Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: How good can a £59 smartphone be?

Its been over a year since I reviewed the Alcatel Pixi 4 (5), and since its competitors have dropped in price, while the Pixi is now becoming increasingly hard to source. SO, how does it stack up against its rivals, and is the £59 smartphone worth considering? Here's my original review below, with updated pricing details.
The Alcatel Pixi 4 5045X is a 5in quad-core smartphone that comes with 4G connectivity, Android 6 Marshmallow and a microSD card expansion slot. That much isn’t unusual; it’s the price that sets the eyebrows rising, because this is usable smartphone that can be bought for a mere £59. That’s £100 cheaper than our favourite “budget” smartphone, the Moto G4.
The Pixi 4 comes in different sizes and specifications, but Alcatel hasn’t made it easy to distinguish between the different models. There’s the Alcatel Pixi 4 (4), the Pixi (5) and the Pixi (6), all of which have different screen sizes and internals. To make it even more confusing there are also 4G and 3G models of the Pixi 4 (5). Here, I’m reviewing the Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) 5045X 4G-enabled model.

Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Price and competition

You can find the Pixi 4 (5) 4G for around £55 at Argos, from EE for around £60 and for around £49 through GiffGaff.
Its main competitor is the excellent Vodafone Smart Prime 7, a now £50 smartphone, though, it is locked to Vodafone's network.
READ NEXT: Vodafone Smart Prime 7 review - a real bargain
Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Build quality
The Pixi (5) has a 5in display, which to me, is about the right size for media browsing, videos and one-handed operation. However it is a tad heavy, weighing 148g, and a touch thick at 9.5mm from front to back, so it isn’t the most comfortable thing to hold.
The front bezels are acceptably thin, with three touch capacitive buttons found below the screen. You’ll find a microUSB charging and data port at the bottom, volume rocker and power button on the right, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the phone.

The rear cover of the phone is made entirely out of plastic, and can be popped off where you’ll find a removable 2,000mAh lithium-ion battery, micro-SIM and microSD storage slots.
I should also mention that the phone’s sound quality is acceptable, with its single front-facing speaker delivering acceptable levels of volume.
Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Display
With a 5in display, I’d expect the phone to have a 720p (720 x 1,280) screen, but unfortunately with the Pixi 4 you’re left with a rather disappointing 480 x 854 resolution, resulting in a low pixel density of 196ppi.
In comparison, the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 has a 5in 720p screen with a pixel density of 293ppi. This means you won’t be watching those YouTube videos in HD, and you’ll be able to see pixelated text when reading the news (or this review).
With a 356cd/m2 brightness, the Pixi 4 (5) is bright enough to be used outdoors, but it isn’t bright enough to read in blazing sunlight. If you’re looking to watch movies on the device, you’ll find its screen size acceptable, but the low resolution and 70.6% sRGB coverage, mean images look grainy and and a touch dull.
At maximum brightness, it has an underwhelming 0.40cd/m2 black level, too, and the 868:1 contrast ratio isn’t wonderful. Given the price, I’d expect something a little below par, but it’s quite a bit worse than the Vodafone Smart Prime 7. Also worth noting is that colours do shift when you view the screen from different angles.

Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Software
The good news is that the phone comes with Android 6 Marshmallow on board. While this isn’t the very latest version of Google’s mobile OS, it’s still pretty good. Android 6 is easy to use and has a slick interface that’s responsive even on the Pixi 4’s lowly hardware.
Better still, you’re not hit with a lot of bloatware from Alcatel or an over-weaning Android skin. However, it does come pre-installed with Alcatel’s OneTouch Launcher, but this can easily be changed. Other than a handful of forced-system apps, the Pixi 4 (5) provides a pure Android experience, which is always refreshing to see. As with any stock Android device, however, you the entire suite of Google apps, including Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Google Drive (among others) is pre-installed.
Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Performance

