A $99 Phone that’s ACTUALLY usable :P - Alcatel 1X
A $99 Phone that’s ACTUALLY usable :P - Alcatel 1X
2018-11-14
the most expensive iPhone you can get is
the 512 gigabyte version of the 10s max
coming in at 1449 US dollars which when
you throw an Apple care and a headphone
adapter is about 40% more than the
global median monthly income per person
so what if you don't want to spend a
tenth of your annual salary on a smart
phone without giving up modern
smartphone features and security well
now you can have your Oreo and eat it
too with the Alcatel One X Android go
Edition a $99 smartphone with a
fingerprint reader the elgato stream
deck mini features six fully
customisable LCD keys to use as
shortcuts plus easy to use software to
set them up check it out on Amazon or
Newegg at the link in the video
description
okay so follow along with me here
Alcatel is a French smartphone brand
owned by Nokia from Finland and licensed
by Chinese manufacturer TCL who you
might remember from the why the slippery
friendly content is everyone buying this
TV video no doubt this is a very
cosmopolitan phone with no less than
seven localized variants now the version
available in the US the one that we've
got here is the 50 59 a with one
gigabyte of RAM 16 gigs of microsd
expandable storage a MediaTek 6739
quad-core processor and 8 and 5
megapixel flash equipped cameras on the
rear and front of the phone respectively
it also has a fingerprint reader as I
alluded to before a feature that is
notably absent though from the I and T
variants of the phone that are being
marketed in India on the plus side the
Indian devices do have dual SIM and you
can still unlock the phone with your
face regardless of which model you get
though the One X has a 2460 milliamp
hour battery a 5.3 inch 18 by 9 aspect
ratio 480 by 960 display which in
landscape mode amounts to something kind
of like widescreen 480p like to the
point where you can actually see a
staircase effect on round buttons or
profile pictures meaning that the
display of this thing is not cutting
edge but it's 99 bucks which apparently
is enough to get you a headphone jack at
the very least go figure
courage interestingly the One X is very
similar in size and weight to Google's
pixel 3 except that it has a knurled
lock button microUSB instead of type C
and a textured backing that Alcatel
calls suede but to me kind of feels more
like sandstone or textured plastic
actually kind of reminds me of the white
1 + 5 t but it doesn't feel as durable
but just because the One X has budget
Hardware doesn't mean that the
experience of using it is 100% junk
because this was the first phone to
launch in the u.s. equipped with Android
Go the OS experience designed for
devices with a gig of ram or less and
what's cool is that it is
surely a full-featured version of
Android sort of notable exclusions are
high performance features like split
screen and daydream VR and I get why
those weren't feasible and some others
that caught us a little off guard
Android auto and Android wear remember
these are Google's own products are not
only not supported to the point where
they are hidden from the Play Store but
when you even go as far as to sideload
them you're gonna be greeted with a
Google Play services error then when you
go ahead and side load that you'll be
greeted with a successful install
message followed by them not working
anyway so James's theory here is that
there is a technical reason for these to
be excluded to maintain usable
performance and to extend battery life
while keeping the device affordable
something has got to give
as for me
I think there's an element of that but
in the case of something like where why
go out of your way to lock it out I
think it might be a product segmentation
thing where Google is assuming that if
you can afford a SmartWatch or a car for
that matter you can probably afford a
better phone one thing that we agree
about is that these features are more
like creature comforts rather than core
products so let's move on and talk about
the differences their Android goes main
differentiator is the lighter load out
of default apps Google has made these
lightweight versions of their apps
including search Gmail G board YouTube
and even the Google assistant that last
one is a big plus because some other
budget devices that are more than twice
as expensive as this one
we're on older versions of Android that
don't support Google assistant at all
and what's really cool is that while
some go apps like Gmail Go feel nearly
identical to their full-featured cousins
that's already a good thing some of them
actually add new features YouTube go for
example doesn't allow uploading or even
commenting on videos which sort of bites
but it shows you how much data is
required to watch a video it offers
previews so you don't waste your data on
a video that wasn't what you were
looking for and it even lets you
download videos to your device a feature
that's usually only available to YouTube
premium members unfortunately just
because you have an Android go device
doesn't mean every go app will be
available our 1x actually came with the
regular YouTube app installed because
while it's available in a hundred and
thirty low connectivity countries
YouTube go is not widely available in
the global north and when we tried to
sideload it we were greeted with a
message stating that our device was
incompatible bummer another interesting
one is Google Maps go which at just 32
kilobytes is almost an order of
magnitude smaller than the regular app
and that is partly because it's not
actually an app it's one of Google's
progressive web apps so the icon on your
homescreen is really just a link to a
website it looks feels and quacks like
an app but unfortunately while it can
give you directions it cannot do
turn-by-turn navigation so should you
buy this phone well that depends on the
one hand it's a $99 budget phone that
feels pretty good in the hand comes with
a charger screen protector and
headphones in the box records 30fps Full
HD video and runs alka tells Joy
launcher skin which is pretty close to
stock Android on the other hand it's a
$99 budget phone it is so slow in spite
of its optimized software it has only
one speaker right here making it not
great for watching movies and it has a
TN panel screen with a massive air gap
and off-brand glass that make it a
fingerprint and glare magnet oh yeah and
that micro V connector kind of sucks too
but budget devices are all about
compromise and the good thing we can say
about this one is that it is a heck of a
lot better than users not having access
to these services at all or being forced
to settle for old software that doesn't
have the latest security updates so it's
a big step forward ting is the mobile
carrier that's focused on customer
service and customer satisfaction first
if you ever have an issue and you want a
call ting you don't speak to a robot you
get put through directly to a person and
you don't pay extra for the privilege
the average ting bill is just 23 bucks a
month per device and if you're stuck in
a contract and want to switch to ting
they'll cover 25% of your cancellation
fee up to $75 we've got lower mobile
data rates than ever before it's now
just $10 a gig beyond the second gig so
head over to Linus 2018 ting comm and
try out their savings calculator to see
how much you'd save on ting then when
you sign up make sure you use our link
so you get 25 bucks in service credit or
towards a new device so thanks for
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stuff we featured at the link in the
video description also down there is our
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did you guys notice that my shirt
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