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Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD Review

One of Alcatel’s competitively priced Android offerings is the One Touch Scribe HD. It has a 5-inch HD display, Android Jellybean, a quad-core processor, and a sub-Php14K price tag, to boot. Let’s find out if the Scribe HD is worth every penny by reading our full review.

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Design and Construction

One of the best features of the Scribe HD in terms of design is how slim it is for a 5-incher. It’s not as thin as the 6.5mm One Touch Idol Ultra but at 8.5mm the thinness is very noticeable. The body is made of soft-touch plastic with a curved backside that reminds us of the HTC One X. The sides are bevelled which is more pronounced at the bottom.

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Surrounded by a metallic frame on the front is the 5-inch display, together with the earpiece and 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera. On the right are the microSIM slot and microUSB port, while on the left are the volume rocker and microSD card slot. Right on top is the power/lock button and the 3.5mm headset jack. Found at the bottom is the microphone. Flip it on its back and you’ll see the protruding 8 megapixel camera with LED flash, a secondary microphone and the speaker located on the lower left.

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Overall, the Scribe HD is well-built with a simple yet noticeable design. The bevelled edges and the slim profile feels good in the hands. The only complaint we have are the micro SIM and microSD card slot. The plastic flaps are difficult to pullout if you have short fingernails. The same problem applies when pushing the SIM and microSD card into place.

Display

The Scribe HD is equipped with a 5-inch HD (720 x 1280) IPS LCD screen which equates to a pixel density of 294ppi. Mounted on top if it is a Dragontrail glass for added toughness. We tried scratching and stabbing it with a knife with enough force to scrape paint off a metal and make an ugly dent on a wood. As expected, not even a single scratch.

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The result is a relatively crisp display with good viewing angles and color reproduction. The only thing it’s not good at is repelling finger prints and smudges.

OS, UI and Apps

Running under the hood of the Scribe HD is Android 4.2.1 Jellybean with Alcatel’s UI skin on top. Most of the visual tweaks are made on icons which look like bloated squares. It looks a bit toyish but not at all ugly.

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Along with basic Google Apps, the Scribe HD comes with Alcatel’s own useful apps like the One Touch Cloud Backup, One Touch Media Share, One Touch Radio, Scribe Calculator and Scribe Note.

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The Scribe Note is one of the forefront apps in the Scribe HD. It lets you utilize the stylus that comes with phone’s package to take down notes and do a little scribbling. However, the stylus writing experience is not up to par compared to the Samsung Galaxy Notes. The stylus is not responsive 100% of the time and cannot cope with relatively fast note-taking.

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Other preinstalled apps are present as well like AVG, Kingsoft Office, Skitch, Barcode Scanner, Gameloft Live, and Shark Dash. Good thing these apps can be uninstalled which leaves you with a little more than 2GB of usable internal memory.

Camera and Multimedia

The Scribe HD is equipped with an 8 megapixel AF rear camera with LED flash. It comes with a wide range of features such as HDR, Panorama, Continuous shots, Multi-Angle shots and smile detection. Images taken are very clear and sharp with great colors. Although it shoots quick, the focus feels a bit slow. Indoor shots look good as well but noise starts to become evident. Take a look at the sample images below:

[fancygallery id=”15″ album=”15″]

The camera is also capable of shooting videos of up to 1080p at 30fps and are saved in 3GP format. Alcatel also took hints from HTC and allowed the Scribe HD to shoot stills while recording. Watch the sample video below:

As for its multimedia capabilities, the Scribe HD’s display is perfect for watching movies and videos as well as for browsing pictures. However, we discovered that the speaker’s quality is a bit iffy. At first we thought the speaker is just too weak to our liking when suddenly there’s a burst of loudness that lasted for a few seconds then immediately went back to its low-volume state. This occurs every now and then which is a bit annoying.

Performance and Battery Life

The quad-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and Android Jellybean worked very well in providing a smooth experience when using the Scribe HD. UI navigation is fluid without any noticeable lags and we were able to play Dead Trigger in High settings without any problem.