The Pixi 4 is a budget phones, and it didn’t surprise me to see it perform like one. Housing a quad-core, 1GHz MTK6735M Mediatek processor and a mere 1GB of RAM, it only managed a score of 416 in our Geekbench 4 single-core tests and 1,173 in the multi-core
Putting this into perspective, the Samsung Galaxy J5 managed 555 and 1948 respectively, while the mid-range OnePlus 3T manages an impressive 1,903 and 4,274 in these tests. This means if you plan on opening many apps and running Chrome with multiple tabs, you’ll find yourself frustrated.
Gaming results were rather poor, too, with GFXBench recording a score of 5.4fps at native resolution. Again, however, that’s nothing out of the ordinary at this price; in comparison, the Vodafone Smart Prime 7 achieved 4fps in this test, primarily due to the higher resolution screen placing more strain on its weak graphics chip.
Finally, to battery life, which is the Pixi 4’s weakest suite. Unlike the Vodafone Smart Prime 7, which was reasonably impressive, the Pixi 4 (5) managed only 8h 17m. If you’re a heavy smartphone owner, you may want to look elsewhere.
Alcatel Pixi 4 (5) review: Camera

I was also less than impressed with rear-facing 5-megapixel and front-facing 2-megapixel cameras. With or without flash the Pixi 4 struggled taking acceptable photos, with noise spoiling every shot.
When testing its colour accuracy, I found the Pixi 4 (5) had slightly washed out colours, while it was also unable to cope with background shadows, unless your object is well lit.
To add more concerns about its camera, I was unable to touch-to-focus, meaning it had a continuous auto focus that can be a problematic when trying to record fast moving objects.
Despite its shortcomings, the Pixi 4 (5) isn’t awful and for £59 it’s ludicrously cheap for a 5in 4G-enabled smartphone. Performance is respectable for basic tasks, and screen is fine, too.
If you’re looking to watch a lot of content on your smartphone and enjoy taking photographs, however, I’d suggest investing in the Vodafone Smart Prime 7, instead. That phone offers all these features, has nicer build quality and significantly better battery life and a nicer camera. It used to cost £10-15 more, but since has dropped to around the same price as the Alcatel, making it a significantly better buy.
Enabling HDR mode improved things a little, but no matter what the conditions, the Pixi 4’s photos looked grainy and murky, and to make matters worse, you can’t touch-to-focus, meaning you have to rely on the camera software to pick the right spot to focus on. This, I found, was hit and miss.


Come back soon for more news from Anymobilesmartphone

Samsung’s future smartphones may have displays on the back

Samsung’s future smartphones.

One way to increase the screen size on future flagship phones may be to place a display on the rear panel. The secondary screen would offer users access to notifications no matter how the device is positioned on a flat surface, as well as a touchpad-like area that may be used to control the action on the main screen.

Samsung is considering such smartphone designs, according to a newly discovered patent that offers such smartphone design suggestions.

We’ve already seen similar design concepts in patents belonging to Apple, which is also toying with iPhone design that would feature a wraparound display. Just like Apple’s concepts, there’s no telling whether future Samsung Galaxy S or Note models will ever take advantage of wraparound display tech.

The idea does make some sense. As it stands now, the only way to increase the screen of a Galaxy S or Note without expanding the overall footprint of the phone would be to cut the top and bottom bezels. Extending the display area to the back could help out with smartphone interaction. Rather than having to control the screen with a thumb of the hand you’re holding the phone with, you could do it via a rear-facing touch area. Would it be more convenient? It depends on the kind of content you’re trying to interact with.

Samsung offers other use case scenarios in its illustrations. For example, the rear-facing display would show notifications, and let users quickly answer or reject an incoming call in those instances when a phone is placed face down on a table or desk. But then again, picking up the phone to answer isn’t exactly a chore.

Perhaps the best way to further increase a phone’s screen without increasing the size is to develop screen technology that would let a screen bend like a wallet. That way, you’d be able to switch between smartphone and tablet modes depending on what feels more comfortable. Samsung, of course, has patents for such devices as well.

