Introduction
Alcatel found a new life with Android and has continuously improved its offerings over time. The One Touch Hero is one of the latest - a 6" phablet that throws down a price challenge to the Galaxy Note 3, with a rich feature set of its own.
Alcatel One Touch Hero official images
The Hero has captured the essence of the Note - a large, 1080p screen, a stylus to go with it and split-screen multitasking to boost productivity. The screen is actually bigger - 6 inches - and the bezels are impressively thin.
That said, Alcatel kept its feet on the ground and went for a Cortex-A7-based MediaTek chipset. The amount of inbuilt storage is economical but expandable and there's a dual-SIM version right out of the gate. This keeps the price in check and makes the phablet suitable for emerging markets (where the lack of LTE isn't a huge deal).
Key features
- Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support; Dual-band 3G with HSPA
- Optional dual-SIM
- 6" 16M-color 1080p IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen
- Capacitive stylus
- Android OS v4.2.2 Jelly Bean
- Quad-core 1.5 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU, 2 GB RAM, PowerVR SGX544 GPU, MediaTek MT6589 chipset
- Split-screen multi-tasking Dual display
- 13 MP autofocus camera with LED flash, geo-tagging
- 1080p video recording @ 30fps with continuous autofocus and stereo sound
- 2 MP front-facing camera, 1080p video recording
- 16GB (dual-SIM), 8GB (single-SIM)
- microSD card slot (single-SIM only)
- microUSB port
- Bluetooth v4.0
- Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA
- GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS
- Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
- Stereo FM radio with RDS
- Voice commands
- Accelerometer and proximity sensor
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Non-replaceable 3,400mAh Li-Ion battery
- Cool active accessories
Main disadvantages
- Capacitive stylus not as good as the Wacom solution
- 13MP camera not on par with other 13MP shooters
- Non-replaceable battery
- Midrange chipset
- Limited storage on the dual-SIM version
- No LTE
There's a place for the Alcatel One Touch Hero in established markets too - we're seeing a shift towards affordable, capable devices in the mobile world with devices like the Moto G and $200 tablets.
Alcatel One Touch Hero in our office
The One Touch Hero has the build quality wouldn't be out of place in the lineup of better known makers and Alcatel did well to avoid gimmicky tweaks. Where the company stepped outside the box is the attachable accessories, while split-screen multitasking and especially the stylus are right out of the Note rulebook.
Alcatel One Touch Hero 360-degree spin
The Alcatel One Touch Hero measures 158.5 x 80.6 x 8.5 mm, which is 7mm taller than a Galaxy Note 3, at nearly the same width and thickness. What you get is an extra 0.3" of screen diagonal. Compared to other 6-inchers, it's smaller in all dimensions than a Lumia 1520, for example
While the One Touch Hero isn't a small device, the slim bezels keep it usable (if not entirely comfortable) with one hand. At just under 180g of weight, it's not unpleasant to hold for longer periods either.
Design and handling
Alcatel went very minimal with the design of the One Touch Hero. Its front is not too different from the Nexus 5, while the back is vaguely reminiscent of the HTC One X. With very few design accents, similarities are unavoidable and this should be taken as a compliment rather than a dig at the Hero.
The large screen dictates the size and shape of the device, and Alcatel did a fine with the bezels. The bottom obviously had to accommodate the capacitive controls but other than that Alcatel did a bang-up job.
The back is made of a soft textured plastic not unlike the polycarbonate we've seen from Nokia and HTC. It's pleasant to the touch and hides fingerprints well, though it's hard to clean ones it gets smudgy.
It's not a unibody design, the back is clearly a separate panel yet it fits so tightly that it might as well be.
The rounded corners and beveled edges make it comfortable to hold in hand with no sharp corners digging into your palm. The weight of 177.6g is actually low for a 6" device, making the Hero easy to handle (unless you have small hands that is, but then you probably aren't looking at phablets anyway).
Alcatel One Touch Hero in the hand
A feature to note at the back is the row of pogo pins - those are for accessories, which use magnets to snap in place. We'll get back to those in a minute.
Display
The Alcatel One Touch Hero features a 6" IPS LCD screen of 1080p resolution, for a pixel density of 376ppi. It features oleophobic coating but there's no mention of the type of protection glass used other than it's laminated.
6" IPS LCD with 1080p resolution
The screen is sharp and with very good viewing angles (minor contrast shift at extreme angles). The colors are not the punchiest we've seen, but many people rail against the oversaturated look of AMOLEDs so this might be more to your taste.
Alcatel One Touch Hero display matrix under a microscope
More importantly, the brightness is above average but not as high as other LCD-based phablets we've played with. The black levels are nothing to write home about, which lowers the contrast. The relatively low reflectivity of the laminated glass does help outdoor legibility though, which virtually as good as it was on the Galaxy Note II or an iPhone 5s.
| Display test | 50% brightness | 100% brightness | ||||
| Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | Black, cd/m2 | White, cd/m2 | |||
| Oppo N1 | 0.25 | 285 | 1118 | 0.47 | 553 | 1164 |
| HTC One Max | 0.14 | 224 | 1591 | 0.40 | 629 | 1572 |
| Alcatel One Touch Hero | 0.22 | 230 | 1056 | 0.51 | 497 | 975 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 | 0 | 149 | ∞ | 0 | 379 | ∞ |
| Sony Xperia Z1 | - | - | - | 0.38 | 580 | 1513 |
| Nokia Lumia 1520 | 0.22 | 263 | 1174 | 0.43 | 522 | 1207 |
| Nokia Lumia 1020 | 0 | 172 | ∞ | 0 | 398 | ∞ |
| Sony Xperia Z Ultra | - | - | - | 0.47 | 467 | 1001 |
| Huawei Ascend Mate | 0.23 | 222 | 982 | 0.67 | 711 | 1053 |
| Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 | 0.12 | 160 | 1364 | 0.32 | 440 | 1379 |
| Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4 | 0 | 201 | ∞ | 0 | 404 | ∞ |
| HTC Butterfly S | 0.15 | 165 | 1117 | 0.43 | 451 | 1044 |
Sunlight contrast ratio
- Nokia 808 PureView4.698
- HTC One2.504
- Sony Xperia Z2.462
- Samsung Galaxy S III mini2.422
- Motorola RAZR i2.366
- Samsung Galaxy Note II2.307
- Alcatel One Touch Hero2.272
- Apple iPhone 4S2.269
- HTC Desire 600 dual sim2.262
- LG Nexus 52.228
- HTC One X2.158
- Nokia N82.144
- Samsung Galaxy mini 21.114
The capacitive touch sensor can detect 5 touch points (screens commonly go up to 10, not that there's a practical difference). It's sensitive enough to detect even light touches with fingers, but it could have been a bit more receptive to the stylus.
