Alcatel Idol 5 Review

Battery life

Battery life is as average as it comes with the Alcatel Idol 5, which houses a 2850 mAh battery cell. We've been able to get a solid one-day of normal usage from a full charge, which is the tally we'd expect at the very least from most phones nowadays.

On the flip side, the fast-charging technology employed it manages to recharge the phone in a speedy amount of time. It's not lightning quick, but fast enough to deliver juice during short bursts when you're in a rut trying to get a charge.

Call Quality

One surprising area where the Alcatel Idol 5 manages to shine is call quality. Besides the artificial tone of voices through the earpiece, everything else is just plain wonderful with the experience. For starters, the earpiece and speakerphone are powerful enough to discern voices in noisy environments. And moreover, its signal strength doesn't fluctuate intermittently during usage.

Conclusion

Those eyeing the Alcatel Idol 5 here in the US will have to settle for Cricket Wireless, who is the exclusive carrier of the phone. Accompanied with a sticker price of $199.99, in addition to the $49.99 cost of the UNI360 VR Goggles, it doesn't seem like a bad deal for something that's VR-ready at under $250. Then again, it's competing in a crowded field where phones of this caliber come with fingerprint sensors and lower price points – take the Moto E4 Plus for example, which is a hair under at $180 full price.

Honestly, it's a tossup because the Idol 5 is indeed VR ready from the get-go, offers an atypical premium design for its category, and customizations to the software that help to make it even more useful than stock. Still, it's not without its faults, as the camera really fails to make an impression. If that's not high on your priority list, then that shouldn't be an issue. But then again, this seems more like another middle-of-the-road option for those on a budget. There's nothing fanciful about it that we haven't seen before.