On the front of the device there’s little to get excited about design wise, with just a small speaker located at the top breaking up the familiar black fascia. Turn the device around and there’s a rubberised, nonremovable, backplate that can be bought in a variety of colours. The yellow variant we tested here was a bit of an eyesore. Around the edges are the power and volume buttons and a micro SIM slot. What was really disappointing is the lack of micro SD slot and 3.5mm jack, with Alcatel bundling in a USB to 3.5mm jack instead, which is a little inconvenient to carry around.
For the most part we were impressed with the screen on offer here, and the 4.7-inch, 720 x 1,280 AMOLED display was pretty impressive. Packing in 312ppi, means text looks remarkably crisp, with just the odd colour looking a bit saturated. Another positive is that there’s only a light custom skin implemented into the Idol Ultra, with a large stock version of Android 4.1.1 being used to great effect here. There are some subtle changes that Alcatel has included, but it’s a lot better than the custom skins offered on the Xperia SP and RAZR HD. We appreciated the lack of bloat.
Powering the Idol Ultra is a 1.2GHz dual-core processor alongside a single GB of RAM. It’s a tried and tested combination and thanks to the lack of a custom skin, for the most part, the device ticks along very nicely. Multitasking is a doddle, but it struggles with a few of the more demanding apps on the Google Play store. Although watching movies is a big plus on the screen here, the lack of expandable storage is a pain to say the least.
