Alcatel A50 - Review 2022

Most affordable unlocked phones are fairly nondescript slabs that share similar hardware, feature sets, and performance. The $99.99 Amazon Prime number-subsidized Alcatel A50 shakes things upward with a modular back console that works with various accessories, similar to Motorola'southward Moto Mods. It makes the phone a lot more interesting than many of the alternatives in this price range, but if you lot place a high priority on photographic camera quality, you'll want to look elsewhere. The Motorola Moto E4 remains our Editors' Choice for offering the best alloy of performance and features for the price.

Pattern and Display

With its default faux-metallic back console, the A50 looks like your standard budget phone. It measures 5.viii by 2.8 by 0.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 5.1 ounces, similar to the Moto E4 (5.7 by ii.viii by 0.four inches, 5.three ounces). That said, there's a rather large bezel above and beneath the brandish, and using a different snap-on back panel volition add together to overall thickness.

The feel of buttons depends on which dorsum encompass yous use. Out of the box you get a clicky volume rocker and power button on the right side. Snapping a different cover on the dorsum tin make the buttons feel less responsive. Ports don't change, though. You lot'll notice a 3.5mm headphone jack on the pinnacle and an off-center USB-C charging port on the bottom. Underneath the back cover you take access to a SIM carte du jour slot and a microSD card slot, the latter of which worked fine with a 256GB card. Dissimilar the Moto E4, at that place is no fingerprint sensor.

The A50 has a 5.ii-inch, 1,280-by-720 brandish with a set of dimly backlit capacitive navigation buttons below it. The resolution works out to 282 pixels per inch (ppi), similar to what you go with the 5-inch Moto E4 (294ppi). Viewing angles are good, and you won't notice any pixelation unless you lot're really looking for it. Brightness could be higher, as outdoors the screen is cogitating and hard to view under straight sunlight. At that place'southward also some backlight drain. When the phone is on a blackness background, a noticeable amount of light leaks through on the left side and bottom of the panel, similar to what you'll run into on a reckoner monitor. That said, you'll but notice it if the phone's screen is completely black, so most of the time it shouldn't be an consequence.

A speaker on the lesser provides fairly loud merely tinny sound. Nether Settings, yous'll observe a diverseness of sound options for speakers and headsets. You lot can choose betwixt music, movie, and game audio, every bit well equally the blazon of headset you have plugged in including earbuds, in-ear, on-ear, and around-ear. The differences between the different options are minimal, then I simply used default settings most of the time.

Modular Backs and App

Alcatel's Snapbak cover concept seems to describe articulate inspiration from Motorola'south Moto Mods. Alcatel has announced backup battery and speaker covers, but the but 1 currently bachelor is the LightUp Snapbak, which comes equally an optional bundle with the A50 for $199.99.

The LightUp Snapbak is an LED-lit back embrace that lights up attractively in response to various deportment on your phone. Unlike Moto Mods, which piece of work automatically as before long as yous snap them on, to become the LightUp Snapbak upwards and running you need to use the preloaded Light Show app. You can take Light Testify start playing in response to your music, picking from x options similar City Lights, Flames, Rain, and Waves. Each option gives you a different set up of colors and a unlike pattern. Flames for case, use red and orange LEDs at the bottom of the case to brand it resemble fire, while pelting uses blue LEDs falling from the top. Information technology'due south prissy to look at, but if y'all have your phone in your pocket while listening to music it'due south not doing much except draining your battery.

Color Catcher makes utilise of the camera to notice colors and patterns around you and create a custom light theme. It fun and unique, only information technology also changes items on your phone itself, including the background, lock screen, and shading of app icons, which is annoying. You tin also make information technology low-cal up in response to your vocalism, but I wasn't able to become this characteristic working reliably.