Another negative we noticed is that the lower half of the screen exhibits some light bleed - that is the very edge of the screen is light stronger than the middle of the screen. It's barely noticeable most of the time, but you see it more often once you know it's there.
Hardware overview
Having covered the screen, time to look at the rest of the front. Alcatel used the deprecated Back / Home / Menu arrangement for the capacitive keys, putting its own spin on them, similar to HTC.
The Back key can be long pressed to activate the Dual display (split-screen) multitasking feature. A long press on the Home button will launch Google Now instead of showing the list of recent apps. That's activated by long pressing the Menu key instead. This setup takes some time to get used to but is quite efficient once you have.
Above the screen is the earpiece and assorted sensors, plus a 2MP camera capable of shooting 1080p selfies.
Three capacitive keys below the screen • sensors and 2MP/1080p camera above
The sides of the device are nothing out of the ordinary with the Power/Lock key and volume rocker on the right. Both sides house card slots - the one on the right is a microSIM slot, while the one on the left varies. It's a microSD card slot on the single-SIM version and a secondary microSIM slot on the dual-SIM version.
Card slots on either side of the Hero (two microSIM slots for the dual-SIM version we have) • buttons on the right side
The top side has just the 3.5mm audio jack, while the bottom side features the microUSB port, one of the microphones and the stylus compartment. The stylus sheaths into the Alcatel One Touch Hero, but can fit in only one direction.
Audio jack on top • microUSB, mic and stylus on the bottom
The stylus is 11cm long and around 5mm thick (it's slightly flattened). There's a rubber tip that works with the capacitive touchscreen, no digitizer magic here. The sensitivity is not as good as we would have liked and sometimes we had to push harder to make sure the screen doesn't lose track of it.
The capacitive stylus
Still, it can improve the usability - swipe typing becomes more accurate and you can use handwriting recognition too (though that's slower than just swiping across the keyboard). Since it's a capacitive stylus, it works just well with the capacitive touch buttons below the screen (it took Samsung some time before it got this right with the S Pen).
Around the back, the main attraction is the 13MP camera accompanied by an LED flash and a microphone. Lower down is the loudspeaker grille, which has two small knobs on either side to keep it from getting muffled.
The 13MP shooter is joined by an LED flash and a microphone
Under the back cover is a 3,400mAh battery, which is pretty good for the size of the Alcatel One Touch Hero (other 6" devices have similar capacities but with bigger bezels).
Accessories
Also on the back is the row of pogo pins that we mentioned earlier. They are used for accessories, which just snap into place. That's done with eight magnets arranged on both sides of the phablet.
The basic accessory is the LED MagicFlip cover. It features an 8 x 11 matrix of white LEDs that can display the time, simple notification icons (e.g. missed call, new email) and equalizer bars that respond to the music. The LEDs are white only but can gradually fade to create a breathing light effect.
The LED MagicFlip cover and how it attaches to the back
The cover is held close by one of the column of magnets and we found they are enough to hold it securely in place. When you open it, and fold it so that its edge touches the back, the second column of magnets grabs it so it won't flip around as you use the phone.
The material the MagicFlip is made of isn't luxurious but it isn't unpleasant either.
Another version (so far, a prototype) replaces the LEDs with a 5" e-ink display, so the One Touch Hero can double as an ebook reader. In comparison, a Kindle or Nook e-reader has a 6" screen. Still, it would be a great way to turn the phablet in two-in one device.
The accessories continue with a "wireless" charger. We put wireless in quotes since while it technically doesn't use wires to connect to the Hero, it's not like the Qi chargers of other devices. It's closer to Sony's magnetic docks - the magnets guide the phablet into place and the pogo pins take care of the charging. Which we suppose is better than the Qi chargers, most of which require you to manually align the device.
There's also an phone accessory with old-fashioned looks that's actually a Bluetooth headset aptly called the Sidekick. It's similar to the HTC Mini. Beyond receiving calls, it will also display notifications and control music playback. This makes it easier to pop the Hero into your backpack and take calls as you would with a smaller phone (with the Sidekick in your pocket).
If Alcatel has its way, the One Touch Hero can handle all your phone, phablet and ebook needs.
The company is also experimenting with a pico projector stand, which promises images of up to 70" in size and 12lm of brightness. The resolution is yet to be announced, but the brightness is on the low side for pico projectors - even the built-in projector in the second-generaion Galaxy Beam managed 15 lumens.
Note that the e-ink and projector stand are prototypes and it's not clear when (and if) they'll make it to market.
Battery life
The Alcatel One Touch Hero packs a 3,400mAh battery, which is par for the course when it comes to phablets. We tested the dual-SIM version of the device and it posted an excellent talk time of 25 hours and while the dual-standby feature put some strain on the battery, the phablet is good for two days of moderate usage. The web browsing time is very good for a mid-range 1080p device too, the video playback time not so much.
User interface
The Alcatel One Touch Hero runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with some custom Alcatel touches. The most notable addition is the split-screen multitasking feature called Dual display. It's very much like Samsung's Multi window and suites the large, high-resolution screen very well.
Here's a quick video demo that shows the basics of the interface:
The color scheme and the icons have changed, but other than that things look close to stock Android. They look like it anyway, but there's a small but important change - how the capacitive buttons below the screen work.
Alcatel stuck with the old Back / Home / Menu setup, except each key has an additional function upon a long press. You would expect the App switcher to be assigned to the Home button but it isn't - that has been moved to the Menu key. A long press on the Home button launches Google Now instead. A long press on the Back key will enable/disable the Dual display feature, which is exactly the shortcut on Samsung phones too.
Anyway, the change means you'll have to drop old habits about switching apps but then again the same is true for the HTC One.