Come back for the very latest Smartphone Vizaviznews 

Anymobilesmartphone 

Huawei's US smartphone deal collapses

Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei says it has not been able to strike a deal to sell its new smartphone via a US carrier.

It was widely reported to have been in talks to release its flagship Mate 10 Pro device with AT&T.

But in a letter seen by Reuters, politicians scuppered the deal citing security concerns.

The snub would be the latest example of a Chinese firm struggling to do business in the US.

Last week the US blocked the $1.2bn (£880m) sale of money transfer firm Moneygram to China's Ant Financial, the digital payments arm of Alibaba.

It was the highest profile Chinese deal to be rejected by Washington since Donald Trump came to power.

'Unique challenges'

Huawei's chief executive officer Richard Yu told an audience at the CES tech fair in Las Vegas that plans to tie up with a US carrier "unfortunately" had not come to fruition. 

He did not comment on why a deal was not forthcoming, but said it was "a big loss for consumers, because they don't have the best choice for devices," Techcrunch reported.

The Mate 10 Pro - Huawei's main competition against Apple's iPhone and Samsung's high-end handsets - will still be on sale in the US via sites such as Amazon.

But deals with carriers are important in the US because the majority of smartphones are purchased through carriers. 

"The US market presents unique challenges for Huawei, and while the Huawei Mate 10 Pro will not be sold by US carriers, we remain committed to this market now and in the future," Huawei said.

According to Reuters, AT&T was pressured to pull out of the deal after 18 members of the US Senate and House intelligence committees signed a letter to regulators expressing concerns about Chinese companies getting involved in US telecoms.

The letter notes worries over "Chinese espionage in general, and Huawei's role in that espionage in particular".

In 2012, a US congressional panel said Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE should be barred from any mergers and acquisitions because the two firms posed a security threat to the US. 

Huawei is the world's number three smartphone brand behind Apple and Samsung.

Samsung’s future US smartphones will have active FM radio chips

Samsung’s future US smartphones will have active FM radio chips

Samsung’s future smartphones will have unlocked, activated FM radio chips, according to the company behind terrestrial radio mobile app NextRadio. According to TagStation, Samsung has confirmed that its future smartphones in the United States and Canada will have active FM chips, enabling handset owners to listen to their local radio stations. This follows the FCC’s recent call for phone makers to support FM radio.

FM radio has increasingly fallen out of favor among casual smartphone owners who would rather use one of the big streaming services.

 These streaming services offer many, many features that FM radio can’t — on-demand access, a lack of advertisements, control over what plays, and more — but there’s one important thing they can’t provide: access to information when the Internet is down.

FM radio is freely accessible to anyone who has the proper equipment to pick it up; it doesn’t depend on the Internet and can reach rural areas where broadband may not even be available. For that reason, terrestrial radio remains a key component in the nation’s emergency alert system; it is a solid way to transmit important information, such as storm warnings and situation updates, to individuals who don’t have Internet access for one reason or another.

Despite this, many smartphones no longer offer access to FM radio — some because they entirely lack the hardware to do so, but others because the FM radio chip is disabled. In the latter case, the FCC said in February 2017 that it wants smartphone makers to activate the FM hardware in their handsets so that consumers have immediate, easily carried access to local radio stations.

More recently, FCC chairman Ajit Pai made a slight embarrassment of himself by calling on Apple to unlock the FM chips in iPhone handsets. The problem with that dramatic request was simple: starting with the iPhone 7 onward, Apple’s smartphone it does not have any FM radio chip one wonders why ? 

Samsung, however, plans to include FM chips in its future smartphones, according to TagStation, which owns the NextRadio app. Mobile users can access local radio stations with NextRadio, which is free to download from the big app stores. Motorola, LG, and Alcatel are among the smartphone companies that will offer FM radio access on their phones.

