Today we are taking a look at a very affordable phone from Alcatel called the 3V (2019). You can find this phone on Amazon for just around $200 in the US and for about $220 in Canada and for that price, we do get really good value.
There is a massive 6.7″ screen that has a 720p resolution; and even though this is not the greatest resolution out there we do get very good viewing angles and nice and saturated colors. The screen gets bright enough so the phone can be used outdoors.
Aside from that, we get a 4000 mAh battery and a very power-efficient processor; the MediaTek Helio P22 and you can easily get over 10 hours of screen-on time. That’s impressive for any phone at any price.
The phone itself is mostly made out of plastic except for the screen.
On the back, there is a physical fingerprint scanner; something that we don’t usually see these days. The fingerprint scanner works great and it unlocks the phone in about half a second after touching it.
At the top, we get a 3.5 mm audio jack, something that we don’t really see these days anymore.
Next to that there is an IR blaster and that means that you can use this phone as a remote control for your TV and that it could come in handy in some situations.
The phone even has dual speakers so there is one speaker next to the USB-C charging port and the second speaker next to the front-facing camera.
There is also an LED notification light next to the from facing camera.
The speakers sound okay but I wish they would have been a bit louder.
Performance-wise this phone is not going to win any speed awards. You get an Antutu score of about 90,000 and that’s definitely not the highest score that I have ever seen. However, most applications that you’re going to download from the Google Play Store should do okay. You’re going to wait for a second longer to load some of those applications when compared to some other more expensive phones but once they loaded they should work fine.
I was even able to play games like PUBG and I was not expecting that the phone will perform that great for that game but it actually did much better than I was expecting.
So yes, the MediaTek Helio P22 may not be the fastest processor out there but since the phone is running Android 9 with a very light skin on top, the phone performed better than I expected.
As you probably imagined, since this is a fairly affordable phone, the cameras aren’t the greatest thing about this phone.
If you have plenty of light, you can take some decent looking pictures and there is even a portrait mode in there. The edge detection for the portrait mode is pretty decent and better than I was expecting.
Taking pictures in low light isn’t great and the phone has trouble focusing and the pictures become quite grainy; overall pretty average cameras for a phone around $200.
Alcatel 3V can record with the maximum resolution of 1080p but we do seem to have an image stabilization at that resolution. If you’re looking for a device that can do 4k, this isn’t.
Connectivity-wise the phone supports dual-band Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity. Based on the bands you shouldn’t have any issues of using this phone on pretty much anywhere in the US and Canada.
Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t support NFC so you’re not going to be able to use this phone to make payments. That’s unfortunate because NFC would have made a big difference because I do use my phone to make purchases every now and then.
For the GPS unit inside the phone, it only takes a couple of seconds for the phone to find your location. For sensors, we don’t seem to have a gyroscope.
Conclusion
Alcatel 3V may not be the fastest phone out there, however it is available at a bunch of carriers in North America; that means manufacturer warranty and the ability to have it serviced locally. You you’re going to love the 6.7″ screen if you like watching videos or playing games and that 4,000 mAh battery can keep the phone going for days at a time on one charge. So it may not be the fastest phone out there but it does offer a really good value for its price.
Find it on Amazon
Watch full review in video format with video and audio samples:
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