It is been a while that I reviewed an Android phone from Alcatel. A few weeks ago, I started to play this one that first introduced to the world late 2016 and it has a price drop recently here in local shores.
Here is the Alcatel Shine Lite with the front and back views of the box.
Here are the front and back views of the device. The left has hybrid dual nano SIM tray (SIM 2 can be used as micro SD slot). The right part has volume rocker and power/unlock button. 3.5 mm. audio jack at the top. Speaker, pin hole mic and OTG-capable micro USB port at the bottom
The rest of the packaging has screen guard, 5V 1A charger, earphones and user manual
In physical looks, the phone was covered by glass on top and bottom which there are some moments that it will slip on my hand (which not including a protective case is a minus for me). I kinda hate the metal-like sides as there are some sharp edges which is now uncommon even on those phones in this price segment. The 5 inch HD display was pretty good. The fingerprint reader worked fine for me as you can wake the phone from sleep.
On UI, Shine Lite has almost stock Android Marshmallow with some little tweaks on the app drawer. With it's MT6737 quad-core processor inside, it can do some basic tasks but there are some limitations which I will mention later.
On connectivity, phone calls, texts, mobile data, Bluetooth, GPS and WiFi were a-ok on Shine Lite. Nothing to complain on the said department
On audio, the phone sounds average on it's speaker but better on the 3.5 mm. audio jack.
On gaming, this is definitely not the phone for you. I can only recommend for you to play some basic games but from the likes of Pokemon Go up to Asphalt 8, it was completely unplayable.
On benchmarks, the phone scored at over 28,000 on Antutu and has 6 working sensors. Gyro is not included
On battery, the phone was shining through. With just 2,460 mAh battery and a 28-nm based processor, the phone managed to have 12 hours and 12 minutes on our usual video battery rundown test with power saver on. On day-to-day usage, I can manage this one on 4 1/2 hours of screen on time in average of 22 hours of work time
On camera, their rear camera with f/2.0 aperture worked good on outside environment during daytime but on night time, it was not good with lesser details. The front cam with front flash gave a bit of justice
Alcatel Shine Lite rear camera samples
Alcatel Shine Lite front camera sample with flash
I reviewed this Alcatel Shine Lite both when it was still at that steep Php 9,999 and went to Php 6,999 price tag. Even for that huge price slash, I still can't give this one on my top 3 (if for global brands only) leading by a phone with a better Snapdragon 425 chip at 1k less. The pros for me left on this one are the fingerprint reader, almost stock Android and connectivity. I will give 3 out of 5 for Alcatel Shine Lite.
