A $99 Phone that’s ACTUALLY usable :P - Alcatel 1X
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,510 words · ~7 min read
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the most expensive iphone you can get is the 512 Gigabyte version of the 10s max
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coming in at 1 49 us dollars which when you throw in
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apple care and a headphone adapter is about 40
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more than the global median monthly income per person
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so what if you don't want to spend a tenth of your annual salary on a
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smartphone without giving up modern smartphone features and security well
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now you can have your oreo and eat it too with the alcatel 1x Android go
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edition a 99 smartphone with a
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fingerprint reader the elgato stream deck mini features six
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fully customizable lcd keys to use as shortcuts plus easy to use software to
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set them up check it out on amazon or newegg at the link in the video
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description
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okay so follow along with me here alcatel is a french smartphone brand
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owned by nokia from finland and licensed
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by chinese manufacturer tcl who you
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might remember from the why the slippery friendly content is everyone buying this
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tv video no doubt this is a very cosmopolitan
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phone with no less than seven localized variants now the version available in
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the us the one that we've got here is the 5059 a with one Gigabyte of RAM 16
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gigs of microsd expandable storage a mediatek 6739 quad core processor and
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eight and five megapixel flash equipped cameras on the rear and front of the
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phone respectively it also has a fingerprint reader as i alluded to
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before a feature that is notably absent though from the i and t variants of the
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phone that are being marketed in india on the plus side the indian devices do
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have dual sim and you can still unlock the phone with your face
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regardless of which model you get though the one x has a 2460 milliamp hour
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battery a 5.3 inch 18 by 9 aspect ratio
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480 by 960 display which in landscape
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mode amounts to something kind of like widescreen 480p like to the point where
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you can actually see a staircase effect on round buttons or profile pictures
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meaning that the display of this thing is not cutting edge but
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it's 99 bucks which apparently is enough to get you a headphone jack at the very
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least go figure courage interestingly
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the one x is very similar in size and weight to google's pixel 3 except that
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it has a knurled lock button micro usb
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instead of type c and a textured backing that alcatel calls suede but to me kind
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of feels more like sandstone or textured plastic it actually kind of reminds me
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of the white oneplus 5t but it doesn't feel as durable
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but just because the one x has budget hardware doesn't mean that the
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experience of using it is 100 junk because this was the first phone to
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launch in the us equipped with Android go the os experience designed for
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devices with a gig of RAM or less and what's cool is that it is nearly a full
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featured version of Android sort of
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notable exclusions are high performance features like split screen and daydream
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vr and i get why those weren't feasible and some others that
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caught us a little off guard Android auto and Android wear remember
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these are google's own products are not only not supported to the point where
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they are hidden from the play store but when you even go as far as to side load
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them you're going to be greeted with a google play services error then when you
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go ahead and side load that you'll be greeted with a successful install
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message followed by them not working anyway
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so james's theory here is that there is a technical reason for these to be
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excluded to maintain usable performance and to extend battery life while keeping
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the device affordable something has got to give
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as for me
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i think there's an element of that but in the case of something like where
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why go out of your way to lock it out i think it might be a product segmentation
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thing where google is assuming that if you can afford a smart watch or a car
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for that matter you can probably afford a better phone
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one thing that we agree about is that these features are more like creature
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comforts rather than core products so let's move on and talk about the
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differences there Android goes main differentiator is the
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lighter loadout of default apps google has made these lightweight versions of
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their apps including search gmail gboard
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youtube and even the google assistant that last one is a big plus because some
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other budget devices that are more than twice as expensive as this one run older
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versions of Android that don't support google assistant at all
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and what's really cool is that while some go apps like gmail go feel nearly
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identical to their full-featured cousins that's already a good thing
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some of them actually add new features youtube go for example doesn't allow
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uploading or even commenting on videos which sort of bites but
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it shows you how much data is required to watch a video it offers previews so
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you don't waste your data on a video that wasn't what you were looking for
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and it even lets you download videos to your device a feature that's usually
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only available to youtube premium members unfortunately just because you
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have an Android go device doesn't mean every go app will be
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available our one x actually came with the regular
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youtube app installed because while it's available in 130 low connectivity
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countries youtube go is not widely
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available in the global north and when we tried to sideload it we were greeted
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with a message stating that our device was incompatible
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bummer another interesting one is google maps go which at just 32 kilobytes is
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almost an order of magnitude smaller
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than the regular app and that is partly because
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it's not actually an app it's one of google's progressive web apps so the
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icon on your home screen is really just a link to a website
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it looks feels and quacks like an app
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but unfortunately while it can give you directions it cannot do turn by turn
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navigation so should you buy this phone
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well that depends on the one hand it's a 99 dollar budget
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phone that feels pretty good in the hand comes with a charger screen protector
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and headphones in the box records 30fps full hd video and runs alcatel's joy
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launcher skin which is pretty close to stock Android on the other hand it's a 99 budget phone
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it is so slow in spite of its optimized
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software it has only one speaker right here making it not great for
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watching movies and it has a tn panel screen with a massive air gap and
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off-brand glass that make it a fingerprint and glare magnet oh yeah and
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that micro b connector kind of sucks too
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but budget devices are all about compromise and the good thing we can say
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about this one is that it is a heck of a lot better than users not having access
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to these services at all or being forced to settle for old software that doesn't
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have the latest security updates so it's a big step forward
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ting is the mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and customer
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satisfaction first if you ever have an issue and you want to call ting you
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don't speak to a robot you get put through directly to a person and you
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don't pay extra for the privilege the average ting bill is just 23 bucks a
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month per device and if you're stuck in a contract and want to switch to ting
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they'll cover 25 of your cancellation fee up to 75 dollars they've got lower
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mobile data rates than ever before it's now just 10 a gig beyond the second gig
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so head over to linus2018.ting.com
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and try out their savings calculator to see how much you'd save on ting then
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when you sign up make sure you use our link so you get 25 bucks in service
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credit or towards a new device so thanks for watching guys if you
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disliked this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get
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subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description
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also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts not like the one i'm wearing different cool shirts and our
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community forum which you should totally join did you guys notice that my shirt
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actually changed in the middle of this video