Before it's initial selling next week at Lazada Philippines, Alcatel One Touch Philippines gave us a treat for a quick check on the star of last night's festivities, the Alcatel Flash 2.
When I saw the lockscreen of it for the first time, I said "Stock Android?". Yes at least around 90% in my own opinion based on the front view of the phone with 5 inch IPS HD display, 5 MP AF selfie camera with selfie flash and Omnivision sensor. The standard Android buttons are not on screen. The back has 13 MP AF rear camera with ISOCELL sensor, dual tone flash, Alcatel One Touch and Flash logos and dual speakers. The volcanic grey variant has a bit of sandstone feel which adds more grip for me. The build quality for me is solid.
Removing the back cover, it gave me a smile as it has dual micro SIM slots (both are LTE capable), micro SD support up to 128 GB and all of them are hot swappable. The 3,000 mAh non-removable battery is forgivable for me as Alcatel officials said that the battery replacement is serviceable as they added that answer when I asked it on the Q & A portion. I have to mention that the unit that I had is a prototype unit.
The top part has 3.5 mm. audio jack and noise-cancelling mic while at the bottom, you'll gonna see the pin hole and the micro USB slot. Forgive me that I inserted a micro USB to USB storage coz...
..boom! It has USB OTG capability. I also took a glimpse of the pulldown menu which is typical to a stock Android 5.1 Lollipop OS.
The Antutu said it has 35,892 verified score and 64-bit enabled which is no surprise for me. My first encounter here of a phone with MT6753 SoC was the Meizu M2 Note with 5.5 inch IPS FHD and Flyme OS which I got between 32,000-33,000 verified score. On the demo unit, it has 5 point multi touch.
More on the Antutu, it got the SoC that they promised. Just don't mind on the 24 MP rear camera glitch as I checked at the camera's settings that it has 13 MP. Not just on rear camera sensor, AF2 also has Samsung on it's memory. The device only has accelerometer, light, proximity and sound sensors which some might scratch their heads.
For those who are curious, Alcatel Flash Plus and Alcatel Flash 2 side by side. The featured AFP here was one of the admins of Alcatel One Touch Flash Series Facebook group who also scored some invites at the launch (great job to Alcatel)
A glimpse of rear camera's UI with 9 modes to choose from as you can see in the pic. The AF2 has selfie flash which can be used in auto or torch mode for those really tight selfies in the dark.
And the camera samples. Both shooters have 4:3 aspect ratio. The rear cam has f/2.0 aperture while it's f/2.2 at the front camera shot at the venue in Raven Boutique Club in BGC in very random lights. No flash used on both pics and again, the device is prototype.
Rundown of the specs: Android 5.1 Lollipop OS, 64-bit 1.3 GHz Mediatek MT6753 octa-core processor with Mali-T720 MP4 GPU, 5 inch IPS HD display, 13 MP AF main camera with Samsung S5K3M2 ISOCELL sensor and dual tone flash, 5 MP AF front cam with Omnivision OV5648 sensor and selfie flash, 2 GB RAM, 16 GB ROM, dual micro SIM (both slots can do LTE), micro SD up to 128 GB, Bluetooth, WiFi, USB OTG capable and 3,000 mAh non-removable battery.
First impressions: The near stock Android Lollipop feel, USB OTG capability and solid feel are the main attractions of this device. Both shooters can really take some pics that fast. The hot swappable dual micro SIM slots and micro SD and unified storage (based on it's 16 GB ROM) are also plus points for me. Two things that I'm concerned are the sturdy yet quite thin back cover and the 1 ampere charger that they mentioned in the presentation. I also like that AF2 has LTE only option which I really cheered on most on local brands (the 2nd brand that encountered with that set-up was Xiaomi). That small Php 300 price difference versus the AFP might be an issue as AFP is better in SoC performance (based on Antutu), the 0.5 inch display difference and a slightly bigger battery but the number of pros that I mentioned might be the reasons that AF2 might be my next main driver in the coming months. I am thrilled to have my review unit of the AF2 really soon.
Alcatel Flash 2 will be available this September 30, 2015 at 12 noon exclusive on Lazada Philippines.