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We placed the Scribe HD under a series of benchmark tests and here are the results:
* AnTuTu – 13,003
* Quadrant Standard – 3,944
* Vellamo HTML5 – 1,441
* Vellamo Metal – 433
* NenaMark 2 – 45.4fps

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As for battery life, we loaded the Scribe HD with a 1080p movie file and continuously played it on airplane mode with volume set to 0% and brightness on 50%. The result is 7 hours and 36 minutes of continuous playback. Regular usage consisiting of light texting and calling, constant WiFi connectivity and heavy SNS, the Scribe HD can last for a day and a half. With heavy media consumption such as movies with speakers on and heavy gaming, the battery can last 5 to 6 hours.

Conclusion

The Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD is a great offering and even beats the One Touch Idol Ultra in some aspects. It has a good display with large real estate, great performance thanks to the quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM, great battery life, and its cheaper too at Php13,490.

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The only real concern here is the speaker quality. We hope that this is just an isolated case with the review unit we received. Square that away and the Scribe HD becomes an almost perfect candidate for those looking for a budget-friendly 5-incher.

Alcatel One Touch Scribe HD specs:
5″ IPS HD (720 x 1280) display, 294ppi
MTK 6589 Quad-core 1.2 GHz
1GB RAM
4GB internal memory (2GB usable)
microSD up to 32GB
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
Bluetooth 4.0 w/ A2DP
GPS w/ A-GPS support
8MP camera w/ LED flash, 1080p@30fps
1.3MP front-facing camera, 720p
Android 4.2.1 Jellybean
2,500mAh non-removable battery
144 x 75 x 8.5 mm (dimensions)
135g (weight)
Package includes: stylus and magnetic cover

What we liked about it:
* Great HD display
* Good performance
* Good camera
* Slim profile
* Great battery life
* Affordable price tag

What we didn’t like about it:
* Speaker volume issues

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Avatar for Diangson Louie

This article was written by Louie Diangson, Managing Editor of YugaTech. You can follow him at @John_Louie.

45 Responses

  1. Avatar for Carlo Carlo says:

    Which is better the Lenovo that cost 14k or this? My budget is 11-15k. Options are Alcatel Scribe HD, Samsung Grand, Lenovo that cost 14k (sorry forgot the name). I’m actually considerinhg he meizu mx.4 too but widget city hub does not allow walk-in buyers. I’d like to try it first before I buy it. do you have other suggestions? affordable quad core phones I prefer.

  2. Avatar for ybbot ybbot says:

    oo boss kita ko narin yung halos lahat ng review sa net pati yung sa gadgetpilipinas. sakanila ko lang kasi nakita na sinabi yun. gusto ko lang makasigurado. tnx sa reply btw :-)

    • Avatar for anubis anubis says:

      .. available nadin xa dito sa SM davao . tinanong ko yung salesman sa memoxpress . sabi ko kung nkkpag save ba xa ng app directly sa sd card . ang reply nya “lahat nman daw ng smartphone mkkpag save ng apps sa sd -_- di nlng aku umapila kasi wla pdn akung pambili haha .

  3. Avatar for ybbot ybbot says:

    saka di ko rin natanong at for sure hindi rin nila alam kung pede mag install sa external sd card ng apps and games na hindi na i root. may idea ka kung pede? tnx

    • Avatar for anubis anubis says:

      search mu yung review ng gadget pilipinas.. mai default write disk nman daw xa .. mkkapili ka kung san mu iinstall yung apps ..

  4. Avatar for ybbot ybbot says:

    sa sm fairview 15k sya for 6 months installment eh, pag cash daw may bawas yung 15k pero d ko na natanong kung magkano nalang. :-) dun ok naman yung staff nila pinagamit sakin. kaya lang napansin ko parang madilim yung front cam nya maliwanag naman sa loob ng mall? mas ok kaya kung bsi like o+? nkakahiya kc i check ng matagal wala p naman ako pambili.haha sir yuga ok ba yung front cam malinaw naman b pang skype or pics? tnx

  5. Avatar for Carlo Carlo says:

    Is it already available nationwide?

  6. Avatar for magic5 magic5 says:

    Wawa nmn alcatel, ndi pa nga naddisplay unit nla sa shelves andme na kgad lumabas na pang tapat sknla specialy 4 d scribe hd. Sna babaan pa nla ng konti price nla pra mbura na sa market yng mga siraan na unit ng mga rebranded phones na yan!