Come back soon to read more on the very latest Smartphones news from the world wide Vizaviznews channel 

Anymobilesmartphone

beats Apple and Samsung to 2018’s top smartphone feature

The first smartphone with an in-display fingerprint sensor is here. It comes not from Apple, nor Samsung, but from Chinese manufacturer Vivo.

The little-known firm has deployed the recently revealed Synaptics optical sensor within a 6-inch handset, which it’s showing off at CES - 2018

The 6-inch bezel-less smartphone, which doesn’t appear to have a name yet, makes use of the Clear ID FS9500 sensor within an OLED display.

Who’s next?

Over the past 12 months, it was heavily rumoured that both Apple and Samsung were seeking to deploy similar technology.

With the Home button sacrificed for a full-frontal display, Apple reportedly sought to integrate the sensor within the screen itself.

However, speculation suggested Apple was unable to perfect the system in time for the iPhone X launch. The company itself denied it ever planned such a solution.

Whether or not the reports were accurate, the iPhone X now relies solely on the Face ID security tech for biometric security. That hasn’t been popular with all users, many of whom are concerned about the privacy ramifications of facial recognition.

It’s a similar story with Samsung’s latest flagship smartphones, although the Korean firm has shifted the fingerprint sensor to the rear of its devices, rather than dispense with it completely. The positioning has proved unpopular with many Galaxy S8 owners.

It’s unclear yet whether the Galaxy S9 will implement an in-display solution, but recent leaks suggest it’s unlikely. A slight repositioning of the fingerprint sensor – to sit beneath the camera, rather than adjacent to it – appears to be on the cards.

To read more on this keep tuned to Vizaviznews by Anymobilesmartphone 

Samsung Working On New Phone With Two Screens

• A new patent shows three ideas Samsung has for wrapping a display around a smartphone.
• These designs show future smartphones with screens on both the front and back of the phone. 
• Users would be able to view content from either side of the phone. 

Samsung uses curved display technology in phones like the Galaxy S8. Now it's trying to figure out how it's going to use that technology to completely change the way smartphones look in the future.

A patent, recently discovered by the Dutch blog LetsGoDigital, reveals several ideas Samsung has for future smartphone designs featuring a display that wraps around both the front and back of a handset.

The patent was registered at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on January 4 but was originally submitted on April 12, 2017. It includes three device models with different functionalities. 

Here's some of what Samsung may have in store for future smartphones. 

A display that wraps around the right side of the smartphone

LetsGoDigital

The first design shows a smartphone with one continuous display that wraps all the way around the right side of the handset, giving it the look of having two displays on the front and back of the device. This would allow users to have two options for viewing on the device. 

Similar to how a smartphone can switch from portrait to landscape mode depending on how its held, this model can switch viewing positions from front to back depending on how the user is holding the handset. Imagine such a device that would allow multiple users to view the same content from either side of a handset at the same time, rather than huddling around one screen. 

What's New At CES 2018

If you love gadgets, then you'll love the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the wall-to-wall tech expo that happens every January in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This year the show is scheduled to start on Tuesday the 9th of January (through to January 12), and it is already looking like it is going to be the biggest one yet.

So what can you expect? The main event is now just days away, so we're starting to get a good idea of the kind of gear that will be appearing, and the companies that are going to be present this year, including Samsung, Google, LG and Sony.

Smartphones have in recent years not been given much love at CES, given that Mobile World Congress, the largest mobile phone showcase in the tech calendar, is held just weeks after.

Samsung recently announced its new mid-range Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus smartphones, so these could receive some attention. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is slated to make a "cameo" at the event, according to Venture beat although an official launch event for the phone could be several months away.

Dozens of other smaller smart home suppliers with products from smart lights to smart locks will also be appearing to demo their gadgets.

Smartphones

Smartphones have in recent years not been given much love at CES, given that Mobile World Congress, the largest mobile phone showcase in the tech calendar, is held just weeks after.

