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The Alcatel 1C is a cheap 2019 that is an Amazon’s Choice product because although it doesn’t have the best technical aspects and isn’t the best phone in the world, at less than £50 it is certainly an excellent value for money smartphone.
Table of Contents
Design
The Alcatel 1C has a 5.0 inches display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. The screen is IPS LCD, which isn’t anything special but does the job. The phone has a ~72% screen-to-body ratio, which means it isn’t a bezel-less display. However, it still does the job. Above the screen, you will also find your phone speaker and 2MP selfie camera with an LED flash.
On the right side of the phone, you will find the volume keys and the power key. On the left side, you won’t find any buttons or ports. It would have been better if they put the volume buttons on the left side, but that’s just our opinion. On top of the phone, you will find a standard 3.5mm audio jack port. The audio jack should support any modern headphones.
On the bottom of the phone, you will find the charging port, which is a MicroUSB 2.0 port. There is nothing special about the charging port as it does not come with fast-charging or any other gimmicky features. You can also find the phone’s microphone on the bottom.
On the back of the phone is its primary camera along with an LED flash. It has a 5MP camera that can support HDR photography. Like all other aspects of the phone, the camera is nothing special but gets the job done.
Overall, the phone doesn’t have the best texture or feel in your hand, but that is what you get with its plastic body. You can get the phone in three different colours, Enamel Blue, Blush Pink and Volcano Black. Design-wise, it’s pretty standard.
- Be immersed in Alcatel 1C's easily gripped 4.95 Inch 18: 9 FullView display lets you enjoy a pocketably small device with a larger screen
- Cased in plastic, the Alcatel 1C feels substantial in the hand; its smooth curves and brushed finishing exude subtle polish
- A 5 MP (interpolated to 8 MP) rear camera and 2 MP (interpolated to 5 MP) front camera with flash on both sides will let you capture, keep and share the moment long after it's passed
- Social Square lets you review and share your picture as soon as its taken all while keeping the viewfinder open, letting you stay in the photo-taking action
- No matter if you're a righty or lefty, one-handed mode's display ensures all camera features are comfortably in your reach; swipe to activate, change camera settings and snap effortlessly
Technical Aspects
The phone comes with a quad-core Spreadtrum SC7731E processor. You can’t expect any miracles with the Spreadtrum chip. The specific SC7731E chip used in this phone is also outdated as it first came out in 2015. The device could have used a Snapdragon processor instead, but we can understand the processor choice at the given price.
The phone also comes with a Mali-400 GPU. If you are looking to play games on this phone, then you would be disappointed. The Mali-400 GPU should handle ordinary graphic tasks but don’t expect it to run mobile games such as PUBG-Mobile or Fortnite.
Furthermore, the phone has 1GB RAM. The 1GB RAM is very low even for day to day usage. It should be able to handle some basic multitasking but would fail you most of the times. In our opinion, it could have used at least a 2GB RAM.
The phone only comes with 8GB storage. It does not have any other storage variants. You can still expand the storage, thanks to its expandable memory slot. The slot can support up to 32GB of extra storage.
Finally, the phone comes with Android 8.1 (Oreo Go). As of now, it’s not possible to upgrade the phone to Android 9.0 or higher. Given its price point, we don’t expect any upgrades for the phone to come out in the future either.
Performance
The Alcatel 1C is a subpar phone with subpar performance. The processor, as discussed above, isn’t exactly a winner. Similarly, the 1GB RAM is the main bottleneck for the phone. You cannot use the phone for multitasking due to this reason. Overall, the phone feels very sluggish and, sometimes, unresponsive. Although it is a 2019 phone, it doesn’t feel like it.
Overall verdict – Alcatel 1C 2019 Review
Ok, we’ve mentioned that it’s slow and not great for multitasking, let’s look at the positives. This phone is comfortable to hold and does the job of basic communication. If you are looking for something that comes in under £50 and don’t need it for too many apps then this could be the budget phone for you. It’s also ideal if you want something cheap to take abroad for basic calls, and don’t want to take your more expensive iPhone or Android. It’s one of the best phones that is coming in at this price tag and gets good reviews on Amazon.
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