The most practical use for the embrace is to take it lite up in response to incoming calls, alarms, and app notifications, reminiscent of the HTC Dot View Case. That said, it'southward clear Alcatel is in the early stages of modular functionality, while Moto Mods are a much more mature platform. In that location'southward a big price difference, nonetheless, as the to the lowest degree expensive phone to support Moto Mods is the $499 for the Moto Z2 Play.

Network Functioning and Connectivity

The Alcatel A50 supports LTE bands 2/iv/v/7/12, making it compatible with AT&T and T-Mobile. The Moto E4, meanwhile, is banded to work on all major US carriers, including Sprint and Verizon. That said, we experienced solid network connectivity on the A50 where we tested in midtown Manhattan.

Boosted connexion options include Bluetooth four.2 and Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. There's no NFC.

Call quality is average. Transmissions were audible but not very clear, with some swell caused by current of air noise and traffic. The earpiece is loud for incoming calls, merely once more quality isn't top-notch. VoLTE is supported on T-Mobile, just there's no Wi-Fi calling.

Processor, Bombardment, and Camera

The A50 is powered past a MediaTek MTK 6738 processor clocked at 1.5GHz. It'south a basic entry-level chipset that scores 34,478 on the AnTuTu benchmark, which measures overall arrangement performance, coming in a fleck nether the Qualcomm Snapdragon 425-powered Moto E4 (36,394).

The 2GB of RAM here is pretty standard and makes for decent multitasking capabilities. For the most part performance is smooth, simply you'll meet hiccups from time to time in the form of brief stutters. High-end games like GTA: San Andreas lag too much to be playable, however.

See How Nosotros Test Cell Phones

Battery life is solid. The A50 clocked 5 hours, 51 minutes in our rundown test, in which we ready screen brightness to maximum and stream full-screen video over LTE. That's a bit ameliorate than the E4 (5 hours, xxx minutes) and most 2 hours longer than the less expensive Alcatel A30 (4 hours, 13 minutes). While the back encompass is removable, the battery is sealed in so yous can't swap it out.

The A50'south 13-megapixel rear photographic camera is poor, even for the price. No matter the location or the lighting, images await dim and muddy. Fine details run together and textures look splotchy, almost like a watercolor painting when y'all look up shut. Depression-calorie-free pictures accept the added downside of being slow to focus.

You lot tin can record 1080p video at 30fps, but information technology's jittery and drops frames in lower lighting. The one strong point is the 5-megapixel forepart camera. Selfies are on the soft side, merely overall they are clearer than you what you lot get with the primary camera. The Moto E4 has a lower-resolution 8-megapixel camera that is by no ways a standout, only it produces crisper, improve-defined shots.

Software

The A50 runs Android 7.0 Nougat with a fairly heavy skin that adds lots of additional customization options and features. You tin can edit the home screen to change icon size, text size, and the number of apps shown. A Private way in Settings lets you hide apps and pictures behind a countersign, pattern, or Pin, preventing your sensitive data from beingness accessed if someone else is using your phone.

As with other Amazon Prime phones, y'all get ads on the lock screen and through a removable widget on the home screen. Y'all can pay an extra $50 to go the phone ad-free.

Yous'll find sixteen preloaded apps, including Amazon's total suite, several Alcatel apps, and some extras like Facebook, IMDb, Instagram, and the oddball Xender File Transfer. Out of 16GB of total storage more than half is used upwards, leaving you lot with just 6.36GB. Fortunately, y'all accept the microSD card slot if y'all need it.

Conclusions

The Alcatel A50 is more interesting than most $100 phones. If you're sold on the modularity gimmick it might be worth information technology, but keep in listen that only the LightUp cover is available right now. The Motorola Moto E4 isn't quite every bit heady, only it offers compatibility with more than carriers and improve camera performance, making it a fleck more well-rounded, and our Editors' Choice. If you're willing to spend more than, the $185 Moto G5 Plus is a nifty option with a performance boost across the lath.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/mobile-phones/16799/alcatel-a50

Posted by: swansonwhilke.blogspot.com

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