We'll get back to the multitasking in a minute, but first things first. The lockscreen supports multiple widgets that can be expanded to show more details with a swipe down. There's no camera shortcut as on stock Android, that functionality has been moved to the unlock circle, from where you can also launch the dialer and the messaging app.
Alcatel has preloaded a number of stylish widgets for the basics - clock, weather, calendar, music player - but you can also use any Android lockscreen widget too. Widgets cannot be rearranged, which is a little annoying (you have to delete the widget and add it again).
The homescreen looks standard enough with widgets, shortcuts and a shortcut dock at the bottom. However, you only get four panes and you can hide one or two of them, but that's it - you can't add or truly remove panes, you can't even rearrange them. Also, the leftmost panel just serves to show pictures and can't have widgets on it. You can change which pane is the default one at best.
The app drawer is laid out across two tabs - all apps and downloaded apps - and the grid can be filtered by name or by installation date.
The notification area has seen fewer changes. For one, it's transparent, KitKat style. If there are no notifications, it shows the various quick toggles (which can be long pressed to open the relevant Settings screen). If there are notifications waiting for your attention you see those instead. A toggle in the top right corner allows you to switch between either view.
You can control which third party apps get to show icons in the top left of the notification bar. You can disable this feature altogether or pick individual apps.
Time to cover the multitasking on the Alcatel One Touch Hero. The app switcher launches from a different key but looks different too. This is one of the changes we enjoy the least - recent apps are shown as a row of little thumbnails along the bottom of the screen. You can swipe them up to discard one by one or hit the Clear all button.
Still that leaves most of the screen empty and unused by the app switcher and wasting screen space is not good on a phablet (it kinda defeats the purpose).
Anyway, Dual display is toggled by a long press on the Back key and when it's enabled, there's a small drawer on one side of the screen (you can switch it depending on preference). You can pull out two apps out of that drawer and they will share the screen. The division line can be moved up and down and the apps can swap places if the one in the smaller half of the screen needs your attention.
Only a handful of apps support Dual display at this point, but most of the important ones are covered - the Browser, Messaging, Email, Facebook and Twitter, Gallery, Video player and YouTube. We are hoping Alcatel will add to that list shortly, though.
Still, running more than one app at a time is valuable for a phablet even if you're limited in app choice.
Alcatel has added further improvements to stock Android, including some basic gestures: flipping over the phablet to silence an incoming call or snooze an alarm, and shaking the device to skip a song.
Similar to other phablet makers, Alcatel included one-hand options for three keyboards - the QWERTY keyboard, the dialer and calculator keypads. The keyboard gets squished in one corner of the screen, so keys are easier to reach with your thumb (again, you can switch if you're left or right handed).
The One Touch Hero supports wireless TV Out with the Screen share function. This one can be toggled from the notification area but keep in mind you'll need a Miracast-compatible TV or an adapter (Alcatel has one of its own, dubbed One Touch Home V101).
Google Now
Google Now is Google's version of a personal assistant. Google Now is meant to be kinda Apple's Siri, but it learns constantly from your daily routines and it also takes cue from the Google searches you do on your computer, not just the ones on your smartphone. You can also use to voice control various aspects of your phone.
Google Now gives you short overviews of information it believes is relevant to you right now in the form of information cards. Going to work in the morning? Google Now knows this and lets you know there's a big traffic jam on your usual way to the office, so it offers you a re-route. You can even set a method of transportation.
It can interpret a lot of things from your search history as well. If you've been searching for, let's say, your favorite football team, Google Now will prepare a card showing you the next match the team is playing and will provide you score updates once the game begins.
If allowed, Google Now can scan your email for upcoming flights, deliveries or restaurant reservations and let you know when they are due. There are also numerous kinds of cards like birthdays (yours and those of your contacts) and what distance you've walked in a particular month.
You can also add favorite sports teams, company stock you are following, places you are interested in visiting and more. The More section of the customization will update automatically with topics you can choose from once you've started using Google Now search capabilities.
You can set reminders straight in Google Now's UI. Just hit the bottom left icon (the palm with a stretched index finger). There you can add reminders or just check all the past, ongoing or upcoming reminders.
Google has also integrated Voice Actions into Now. They can handle stuff like sending messages (SMS or email), initiating a voice call, asking for directions, taking a note or opening a site. Google Now can also launch apps, check and manage your calendar and look for nearby places of interest and stuff like movie openings in theaters.
Synthetic benchmarks
The Alcatel One Touch Hero is powered by a Mediatek MT6589 chipset. It has a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor running at 1.5GHz, 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX544 GPU. Those are not bad base specs, they are in fact a little better than what the Moto G has and that one performed wonderfully. Butthe Moto G is a 720p device, while the Hero has a 1080p screen.
How much will the extra resolution the Alcatel phablet? And don't forget it's running Android 4.2, while the Moto G was at 4.3 when tested, which would improve the performance a bit.
Anyway, the Alcatel One Touch Hero comes out ahead in single-threaded performance thanks to its higher clock speed, but when it comes to multithreaded performance it's more of a mixed bag. Still, keep in mind that we're talking Galaxy Note II level of performance here.
The Huawei Ascend Mate, a competing phablet lags behind here, while the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 pulls well ahead thanks to its two Krait cores, proving once again it's not just about core count.
Benchmark Pi
Lower is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)132
- LG Optimus G Pro147
- HTC One151
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3169
- Sony Xperia Z264
- HTC Butterfly266
- Samsung Galaxy Note II305
- Alcatel One Touch Hero308
- Huawei Ascend Mate347
- Motorola Moto G392
Linpack
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)788
- LG Optimus G Pro743
- HTC One646
- Sony Xperia Z630
- HTC Butterfly624
- Oppo Find 5593
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3400
- Motorola Moto G259
- Alcatel One Touch Hero231.7
- Samsung Galaxy Note II214.3
- Samsung Galaxy S III175.5
- Huawei Ascend Mate161
- HTC One X160.9
Geekbench 3
Higher is better
- Sony Xperia Z Ultra2670
- LG Nexus 52453
- HTC One Max1899
- Alcatel One Touch Hero1321
- Motorola Moto G1120
- Sony Xperia C1079
- Oppo R8191047
For full system performance, the Moto G does much better. Part of that is the lower screen res, part the newer OS, part the various other components. Still, looking at phablets, the Alcatel One Touch Hero is on par with the Huawei Ascend Mate but behind the Galaxy Mega 6.3. It's right on the Note II's tail though.
