Why you should give the Alcatel One Touch Idol 2 Mini S a go

If you are in the market for a mid-range smartphone with mini proportions then the Alcatel One Touch Idol 2 Mini S is certainly worth considering. It’s pretty clear to see that a huge focus has been applied onto this smartphone’s design and it demonstrates that you can buy a high-end look at a fraction of the price.

So, let’s take a closer look at why you should give the Alcatel One Touch Idol 2 Mini S a go.

Alcatel One Touch Idol 2 Mini S design

The Idol 2 Mini S instantly displays premium qualities and a quick inspection highlights diamond-cut effects and a quality metallic finish.

The black crystal glass has an Oleophobic coating that repels fingerprint oils, this will be a much-welcomed characteristic for its users. The Idol 2 Mini S is also impressively durable with scratch resistant Dragontrail Glass, a new alternative to the more commonly known Corning Gorilla Glass.

The design incorporates a tidy 4.5-inch IPS display that has a 540 x 960 pixel resolution at 245 pixels per inch.

This resolution certainly doesn’t compare to those higher-end smartphones but we must remember here that this is a mini smartphone, so the display is a whole inch smaller than a standard sized mobile phone.

The colour range will cater for a wide variety of tastes and includes full white, slate, chocolate, cloudy and hot pink. In the hand, the Idol 2 Mini S feels pretty thin at 8.5mm thick and this is one of the lightest smartphones on the market at 116 grams.

The design includes a quad-core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB RAM and you only need to download a game such as Asphalt 7 to discover that the processing power is up to par. The internal memory is set at 4GB and this can be expanded by up to 32GB with a MicroSD card.

Alcatel One Touch specs and features

The Idol 2 Mini S is powered by an Alcatel customised version of Android v4.3 so it should be fairly easy for any previous Android users to get familiar with.

The first Alcatel One Touch tweak is a practical one with the introduction of one finger zoom. To use this new feature you simply need to double tap your finger on the screen and hold it there on the second tap. After this you can slide your finger up or down to zoom in or zoom out. One finger zoom can be used whilst browsing the internet via 4G or Wi-Fi as well as in the photo gallery.

A standard set of features back up one finger zoom including Bluetooth, GPS, a document viewer and HD sound. An in-ear stereo headset is included in the box and the 2000mAh battery can deliver up to 35 hours of music playback. In standby this mobile phone will stay powered up for up to 400 hours, whilst talk time is reported to come in at up to 13 hours.

Idol 2 Mini S camera

The camera on the Idol 2 Mini S is certainly far from mid-range with its impressive 8MP resolution. The camera has all of the bells and whistles that you would expect and these include autofocus, touch focus, face and smile detection, HDR, night mode with LED flash, burst mode, timer, 4-shots mode and sport mode.

You can also capture the bugger picture with panorama mode as you pan to the left or right or you can jump straight in with video recording at 1080p, which is aided by video stabilisation.

The camera has a QR code scanner built in and for video calling or taking a selfie there is a secondary forward facing camera rated at 2MP.

Verdict

To put it simply, you should give the Alcatel One Touch Idol 2 Mini S a go; it is beautiful to look at, powered by Android with access to Google Play and is particularly snappy with its 8 megapixel camera.

Also, with its price tag of around £170 for a SIM free handset, the Idol 2 Mini S really is good value for money. This means it should be around £10-£15 per month for a pay monthly contract. Bargain!