impressive, it gave us sluggish performance, I even got few apps crashing, but not all are into the bad side. Camera and video playback is cool, on a bright well-lighted room it takes good photos, movie playback is also awesome with your headset on.
Alcatel One Touch Scribe Easy Specs:
– 5-inch WVGA TFT display w/ 480×800 pixels, 187ppi
– Qualcomm MSM8225 Snapdragon 1.2GHz dual-core CPU
– 512MB RAM
– 4GB internal memory, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
– WiFi 802.11b/g/n, WiFi hotspot, WiFi Direct
– Bluetooth 4.0
– GPS w/ A-GPS support
– 5 MP camera w/ LED flash, 720p video recording @24fps
– VGA front-facing camera
– Android 4.1.2 Jellybean
– 2500 mAh battery
– 143 x 78.4 x 9.8mm
– 162g
We liked,
– 5-inch diplay,
– looks
– decent battery life
– cameraWhat we didn’t like,
– slugish
