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Alcatel Flash Plus in the flesh, first impressions

As the May launch of the Alcatel Flash Plus draws near, we’re still uncertain as to the final details of its arrival. Fortunately, we were able to snap a few photos and played with a sample unit a couple weeks back.

Originally released in China under a different name (TCL), the Alcatel OneTouch Flash Plus is a more beefed up version of the older Alcatel OT Flash with more RAM and storage.

Yugatech 728x90 Reno7 Series

alcatel-flash-plus

The Flash Plus is reminiscent of the OneTouch Idol series of Alcatel from many years back, only this time it is way bigger. It has a solid build quality with a toned down design, rounded corners and curved edges.

The front panel is fully covered with Dragontrail Glass with the backlit navigation buttons found at the bottom. The bezels are a bit thick, perhaps almost similar to the 3.1mm of the Zenfone 2.

alcatel-flash-plus-philippines

The back portion is flat, with a smooth matte finish in light gold tone. The rear camera protrudes just a tiny bit from the surface with a single LED flash just below it along with the OneTouch logo.

The loudspeaker is at the very bottom end, the volume controls on the right side and power button just below it.

Alcatel’s own UI looked simple and flat with no app drawer to speak of, just a bunch of folders to organize the apps by category. This implementation is similar to the Emotion UI of Huawei. With a 64-bit octa-core processor and 2GB of RAM, the device feels very snappy and responsive. Initial shots we took using the camera showed good results.

I am told that the unit will come with Kitkat right out of the box but will probably be getting Android 5.0 Lollipop a month or two after. So far we’ve already confirmed the hardrware specs below.

alcatel-flash-plus-review

Alcatel OneTouch Flash Plus specs:
5.5-inch IPS LCD @ 720×1280 pixels, 268ppi
Dragontrail Glass, Japan OGS full lamination
Mediatek MT6752M 1.5GHz octa-core processor
Mali T760 MP2 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
up to 32GB via microSD
USB OTG support
Dual-SIM, Dual-LTE, FDD/TD-LTE
13MP rear camera with Sony IMX214 1/3.06-inch CMOS sensor, LED flash, f2.0
8MP front-facing camera, f2.0
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS with aGPS support
Li-Ion 3,500mAh battery
Android 4.4.4 Kitkat (upgradeable to Lollipop)
152.10 x 76.20 x 8.10mm (dimensions)
150 grams (weight)

The Flash Plus uses a Mediatek MT6752 which is a 64-bit octa-core 4G LTE chip based on the ARM Cortex-A53 processor with ARM Mali-T760 graphics. It has a maximum core speed of 2.0GHz but in the case of the Flash Plus, they underclocked it to just 1.7GHz to allow for better battery efficiency.

Our benchmark results showed really good scores with Antutu putting the top marks at 43,519 and Quadrant at 20,249 (more results here).

The Antutu score of 43,519 is pretty impressive — it sits between the 1.8GHz Z3560 of the Zenfone 2 ZE550ML at 42k and the 2.3GHz Z3580 of the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML at 45k.

Our discussion with Alcatel representatives pegged the price at Php6,990. It will be available in both slate and gold colors.

Update: Lazada will be selling the Flash Plus exclusively starting May 15 with a suggested retail price of Php6,490 for the 16GB slate color variant.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

80 Responses

  1. Avatar for akuma akuma says:

    Killer phone or beast phone?
    Well played for both alcatel and lazada.

  2. Avatar for Frodo Frodo says:

    Is there anywhere else to get this phone than thru lazada?

  3. Avatar for Kevz Kevz says:

    @Yugatech false review about 1.7Ghz, bakit sa lazada 1.5Ghz???? Wow.. Just wow.

  4. Avatar for donbatag donbatag says:

    Rebrand ata to, waiting ng once touch idol 3

  5. Avatar for El Gamma Penumbra El Gamma Penumbra says:

    Anong mas ayos? Zenfone 2 or Alcatel Flash Plus?

  6. Avatar for KapaCitivo KapaCitivo says:

    May capacitive button pa rin, saiyans.

  7. Avatar for Pres. Noynoy Aquino Pres. Noynoy Aquino says:

    So kasalanan ko na naman ito?

  8. Avatar for xn2015 xn2015 says:

    I’d really love to see image quality of this, especially the front cam. :-)

    I’m still using my Omega XL (by Cherry), it still is pretty much working but I feel na medyo nagpaparamdam na sya. Lol. But I was eyeing Zenfone 2 pero parang di ako convinced sa front cam nya. Wala pa kasi akong nakikitang on the cheaper side na comparable sa front cam ng OXL.

    Hoping hoping talaga. If maganda to, then bibili ako. Dami pa namang devs pag Alcatel. :)

  9. Avatar for kelvin kelvin says:

    How good is it’s camera? Main and secondary.

  10. Avatar for mac mac says:

    may knock2x code ba to, yung gesture2x ganun?para i turn on yung phone? thanks

  11. Avatar for kazuya kazuya says:

    I’m pretty much excite on this new device. Will it really be released on May 1?

  12. Avatar for klky klky says:

    waw. ayos to pang upgrade ng zf2 ko..

    ang gusto ko lang malaman kung meron tong notification LED at kung okay sa mata ung 268 ppi nya.. meron din kayang OTA updates to gaya ng asus?

  13. Avatar for asd asd says:

    This might be a good deal but I’m doubting the display quality. It looks like a low quality IPS screen or a high quality TN panel which is equally bad, but judging from just an image I might be wrong. I have to see this in person.

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