    Imbes kc na babaan nla ung price eh lalo png tinaasan, d2 sa mga reviews n blogs eh p13,490 ang srp, pro nung nag ask ako sa kiosk nla sa southmall eh p14,990 daw tpos wla png demo unit, ayaw pa ptignan n pa open kung ndi ka bbili on d spot.. tsk2..

  7. Avatar for pastilan pastilan says:

    Too late. Omega HD 2.0 has arrived. Torn between two lovers? Scribe HD or O+ 8.15? OHD 2.0 is wins. same specs but with all toppings like BSI 12MP and a Dragon Trail glass.

  8. Avatar for 'em says:

    Sir – I read this on your previous post…

    http://www.yugatech.com/mobile/alcatel-launches-7-smartphones-a-tablet-for-the-ph/

    “The Glory 2, Sapphire 2 and Inspire 2 will be available on April 29. The Scribe Easy and the Idol Ultra on April 27. The Idol on May 20 and the Scribe HD on May 26.”

    Can you confirm?

    • Avatar for White Knight White Knight says:

      I think the Scribe easy is already available in the market since April. Its SRP pegged at P8,990.00 according to their kiosk. Truly this unit is a hot cake. The 5 inch screen makes it too big for me, that’s why i bought the Sapphire 2 and I didn’t regret.

  9. Avatar for 'em says:

    I read in one blog that the release date of this is on May 27. I’m not sure if that’s accurate.

  10. Avatar for Aradia Aradia says:

    When is this phone going to be in local stores??? im planning to buy one actually

  11. Avatar for Grace Grace says:

    Actually the Scribe HD is dual sim :)

  12. Avatar for wewet wewet says:

    Sir louie, san ka nakabili ng Scribe HD? been looking for this for weeks now.. thanks

  13. Avatar for default write disk default write disk says:

    true po buh na mai default write disk xa ? and can save apps in SD card ? hope you can answer it po ..

  14. Avatar for Questionaire? Questionaire? says:

    Excuse me, is it true that u can save apps in the external sd card? beacause I read it in GADGET PILIPINAS.net? and also does it supports USB OTG?

  15. Avatar for Paul Paul says:

    Sulit! When will this be available to the public?

  16. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    The stylus isn’t even a precision stylus, but rather a soft-tip rounded one … it’s something that you can get for Php 150 at CDR-KING

    It’s really hard to recommend the Alcatel over the MyPhone A919i or even the Omega HD

  17. Avatar for Ron Ron says:

    Been waiting for this review for days.

    I was hoping you’d tackle some features or optimised apps (if there are any) made with for the stylus in mind. Their note taking app seems like any other note taking app. Nothing special. So I guess it’s wiser to get any other 5in phone lower than 14k and get a 100pesos stylus to match this phone.

    A919i seems like a better choice. I think.

    • Avatar for Louie Louie says:

      Hi Ron,

      Thanks for pointing that out. It’s just the Scribe Calculator and the Scribe Note. For a smartphone with a “Scribe” for a name it looks like it fell a little short in that feature. I installed the Bamboo Paper app though which looks and feels better. Still, the stylus is just not that good.

  18. Avatar for evollove evollove says:

    Hope you can make a review squaring this off against the MyPhone A919i, the O+ 8.15 and the Cherry Mobile Skyfire 2.0 (might be unfair for the Skyfire 2.0, so this stands only until CM gets their own 720p, MT6589 5-incher).

    Aside from the usual benchmark comparisons (especially battery life), compare how the preinstalled apps are against each other and the possibility of the phones to receive updates.

    Just some suggestions, don’t sweat it.

  19. Avatar for weryou@ weryou@ says:

    Looks like a winner. I hope you guys come out with a review of the Sapphire 2 soon.

  20. Avatar for luther luther says:

    which is better spec’d? this vs myphone 919i vs CM flare2/omega HD????

    • Avatar for pfb pfb says:

      specs-wise, i think the scribe is a little better than the a919i owing to it’s dragon glass tail screen.

      the battery too is a major plus; too bad this isn’t dual sim capable.

      if you’re on a budget (like me)the a919i isn’t a bad choice after all with some tweaks I can squeeze out every penny of my hard-earned P7990 (intro price).

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