Yesterday we devoted most of our coverage to previewing the multitude of devices that Huawei had on display at AfricaCom 2015; including hotly anticipated gear such as the MediaPad M2 and Huawei Watch.
However, Huawei wasn‘t the only company making a strong display; today, we‘re looking at devices from French manufacturer, Alcatel, from whom year we reviewed South Africa’s first Firefox OS device, the OneTouch Fire E, earlier this year.
Whereas Huawei punted its top-end devices, Alcatel displayed a variety of handsets from the low, mid and upper end of its lineup. Among these devices was the Idol X ““ Alcatel‘s flagship, which is yet to see release or pricing in South Africa.
For a company normally recalled for producing affordable handsets, Alcatel have broken momentum and weaponized nearly element of the normally staid and conservative OneTouch design language. In hand, the Idol X feels crisper, sharper and far more bold than its lower-end brethren. The back aluminum and sides feel refreshing in hand, while the glass front of the phone is sleek, tapering off to subtle side-curves much in the vein of the Galaxy S6 Edge.
The front of the device is also adorned with JBL speakers, and, hence, the Idol X can be used to answer calls either normally or upside-down; the intent being that he phone is easy to use when plucked from one‘s pocket.
With a 13.1 megapixel primary camera and 2 megapixel front-facing camera with a front-facing flash, the Idol X doesn‘t lack for smarts, and is accompanied by 2GBs of RAM, 16GBs of internal storage as well as a quad-core Cortex 1.7Ghz processor.
In hand, the Idol X exudes a premium feel, and, overseas, as packed all these features at a fairly mid-range price point. Overall, the Idol X feels like the wolf amongst a herd of lambs, and we excitedly look forward to the device arriving on our shores.
Stay tuned for more device previews from AfricaCom, as well as local availability and pricing news.