AnTuTu 4
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)24716
- HTC One22678
- Sony Xperia Z20794
- LG Optimus G Pro20056
- HTC Butterfly19513
- Motorola Moto G17214
- Huawei Ascend Mate15714
- Alcatel One Touch Hero15667
- Oppo Find 515167
Quadrant
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)12376
- LG Optimus G Pro12105
- HTC One11746
- Motorola Moto G8505
- Sony Xperia Z8075
- Oppo Find 57111
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.37059
- Samsung Galaxy Note II5916
- Alcatel One Touch Hero5746
- Huawei Ascend Mate5509
Time for some fun with 3D gaming. 1080p and mid-range chipsets don't usually match but the PowerVR SGX544 usually makes for a good GPU. It turns out that GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt level graphics are too much for the Hero, which offered a low 12fps. Other phablets like the Mate and Mega 6.3 don't do too hot either, but they only have to render graphics at 720p, which gives them a big boost.
Note that the off-screen and on-screen numbers for the Alcatel One Touch Hero are identical.
GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)41
- HTC One37
- Sony Xperia Z31
- Sony Xperia SP31
- Apple iPhone 530
- LG Optimus G Pro30
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.317
- Samsung Galaxy Note II17
- Motorola Moto G16
- Huawei Ascend Mate15
- Alcatel One Touch Hero12
GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)
Higher is better
- LG Nexus 523
- Sony Xperia Z Ultra23
- HTC One Max22
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)17.1
- Motorola Moto G5.6
- Alcatel One Touch Hero3.4
- Sony Xperia C2.8
Still, benchmark graphics are more demanding than real-world game graphics, so we tried Epic Citadel at High Quality. There the Hero posted a playable 43.5fps framerate, actually beating the 720p devices, which ran at their native resolution. So games shouldn't be a problem, even with the 1080p screen. Perhaps not the most demanding games, but most.
Epic Citadel
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)57.1
- HTC One56.4
- Sony Xperia Z55.6
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.355.5
- LG Optimus G Pro54.2
- Asus Padfone 253.4
- Alcatel One Touch Hero43.5
- Motorola Moto G34
- Huawei Ascend Mate33.2
The web is an important part of life for every phablet, so let's see what the Alcatel One Touch Hero has to offer. JavaScript isn't great but it does at least topple the Ascend Mate. The extra screen resolution slows down the Hero when rendering web pages, which makes its BrowserMark 2 and Vellamo scores respectable (though not great).
SunSpider
Lower is better
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)810
- Apple iPhone 5915
- Samsung Galaxy Note II972
- LG Optimus G Pro1011
- Motorola RAZR i XT8901059
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.31065
- HTC One1124
- Motorola Moto G1308
- Sony Xperia Z1336
- HTC Butterfly1433
- Alcatel One Touch Hero1646
- Huawei Ascend Mate1741
BrowserMark 2
Higher is better
- LG Nexus 52745
- Motorola Moto G2562
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)2438
- Sony Xperia Z Ultra2419
- HTC One2262
- HTC One Max2243
- Alcatel One Touch Hero2096
- Sony Xperia C1984
Vellamo
Higher is better
- Samsung Galaxy Note II2418
- HTC One2382
- Sony Xperia Z2189
- Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)2060
- Motorola Moto G1928
- Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.31887
- HTC Butterfly1866
- Huawei Ascend Mate1646
- Alcatel One Touch Hero1566
Overall performance is what we expected - middle of the road. That's not a knock by any means - performance is very close to that of a Samsung Galaxy Note II in most areas (save for browsing). And the Note II is not even two years old, meaning people who bought it as a flagship on a 2-year contract are probably still carrying it. That's how fast technology moves.
Anyway, for a budget-minded flagship, the MediaTek chipset offers satisfactory performance even with the Hero's 1080p display (when most of its competition, Note II included, has 720p screens).
Dual-SIM phonebook
The Alcatel One Touch Hero has both a single- and a dual-SIM version and we're using the dual-SIM one for this review. The phonebook itself looks pretty basic - a list of all contacts complete with photos. An alphabetical list on the right can help you jump to a specific letter or you can just use the search function.
The phonebook app is actually tabbed, this is the default tab. The other two handle Groups and Favorites respectively. The Quick contacts feature is also on board.
The three views of the phonebook • searching by letter
Anyway, if a contact comes from the SIM card rather than an online service (Google, Facebook, etc.), a SIM icon will appear on its contact photo. For the dual-SIM version there is a number showing which SIM card too.
Indicators show which SIM a contact came from • switching SIMs from the notification area
Better yet, while browsing the phonebook there will be three toggles in the notification area allowing you to change the dual-SIM settings at any time - SIM1, SIM2 or Always ask. That's probably too much hassle though as you can associate each individual number with a SIM, which will be used for calling and texting that contact.
You can assign each phone number to a SIM card
This works great if someone has multiple numbers too - say two phones on two different carriers. This feature is invaluable and will save you a lot of manual switching between SIMs and wondering which one you should be using.
From here, you can also add individual ringtones for contacts and block incoming calls from them. Other than that, the contact view is pretty standard - name and image, a Favorites star and the list of numbers, emails and groups below.
The phonebook can be customized to show contacts only from one SIM, from Google or other services that can sync your phonebook (e.g. Facebook), only contacts stored locally on the phone or any combination of those. Contacts can be imported and exported too, which is great for backup.
Choosing contacts to display • importing and exporting contacts
Telephony
The Alcatel One Touch Hero features a traditional-looking dialer that supports smart dialing (searching both names and numbers). Standard voice calls are supported as are video calls and SIP calls. We had no issues with signal reception and the audio came out loud and clear. It helps that HD Voice is supported too (this needs to be supported by your carrier, of course).
Tabbed dialer with smart dial • call log • favorite contacts
The dialer app is tabbed too, with the Call log and the Contacts being the other two tabs. The call log uses colorful arrows to indicate the type of call (incoming, missed, outgoing). The Contacts tab begins with a grid of your favorite contacts but the full list is available below.
The dialer enables the three toggles in the notification area - SIM1, SIM2, Always Ask - just like the phonebook, but it goes deeper than that. The SIM management tool in the Settings allows you to toggle a SIM on or off individually (good if you need the second line only part-time).
