Home » Review: Alcatel One Touch – Pop D5

Review: Alcatel One Touch – Pop D5

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What is it?

The Pop D5 from Alcatel OneTouch, at only £59.99, is an entry level budget Android phone that is designed to give you both the joys of a smartphone at a low cost, as well as be friendly to your pocket. This means that this can be the ideal phone for you if you want to try what a smartphone is, or give one to your teenager. Featuring Android KitKat, decent camera, and a microSD slot, this ticks all the basic boxes.

Quick look at the specs:

  • 4.5″ Display, 480 x 854 pixels, TFT, 16m colour display, dual point touch
  • Quad Core 1.3GHz CPU
  • 5MP camera rear, VGA rated camera front
  • Android 4.4 Kitkat, with Alcatel OneTouch Skin on
  • 3G+
  • Internal memory 4GB, 1.6 GB usable, MicroSD up to 32GB
  • 512MB RAM
  • 1800mAh battery
  • 132.5 x 67.9 x 9.95mm, 150g
  • GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, Wifi

Look and Feel

The look and feel of this device seems a bit uninspired, though it isn’t much further from the likes of Moto G or Moto E. Having said that, it is at that size where it fits really well in your hand, and the curved back gives you a good nice fit and grip.

The front features the screen, a VGA camera on top, and the standard Android soft buttons on the bottom. The buttons are part of the body, and not the screen, which means they don’t waste any screen space. They do light up too.

The top has the power button, while the volume keys are on the right side.

The back features a curved shell that can be removed, and is interchangeable with many other colours. Our variant came in a dark purple shade, which they call dark aubergine on their website. The back cover also includes the buttons in it, which are fitted well, and didn’t easily pop out.

Take the back off, and you see the SIM slot, the microSD slot and a removable battery.

The software

At this price, you wouldn’t expect a custom skin on top of Android, but Alcatel OneTouch have put a skin on the phone. It is based on Android, and the experience is similar, with subtle changes such as a different lock screen which shows notifications and weather on it, and a quick settings menu accessible when you swipe down from the top.

For a phone with only 4GB of memory though, it does pack in quite a lot of ‘bloatware’. This includes an AntiVirus App, Flipboard, Currency Convertor, Deezer, Kingsoft Office, Viber, Shazzam, Opera Mini and a few games. This was a bit annoying, however, you are able to uninstall these, which is a plus.

Another custom element to the UI is that you can swipe up from different app icons and it gives you a bit more information. For example, you can see who called you, what texts you got, etc, without going into the app. This gives you a widget like element to your apps.

Probably the best out of the box feature I liked was the fact that it comes with SwiftKey pre-installed.

The Experience

At £60, it should come as no surprise that the hardware doesn’t really back the software very well. The screen doesn’t really compare to the more expensive phones out there, and the processor, while Quad Core, struggles because of the small RAM available. You can play games, you can do your basics, you can check your emails. You can do it all, but the sluggishness is noticeable.

The same goes with the camera. It struggles in the dark, and doesn’t really give you amazing photos, but then again, you are only paying £60 for this.

The battery has a similar run. It can last you the whole day, but it tends to be quite low by the evening generally after a ‘normal’ use.

More information

More information about the Alcatel OneTouch Pop D5 can be found on their website.

It is available in a wide range of colours, with changeable back covers, and front available in white or black.

It retails for £59.99, and is available from the likes of Argos:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/3829240.htm

Verdict

The Pop D5 from Alcatel OneTouch is a very hit and msis phone, though at £60, I am tending more towards the hit. It is great for teenagers, but probably not the device to go for if you’re thinking of flirting with smartphones.

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