Alcatel Idol 4S:come for the hot affordable phone, stay for VR

It's no longer enough to just sell a premium smartphone — even for a lot less than Apple and Samsung — with excellent performance and decent enough cameras.

People are demanding more. They want something beyond the phone experience. 

Some companies like LG, Lenovo and Google think the next big thing for phones is modularity. Samsung thinks it's mobile VR. So too does Alcatel, the TCL-owned company that tried to take on the smartphone kings last year with its excellent, budget-priced Idol 3.

While Alcatel isn't the first company to support mobile VR, it is the first company to sell the phone and the VR headset together in a bundle for an affordable $399.99 ($349.99 if you preorder), which it strongly believes is key to positioning itself as a leader not just in the smartphone space, but in the VR space as well.

The new Idol 4S is everything a successor should be. Alcatel took all of the feedback from the Idol 3, which was already a good phone and addressed practically all shortcomings so as to make it competitive with the other flagships.

First-class design

Alcatel has opted for a Samsung-esque design, sandwiching a metal frame with a bright and high-res 5.5-inch Quad HD glass display with wide viewing angles and a glass back. It's a beautiful phone, with curves and chamfers in all the right places that make its already slim 02.8-inch body look and feel thinner in the hand. You'd never guess it was only $400.

Although the back glass on my review unit developed a few nasty horizontal scratches, I was told by Alcatel it was a pre-production unit and that retail models shouldn't have any scratching issues after daily handling.

Loud, front-facing speakers                   Has a headphone jack  

                  

Like the Idol 3, the power button is still on the upper left side of the device and almost impossible for me to reach unless I'm cradling the phone with both hands. 

There's a new "Boom" key on the right side of the phone where a normal power button would be. This button can be programmed to unlock the screen, but it can't lock the screen back up afterwards, which is kind of silly. 

The Boom key, however, is kind of like the "Active" key on the Galaxy S6 Active and S7 Active in that you can program it to launch an app, launch the camera (and long press to take a burst shot or double press to take a single photo immediately), turn on "Boom effects" or animations on your home screen, or take a screenshot. It takes some getting used to, but it's neat to have a screenshot button and an app shortcut launcher. The latter is my favorite because it launches an assigned app instantly. And I mean instantly. With the Boom key, I basically had a physical button for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter whenever the screen was on; it's pretty cool.

The Idol 4S is one of the few phones that still has two front-facing stereo speakers. For games and movies, it's one of the loudest and clearest.

Around the back is a touch-sensitive fingerprint sensor. It works very well and unlocks quickly even when your finger is wet.

As for cameras, the Idol 4S has a 16-megapixel f/2.0 aperture back camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. For the most part, they take good photos outdoors and average photos indoors and in low light. In the latter two scenes, photos have more image noise than I would have liked. The back camera can't compare to the Galaxy S7's, but it's better than expected at this price point.

The same goes for selfies. They look good and sharp if you're posting them to Instagram or Snapchat, but they're not going to impress when you enlarge them.

Diving into virtual reality

I worried at first that the Idol 4S's Snapdragon 652 processor and 3GB of RAM wouldn't be able to keep up with the faster and more power-efficient Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM in all of the other flagship Android phones. But I was delightfully proven wrong.

The Idol 4S handled all of the regular smartphone activities with flying colors and only ever got warm when I was playing 3D games and leaning on the GPS hard in Pokémon Go.

The phone runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow. And while the UI isn't stock Android, I like that the icons are less cartoony than on the Idol 3. Animations are fluid, apps open up quickly and the UI doesn't get in the way of the operating system. Alcatel is one of very few companies that knows how to make an unobtrusive Android "skin."

The Idol 4S smartly comes with 32GB of internal storage and supports microSD cards up to 200GB. It supports dual nano SIM cards, but you will lose the microSD card slot as the second SIM takes up the same slot.

The real test for the Idol 4S, of course, was using it for VR. Since Alcatel is pushing this whole "VR package" experience, the phone does come with a couple of pre-installed VR and 360-video apps like Littlstar, Titans of Space, and a VR Store app that condenses VR apps into one place from the Google Play Store. Titans of Space is removable but the rest aren't. Honestly, they didn't bug me since they're there to help acclimate beginners with VR content and they're not carrier bloatware apps like those featured on the Moto Z and Moto Z Force.

Prior to testing, Alcatel told me the VR experience they were aiming for with the included VR headset wouldn't be the best, but rather hit a middle ground.

It's better than Google Cardboard, but not as advanced as the Samsung Gear VR. I lowered my expectations accordingly.

What you get is a simple VR experience. When you pop the Idol 4S into the headset (which doesn't connect at all via the micro USB port like the Gear VR does), the VR Launcher app loads up. You'll see a row of icons which you can then select by turning your head left and right and using the two buttons below the headset. 

You can view photos, 360-videos, 2D movies and load VR apps. It's super barebones and you don't get any frills like the fancy virtual movie theaters you get when watching 360/VR videos in the Gear VR, but it's good enough to give you a taste of what VR is.

Obviously, VR experiences hinge on both hardware and software. The Quad HD screen is adequate for viewing VR and definitely better than watching VR on the OnePlus 3's 1080p screen. But the content is still a total crapshoot. Even in the Littlstar app, which curates 360-videos, the quality of each differs (some were sharp and some terribly fuzzy). 

I personally got nauseous quicker using the Idol 4S's VR headset than I did the Samsung Gear VR.

This is an issue for the entire VR industry. Alcatel is merely providing the hardware half of the deal and a little bit of the software through its VR Store discovery app, but it's not producing the VR content that'll blow people's minds.

This is one thing Google's ambitious Daydream program aims to fix. Daydream-certified smartphones, which the Idol 4S isn't, will need to meet a certain hardware standard that will provide VR experiences that won't make people feel sick and apps will need to come with a certain level of polish, too.

A ton of value

Alcatel's Idol 4S and VR headset bundle doesn't promise the most cutting-edge VR experience, but rather a first taste for those who haven't had a chance to try out VR because of all the different parts needed.

Even without the VR headset, the Idol 4S is a standout Android smartphone, especially for $400. In comparison, getting a Galaxy S7 Edge and a Gear VR totals up to almost $900 ($800 if you get the smaller S7). Granted, you will get a better, higher quality VR experience with Samsung's setup. For the person who's interested, but doesn't want to fully commit to VR because it's still a new technology, the Idol 4S and VR headset bundle provides a lot of value for half the price.

Plus, buyers get JBL earbuds, an Incipio protective case for the phone and a 2.5D tempered glass screen protector in the bundle.

Say what you want about Alcatel being a less known brand, but there's no denying the company has big ambitions and a core focus on providing value to its customers. If you've only got $400 to spend, your best options are the Idol 4S, OnePlus 3 and the Axon 7. And only one of these gives you the VR headset and extras for free.