You can also select which SIM is the default for voice calls, video calls, texting and data. Roaming can be enabled for individual SIMs too. As we saw in the phonebook, you can tie individual numbers to a SIM card if that card talks/texts cheaper with that particular number (i.e. both are on the same carrier).
Choosing which SIM does what
Messaging
The Messaging app holds no surprises - messages are organized into threads, each thread showing the contact photo and two lines of text from the latest message. On the dual-SIM version a small logo on the bottom of each bubble shows which SIM card received the message.
Messaging
You also get the SIM toggles in the notification area (just in case you haven't bound the number to a SIM) and you can set up which SIM should be used to store texts (this only matters if you move the SIMs between devices). Additional settings include font size, wallpaper for the app, delivery reports and limiting the number of messages stored (e.g. keep only the latest 500 texts and 50 MMS).
Messaging settings
Speaking of MMS, the Messaging app handles those seamlessly. You just need to attach a photo, audio file, video, a contact or calendar appointment. If you like, you can also go into the full-scale editor to create more elaborate MMS messages.
The Alcatel One Touch Hero also comes with Hangouts, which is another way to handle texts. It's not multi-SIM aware though, so you lose some of the finer controls of the Alcatel app but you can still rely on the bindings between contacts and SIMs.
Hangouts is an alternative but is not dual-SIM aware
The good thing about the Hangouts app, other than the revamped interface that adds handy swipe gestures, is that it also integrates messages from Google's own IM network (formerly GTalk). Since Google fixed the online status indicator, you know whether it's safe to use IM instead of text messaging, but unlike iMessage you have to manually switch between texts and IMs.
The Gmail app features color coded sender images, based on the first letter of the sender's name. The default app supports multiple Gmail accounts, but there's no unified inbox.
A cool feature in Gmail is that you can swipe left or right to move between messages in your inbox. The app also automatically sorts out your incoming messages into three inboxes - primary, social, and one for promotional emails. We found it to work like a charm - it makes sorting through email messages much easier.
The generic email app
There is also a generic email app for all your other email accounts and it can handle multiple POP or IMAP inboxes. You have access to the messages in the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.
Unlike its Gmail counterpart, this app supports a combined inbox view. It color codes the inboxes so you can easily tell where each message came from. Unfortunately, there's no moving between messages with sideways swipes here.
Generic email app
The keyboard on the Alcatel One Touch Hero is a courtesy of TouchPal. You can change its size from Smallest to Huge, but the difference between the two extremes is smaller than the names suggest. In either case, it's big and comfortable to type on with a few extra goodies.
Choosing keyboard size • one-handed keyboard • helpful function keys
For example, you can swipe on the Space key to toggle auto correct, which is great for words you know the autocorrect will mess up. Another nice option reveals arrow keys along with function buttons like select, copy, paste, home, end and so on.
The keyboard has swipe input enabled by default - you just glide over the keys you want without lifting your finger, which makes typing much easier. There's handwriting recognition too, both of which work better with the stylus - it feels more natural and the stylus allows more accuracy (but it may take some getting used to if you hadn't held a pen in a while).
Swipe input • handwriting recognition • voice dictation
Dictation is also enabled and since this is a Jelly Bean device it will work offline too (as long as you remember to download the language pack beforehand).
Custom gallery not better than the stock one
The Default view of the gallery is Albums, the first of which is always the Camera album, which has a camera overlay icon too. The app uses a grid of photos, two on a line. Besides, Album view, you also get Locations (photos are grouped based on where they were taken) and Times (grouped by when they were taken).
Unfortunately, there's no support for online albums.
The gallery: Albums, Locations and Times views
Getting inside an album displays all the photos in a rectangular grid, which is horizontally scrollable. A nice feature here is that thumbnails for video files are animated. An alternative to the grid view is filmstrip view, which is more suitable for landscape viewing as it shows bigger thumbnails.
Viewing a photo
There's a built-in editor that covers the basics - cropping, rotation and flipping, sharpening - but you can get into the more advanced stuff too, like beauty tools (e.g. change skin complexion), image controls, effects, frames, text labels and bokeh effects for simulating depth of field.
Editing an image
The Gallery app also features a collage tool that can combine up to 9 photos, with a variety of preset collage arrangements and borders.
Creating a collage
Movie Studio is also on board so you can edit videos as well as photos. To make a video, just create a new project, add videos or photos to the timeline, add music too. Videos can be trimmed if they run too long and you can add text titles, transitions and effects.
Movie Studio
For some strange reason, you can't use videos recorded with the One Touch Hero's own camera (maybe because it shoots 3GP videos?) but we had no problem importing an old test MOV clip. Go figure.
Video player does pop up play but lacks features
The video player has a simple interface - just a list of videos available on the device. A feature lifted from Samsung allows the video to play in a small window you can move around and resize. Other options are pretty limited - you can adjust how the video fits on the screen and make it loop but that's it. There isn't even subtitle support.
At least video codec support is reasonably thorough and the Alcatel One Touch Hero basically played everything we threw at it - DivX, XviD, MP4, MKV, at up to 1080p to boot. The audio codec support was no match however, and there was no sound on videos that use AC3, Dolby Digital or DTS (which are the codecs of choice for multichannel audio).
The video player • pop up player
You can also wirelessly share videos with a Wi-Fi enabled TV. You can either use the good ol' DLNA technology for sharing multimedia content or use the Miracast protocol for direct mirroring of the phablet's interface on the big screen.
Music player does much better
While the video player was a bit of a letdown, the music player makes up for it with a full list of features. It has a tabbed interface that sorts music by artist, album, lists all songs or shows the playlists.
Tabbed music player interface
The Now playing interface is custom and shows a giant vinyl record when there's no album art available. There are basic features like scrubbing through a song, activating repeat and shuffle (including Part shuffle that just mixes your whole library).
Now playing interface
There's support for lyrics but you'll have to manually download those and put them alongside the music files.
At least there's a capable equalizer. It can be turned on and off and features several presets along with a user defined one. There's a reverb preset too. If you plug in a headset, you can also play with the Bass boost and 3D effect sliders.
The equalizer
While the player is working, the lockscreen features the album art and track info for the current song along with simple playback controls. The notification area also lets you control the playback via an expandable notification.