Samsung recently announced its new mid-range Galaxy A8 and A8 Plus smartphones, so these could receive some attention. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S9 is slated to make a "cameo" at the event, according to CES although an official launch event for the phone could be several months away.

Weird gadgets and plenty of robots

Every year there are plenty of bizarre gadgets making their debut at CES as well as dozens of robots. Last year robots such as the Kuri nanny robot and LG's Hub robot. This year Sony could show off its Bruno pet dog, which it announced last year, although it has only been available in Japan.

Robots often make for exciting headlines, although their uses have often been limited. Many of the robots in previous years have been little more than singing, dancing, Wi-Fi connected tablets with arms.

Anymobilesmartphone

Highlights On New Smartphones 2018

• 18:9 screens became popular in 2017 and should dominate in in 2018
• The Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 will power most flagship phones this year
• Improvements in VR, AR, AI and wireless standards will spark demand

As we all know, every major smartphone manufacturer releases a major new model at roughly the same time every year. We can pretty much guarantee that there will be a Samsung Galaxy S9 releasing at or around the time of next year's Mobile World Congress trade show, with a Galaxy Note 9following in the second half of the year. Similarly, Apple will almost certainly refresh its budget iPhone SE offering early in the year, and trot out its iPhone 8 and iPhone X replacements in or around September. HTC, LG, Sony, OnePlus and Xiaomi will also release new flagships in the first half of the year, depending on when Qualcomm can ship its upcoming Snapdragon 845processor in sufficient volumes.

It's a bit too early to know exactly what shape or form any of these phones will take, though we do have a few leaks that seem legitimate. Apple's products have gone from being some of the most secretively developed in the world to the most widely leaked, and there are strong rumours of three new models in 2018, all designed like the iPhone X. Two are said to have OLED screens and glass bodies, while the third would be a lower cost model with an LCD screen and a metal body in multiple colours. It's likely that all three will have Face ID since there won't be room for a Touch ID sensor.

Samsung is said to be working on an enhanced iris recognition system for its upcoming Galaxy S9, to compete with Apple's Face ID which is much more advanced than anything currently used by Android manufacturers. There could also be a slightly tweaked design, and dual rear cameras. Later in the year, Samsung could be ready with a fingerprint scanner integrated into the screen of its Galaxy Note 9. There's also the promise of the enigmatic Galaxy X, purported to have a huge screen that's bendable enough to allow the entire device to be folded, though you have to wonder if that will be a bridge too far for 2018.

Battery Anxiety

02 has conducted some pretty interesting research regarding Britons' relationship with their smartphone battery life.

According to 02, half (50%) of Brits are suffering from mobile phone battery anxiety, with a quarter (23%) feeling the worry about their battery life draining on a daily basis.

02 dubs the phenomenon 'FoRo' (Fear of Running Out).

Amazingly, Brits that fear being caught out with a flat battery (30%) falls just behind those that fear theft (35%) in the nation’s top mobile phone worries.

The findings are part of O2’s Future of Mobile Life Report, which has been commissioned to explore how advances in mobile technology will affect customers of the future.

As smart phones become an ever-more present part of society, and customers’ demand for data increases, 'FoRo' is only set to grow.

Over two fifths (43%) of respondents admitted that their fears have increased over the last five years, whilst two fifths (40%) of have taken actions into their own hands, carrying at least one portable charger as a backup.

Yet FoRo has split the nation, with the research unveiling particular ‘tribes’:

The Just-in-Timers: As soon as the phone battery icon turns red, anxiety sets in for this tribe which accounts for almost two in five (39%). However, it’s not all doom and gloom as they still get fair warning before completely running out.

The Worriers: These constant worriers never want to be caught out, putting their phone on charge before it even reaches the 50% mark. This constant state of FoRo impacts over a quarter (27%) of the population. When will these companies listen to the public we want batteries that will last for days and days on our Smartphones