Alcatel One Touch Fierce Review

Introduction:

When it comes to low-to-mid-range smartphones, there are a lot of choices, and it seems like there is always a new model coming out. That’s what we have here with the Alcatel One Touch Fierce, which is available from T-Mobile for $164 full retail, or $20 down and $6 per month for 2 years under their Simple Choice Plan. This places it at an affordable price for a quad-core smartphone with a 4.5” display. Alcatel also offers the One Touch Evolve at only $100 full retail, though its specs aren’t as good as the One Touch Fierce we have here.

Included in the retail package is the Alcatel One Touch Fierce smartphone with an 1800mAh internal battery, wall charger with microUSB cable, and user guides.

Design:

The overall design and feel of the Alcatel One Touch Fierce is pleasing, as it fits comfortably in the hand – not too big or too small – with a weight of only 4.59oz, and the soft-touch coating on the rear battery cover provides a nice textured grip. Even though it’s made from plastic throughout, it seems well constructed and should hold up to normal daily usage.

Above the display is a standard VGA camera (0.3MP) that can be used of self-pics or video chatting, and under the display are three capacitive buttons for back, home, and recent apps. Missing is the separate “settings” button, this is done by long-pressing recent apps button. We would have preferred having a fourth capacitive button.

Up on top is a 3.5mm headset jack with the power/lock key, and on the right side is the volume rocker, though it feels a bit flat and hard to distinguish from the surrounding plastic. Around on the bottom is the microUSB port, and on the rear is the 5MP camera with LED flash. Removing the rear cover will allow access to the SIM card slot and microSD memory card slot. Even though you can see the battery, it is “built-in” and is not removable by the user, which means you don’t have the option of having a spare battery to use.

Display:

Our first main complaint about the Alcatel One Touch Fierce is with the LCD display quality, or lack thereof. Even though it comes in at a nice 4.5” size, it has modest resolution - 540x960 pixels (qHD) resulting in 245 ppi. It's main problem is the image quality though - colors are blue-shifted, which gives the screen an unnatural blue tone to it; making it unpleasant to look at. Furthermore, you have to look at the display head-on, as viewing from even the slightest angle will cause the brightness and contrast greatly diminish. Outdoor visibility is also an issue, as even with the brightness manually turned all the way up, the display was still difficult to see in sunlight.

Interface and Functionality:

For Android purists, the Alcatel One Touch Fierce comes running pretty close to stock Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. It lacks any themes or involved customizations, which one would see on a Samsung, HTC or LG device.

In fact, the only real addition is a small selection of T-Mobile widgets and apps, including a Mobile Hotspot, News and Weather, FM Radio, Lookout Mobile Security, T-Mobile My Account, Name ID, and T-Mobile TV. With the TV app (and 30 day trial) you can view live channels such as FOX News, Disney, ESPN, and ABC.

Everything else is pretty much standard, including the Calendar, E-Mail, and G-Mail apps.

Camera:

The camera’s user interface is one area that is not stock Android, as you have different modes to choose from, including normal, HDR, face, panorama, time-laps, smile detection, as well as scenes (auto, night, sunset, etc), flash, color effects, white balance, ISO, and resolution.


Regarding the 5MP camera, it is fixed-focus, meaning it does not auto-focus like most other smartphone cameras. Because of this, you need to be at least 6 feet from the subject, otherwise they will look blurry. Images that we took outside on a sunny day are a bit of a disappointment (are you noticing a trend here?) as colors look muted and overall dark at times, instead of being bright and true-to-life. Image detail was also lacking, as pictures were generally soft and fuzzy, instead of sharp and crisp. Inside images continued this trend, and with lower light levels more grain and “fuzziness” is visible. Still, images are usable and OK compared to other budget phones. The LED flash is a bit of a joke, as it doesn’t really illuminate a scene, and instead gives everything a blue hue.

Call Quality:

Here we go again. The overall call quality on the Alcatel One Touch Fierce is mediocre at best. On our end, voices sounded a bit muted, but there was a constant “rattling vibration” that could be heard through the earpiece speaker, even at lower volumes, but would become more noticeable at high volumes. People that we called said that we sounded OK on their end, but again was a bit muted and “choppy”, as they could easily tell we were using a cell phone.

Battery:

The internal 1800 mAh battery is rated to provide up to 7 days of standby time or 8 hours of talk time. During our testing, we were only able to get about 6.5 hours of continuous talk time, or about 1 day of mixed usage on a full charge. And since the battery is not accessible, you can’t use an extra battery or an extended battery.

Conclusion:

Even though the Alcatel One Touch Fierce has an attractive price point of $164, and is a moderately attractive smartphone, we just can’t get past the issues that we had with the device. Even though the display is good size at 4.5", the consistent blue-hue and poor viewing angels makes us not even want to look at it. The 1.2 GHz quad-core MediaTek processor is sluggish and feels like it belongs in a device from several years ago, while the 5MP camera lacks auto-focus, and pictures may look dull and lifeless. To top that off, call quality isn’t that great, and the rattling vibration in the earpiece speaker makes you want to end the call as quickly as possible.

Software version on the tested device:
Android 4.2.2
Kernel Version 3.4.5
Build Number L2HUMH2