And if you have the LED MagicFlip cover on, you'll see an animated equalizer while the music is playing.
If you run out of tracks, you can use the pre-installed Deezer app to buy new songs (the app offers 30 second previews) or listen to Internet radio. The selection of channels is rather thin but you can skip songs and there's an offline mode too (you can also select whether or not data should be used only on Wi-Fi or on 3G too).
Deezer music store and streaming service
Google Music is also on board if you prefer to go with a better known music store and online locker.
FM Radio with broadcast recording
The FM Radio is a pretty straightforward affair. You need to plug in a pair of headphones (to act as an antenna), the app will start playing. Sound can be played through the headset or the loudspeaker. RDS is available and you can even record broadcasts (this feature might not be universally available).
The FM Radio • recording a broadcast
Poor audio quality
The Alcatel One Touch is not the most talented musician on the smartphone block by some distance. The phablet did okay in the first part of our test, but its output came out pretty bad when we plugged in a pair of headphones.
When attached to an active external amplifier, the One Touch Hero loud audio with good frequency response, excellent dynamic range and no distortion. The stereo crosstalk and signal-to-noise ratio readings leave something to be desired, but they aren't too bad.
However, plug in a pair of headphones and you are facing poor to mediocre performance across the board. Volume levels drop too - from excellent to below average completion a dismal overall performance here. And since this second part of the test is the more important one, we can't really recommend the Alcatel One Touch Hero to any audiophiles.
And here go the results so you can see for yourselves.
| Test | Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | IMD + Noise | Stereo crosstalk |
| Alcatel One Touch Hero | +0.02, -0.18 | -77.7 | 86.4 | 0.0041 | 0.011 | -75.6 |
| Alcatel One Touch Hero (headphones attached) | +1.08, -0.07 | -56.9 | 68.6 | 0.014 | 0.455 | -51.8 |
| Oppo N1 | +0.14, -0.11 | -93.7 | 93.4 | 0.0036 | 0.076 | -83.7 |
| Oppo N1 (headphones attached) | +0.31, -0.26 | -93.2 | 92.4 | 0.0081 | 0.349 | -55.5 |
| HTC One Max | +0.14, -0.14 | -93.8 | 93.8 | 0.0009 | 0.015 | -94.1 |
| HTC One Max (headphones attached) | +0.26, -0.02 | -93.6 | 93.6 | 0.026 | 0.080 | -80.4 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 | +0.02, -0.07 | -96.5 | 92.8 | 0.0035 | 0.0099 | -96.3 |
| Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (headphones attached) | +0.01, -0.09 | -96.2 | 92.7 | 0.017 | 0.017 | -62.1 |
| LG Optimus G Pro | +0.48, -0.11 | -81.7 | 82.0 | 0.010 | 0.028 | -80.7 |
| LG Optimus G Pro (headphones attached) | +0.31, -0.27 | -81.1 | 81.1 | 0.0097 | 0.052 | -66.2 |
| +0.02, -0.08 | -92.5 | 92.5 | 0.0058 | 0.011 | -90.7 | |
| +0.48, -0.11 | -87.8 | 87.0 | 0.047 | 0.168 | -51.9 |
Alcatel One Touch Hero frequency response
Disappointing 13MP camera
The Alcatel One Touch Hero sports a 13MP camera on the back and a 2MP front-facer. The main cam has an LED flash to help along in low-light shots.
The interface is a custom job but it's pretty straightforward. Two columns trim the viewfinder: one for settings on the left and one for the virtual shutter on the right. You can also use the volume rocker to snap photos.
Classic camera interface
The settings include four shooting modes: HDR, Panorama, Night and Sports, along with a Full screen option (which crops the viewfinder) and a Shutter sound toggle. The Advanced settings give you more control with geotagging, resolution (large, medium, small), self-timer and manual ISO and Exposure settings.
After you've snapped a few shots, you can swipe left to review them. Unfortunately, you can't swipe up to discard the ones that didn't turn out so well.
Switching to the front-facing camera drops the Settings menu and replaces it with two options - Face beauty (which auto-enhances your selfies) and Expression. The latter makes a 2 x 2 collage of selfies in which you can make four different expressions. You can of course snap regular photos instead and go back to make a collage in the Gallery app.
Different options for the front-facing camera
Despite the wholesome 13MP resolution, the actual results from the camera are not that great. Certainly not on the level of flagship 13MP shooters. For one, some photos have a noticeable blue/green tint, making the images cold. Color rendering in general isn't very accurate.
Another issue is the dynamic range, which quite often is short and you get blown out highlights and underexposed lowlights. The level of fine detail varies: can be excellent at times, but the noise reduction all too often tends to smear fine detail out. Our unit also seems to have a lens issue, making the left half of images even softer.
Alcatel One Touch Hero camera samples
Here's a macro shot too.
Macro shot
We tried the HDR feature to offset the narrow dynamic range and that helped a little - shadows improved and blown out highlights were less prominent. The problem with this mode is that it takes 5 seconds to capture a photo.
HDR off • HDR on
And here's a panorama we snapped with the One Touch Hero. The vertical resolution is a disappointing 500 pixels and exposure problems crop up once again, but the stitching is clean.
Panorama shot with the Alcatel One Touch Hero
Photo Quality Comparison
The Alcatel One Touch Hero has plenty of phablets to contend with in our Photo compare tool, but it has an advantage over them - most phablets in this size and price range pack 8MP cameras, while the Hero has a 13MP shooter.
Alcatel One Touch Hero in our Photo compare tool
Video camera hurt by outdated format
The camcorder is just a click on the mode toggle away. The 13MP camera can do 1080p video (called Superfine), while the front camera tops out at 720p (that one is called Fine - Alcatel obviously has a thing for naming resolution modes). The main camera can use the LED flash as a video light.
The camcorder interface
The only other option available is whether or not the One Touch Hero should capture sound. There's no HDR mode for video recording, for example, a feature that has been gaining popularity recently.
The Alcatel One Touch Hero records videos in 3GP, which we hadn't seen in quite a while. On the upside it uses a pretty high bitrate of 22-23Mbps (an iPhone 5s or Galaxy S4 do around 17Mbps), but the downside is the poor codec used.
That high bitrate doesn't result in high quality 1080p video. There's noticeable aliasing and the overexposure issues from the still camera persist. The white balance is no longer cold, it actually has a slight yellow tint. At least videos play at a smooth framerate of 30fps.
Good connectivity set
The Alcatel One Touch Hero has no intention to take over the developed western markets, which is important when talking connectivity. It has quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G connectivity, there's no LTE or multiple 3G bands to thrive in a carrier-saturated space, but that makes little difference for the intended markets.
That said, the Hero has sufficiently fast data - 3G is DC-HSPA+ enabled and will do up to 42Mbps down and 11Mbps up. There's also dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n for fast local internet (well, not 802.11ac fast but those routers cost more than the Hero).
Of course, one of the key features of the One Touch Hero is that it has a dual-SIM option. The good news is that either SIM can be used for data connectivity (most devices limit data connectivity to SIM1), so you can mix and match your carrier plans for maximum bang for the buck.
Even better, the Hero lets you hot-swap both SIM cards so you don't need to restart the phone when you do (you still need to have a SIM ejector tool, or a paper clip or something, to open the SIM slot).
If the carrier supports it, the phablet will use HD Voice too, which offers higher-quality in-call audio than the old standard.
The phablet has hotspot functionality (if you have enough data for it) along with DLNA and Wi-Fi Direct. Wi-Fi is also used to wirelessly mirror the display on a Miracast-enabled TV. Other connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0 and A-GPS.
One interesting feature is the One Touch Center. It allows you to manage the Alcatel One Touch Hero from your computer. You'll need to install the PC app first and enter the provided PIN on the device.
Stock Android web browser
The Alcatel One Touch Hero uses the stock Android browser by default (a reminder of the older Android version). Still, the browser is very capable and some prefer it over Chrome (which can be installed from the Play Store, unlike the stock browser).
The 6" 1080p screen is well-suited for web browsing and you can make full use of the Request desktop site feature (there's enough room). The browser, of course, supports multiple tabs in what's otherwise the usual minimalist UI: address bar on top, a few buttons at the bottom (back/forward, tabs and bookmarks). These auto-hide to give the web page as much room as possible.
The stock Android web browser
You can move between tabs in a card-based interface similar to the app switching interface. You can't, however, switch tabs by swiping from the edge of the screen, a handy shortcut some browsers (Chrome included) offer.
Incognito tabs are available, though you have to get there from the settings flyout menu as there's no dedicated button on the tab switching screen.
Switching tabs • incognito tabs are available too
Other useful features include the Save for offline reading option and our favorite, Quick controls. The latter resides in the Labs section in the settings, which also has a Full screen option, in case you want even the status bar to disappear when browsing.
Labs • Quick controls
One additional advantage of the stock browser on Android 4.2 is Flash support. You'll have to grab an archived version (available on Adobe's web site) but we tried a Flash game and it worked. Less demanding Flash-based sites (there are still a few of those around) work as well.
Flash is still alive
The bookmarks on the browser show up as a grid of thumbnails and share a tabbed UI with the History and Saved pages lists. What's missing is syncing tabs over the Internet like Chrome, Firefox and several others do. There's nothing stopping you from installing one of those from the Play Store if you don't like the stock browser.
Cloud-enabled Office suite
The phablet comes with Kingsoft Office, which handles document editing with ease. It supports Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs (both the 2003 and 2007 versions), it opens PDF files and it doubles as a file explorer.
Kingsoft Office document editor
When editing a document, you get plenty of options: from text size and formatting to text justification, lists, tables, Excel formula editor and more.
Kingsoft Office also features cloud integration, so you can edit documents and sync them across devices via Google Drive, SkyDrive, Dropbox,Box and even custom WebDAV or FTP servers. The Shareplay feature allows you to "stream" a presentation to multiple devices (they need to be running Kingsoft Office though).
Cloud storage integration • Shareplay
Rich organizer
Alcatel preloaded the One Touch Hero with a long list of apps, besides the capable Office app.
The calendar is skinned but mostly unchanged. It features four views: Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Agenda. The Monthly view shows the days of the month in the top half of the screen and a list of events on the selected day in the bottom half.
Different views for the calendar
You can add multiple reminders for each event and search all events. Google recently added color-coding to events, which helps with organizing tasks. The app can easily handle several online calendars as well as the local calendar.
Creating an event • handling multiple calendars
The pre-installed File manager will handle files and folders on the built-in memory and the microSD card (remember, that's on the single-SIM only). It can copy, rename, delete files and folders, one by one or in bulk). You can sort the file list by type, name, size and age, which is great for finding old unused files that are taking up precious storage.
File manager
A great tool to have out of the box is the One Touch Cloud Backup app. Despite the name, the app can handle local backups too and you can even schedule them. The app will backup anything from apps through messages to system settings. Dropbox and Box can be used to move the backups to the cloud for safekeeping.
Backing up to local and cloud storage
The Hero comes with a capable clock app that handles four functions separated into tabs. The usual alarm functionality is of course there, with a fresh design too. You can set multiple alarms, each with its own repeat pattern, ringtone and label. There's also a world clock, a timer and a countdown feature.
Alarm clock • creating an alarm • world clock • timer
The ToDo app will help with simpler organizational tasks. For something more powerful, there's Evernote available out of the box.
ToDo app
A couple of apps are specifically designed to be used with the stylus. Scribe Note lets you create multi-paged "books" that you can scribble in and keep the note in your own handwriting or have the app use its handwriting recognition.
Scribe Note makes use of the stylus
The other app is Fast Math, a calculator that uses handwriting recognition and can even solve simple (and not so simple) equations. It's great for doing fractions (which require a lot of brackets with a software keyboard).
Writing equations is quicker than typing them
The good old calculator is here too - it has big, easily thumbable keys and you can swipe to the left to bring up the advanced functions (trigonometry, square root, brackets, etc.).
There's a standard calculator too
If you're running really low on battery, you can enable Ultimate saver. That drops the screen brightness as low as it will go and replaces the homescreen to only allow four functions: calling, texting, checking your phonebook and your calendar.
When desperation calls, Ultimate saver will stretch the battery life
There's also a number of small helpful tools. Weather pulls info from AccuWeather (it supports multiple locations). Then there's a voice recorder, compass, flashlight, a barcode scanner and a few more.
Google Maps and navigation
The Alcatel One Touch Hero comes with a GPS receiver and you can use the A-GPS functionality to get near instantaneous locks. Alternatively, network positioning will also do if you only need a rough estimate of your location.
Google Maps is a standard part of the Android package and we've covered it many times before. It offers voice-guided navigation in certain countries and falls back to a list of instructions elsewhere.
3D buildings are shown for some of the bigger cities and you can use two-finger camera tilt and rotate to get a better view of the area.
Google Maps
You can also plan routes, search for nearby POIs and go into the always cool Street View. The app will reroute you if you get off course, even without a data connection.
What's nearby and Street View
Google Maps uses vector maps, which are very data efficient. The latest version has a somewhat easier to use interface for caching maps - you pan/zoom around until the desired area is in view and choose "Make available offline" from the bottom of the search bar (after you've scrolled past search results or prompts). You can later view cached areas and delete the ones you no longer need.
The navigation options are quite extensive too. In many countries you can get voice-guided turn by turn navigation and in certain cities you even get public transport navigation.
Picking routes • with car or with public transport
Google Play Store, other stores
Like most devices running Android, the One Touch Hero has access to the full (and latest) Google Play store. You get to your account, My Apps, My wish list and more through a side-swipable menu a la Google+.
The Google Play store
The Store is organized in a few scrollable tabs - categories, featured, top paid, top free, top grossing, top new paid, top new free and trending. The in-app section is untouched though and it's very informative - you can view a description, latest changes, number of downloads and comments with rating. There is usually a demo video and several screenshots for most apps too.
Gameloft Live • One Touch Live
Alcatel has a deal with Gameloft so there are a number of games pre-installed: Asphalt 7, Kingdoms & Lords, Little Big City, Uno & Friends Demo and Wonder Zoo. Gameloft Live is a game app store, but you can also find games in the One Touch Live app.
Final words
The Alcatel One Touch Hero is a solid phablet that provides great user experience and even though some corners ought to be cut to fit the budge, it does very well to work around that. It's not always the best device to have, but it's a pretty great tradeoff.
For one, it gets the key features right. The first is a large, high-resolution screen at the heart. Most of the Hero's competition makes do with 720p screens, which are usable but their pixel density is on the low side for text.
The second is multitasking - that's covered by the split-screen feature, which is limited in terms of app support but handles a good portion of the apps you might want to use simultaneously. The quad-core Cortex-A7 processor with 2GB of RAM is enough to run two apps at a time (especially since the selected apps are mostly passive) and is good enough for a smooth Android experience.
Third is added utility - since you're lugging a large device, it's much better if it does something more than having a big screen. The One Touch Hero has its stylus and couple of dedicated apps for that, plus the option to do swipe input with a stylus (easier than with a finger). It's not an S Pen competitor, far from it, but it's better than what HTC One Max has.
And let's not forget the optional dual-SIM. Yes, you lose the storage expansion slot, but in some markets two hot-swappable SIMs can help you significantly cut down your monthly bills.
We quite liked the accessories too. We only tested the LED MagicFlip but there's potential there, definitely. We are more excited about the e-ink cover though, considering it can provide much more info than the small grid of pixels on the MagicFlip. That said, the magnet system is great and we wish it was more common on these flip covers.
Then of course, there are things that don't work all that well. The screen sensitivity is low for the stylus, which hurts handwriting recognition. The screen contrast could have been higher and there's the issue of the light bleed. The camera, although adequate, is far from the best around.
Let's see what the competition has to offer. The Asus Fonepad Note FHD6 features a 6" 1080p screen and a stylus (again a capacitive one). The screen is an IPS+ LCD rated at 450nits of brightness. The phablet is powered by an Intel Atom chipset and uses an 8MP Sony BSI sensor.
The price isn't that far off the Hero's pricing either, so picking between those two is not an easy task.
Asus Fonepad Note FHD6
The Huawei Ascend Mate is good enough to make it into our shopping guide twice in a row. The 6.1" phablet has only a 720p screen but a massive 4,050mAh battery and great endurance. Still, its outdated chipset isn't the most efficient around, so it's hard to recommend it over the Hero.
Huawei Ascend Mate
If you want something even bigger, the Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 has a 6.3" screen, although of just 720p resolution. It uses a dual-core Snapdragon processor and is one of the few here with LTE connectivity. It features Multi-window multitasking (which supports more apps, including ones from the Play Store) and an Android 4.3 update is coming up. There are other goodies like an IR blaster too.
The Mega 6.3 is another honorable entry in our shopping guide. Note that there's a Mega 5.8, which has a dual-SIM option but the other specs are noticeably lower than either the Mega 6.3 or the One Touch Hero.
Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 I9200
Nokia has phablets too now and the Lumia 1320 will probably fight for the same markets as the Hero. Its 6" IPS screen has 720p resolution, but Nokia's ClearBlack tech does improve image quality. Unfortunately, the camera has a small 5MP sensor, which still does 1080p video.
The Finnish phablet has LTE connectivity and there aren't that many large-screen Windows Phone options (with the sweet Nokia goodies no less, that's free offline SatNav, cool camera apps and a free music subscription).
Nokia Lumia 1320
Finally, a couple to look forward to. Sony just announced the Xperia T2 Ultra, a 6" 720p phablet with a 13MP camera that is powered by quad-core Qualcomm chipset (which also means LTE). It's yet to be launched and get a price tag, but it does have a dual-SIM option and it will be available with Android 4.3.
Then there's the Asus Zenfone 6 - another 6" dual-SIM phablet. The screen has 720p resolution, the camera does 13MP and the phablet is powered by the same chipset as the Fonepad. On the upside, it will run Android 4.3 at launch and will be upgradeable to 4.4 KitKat.
Again, those two are yet to hit stores.
Sony Xperia T2 Ultra • Sony Xperia T2 Ultra dual • Asus Zenfone 6
Users are spoiled for choice when it comes to phablets, so the Alcatel One Touch Hero has a tough climb ahead. At least it didn't go on its quest unprepared - the core competition is mostly 720p screens and few of those have dual-SIM options, let alone split-screen multitasking.
Those will be the three features that will tip the scales in favor of the Hero when potential buyers review their options. And the Hero is priced just right to make some of its drawbacks easier to live with.
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