Alcatel Insight review discusses what kind of tech you can get with under ten bucks. Discover this basic Android smartphone that might suit your needs.
Alcatel Insight smartphone was released in September 2019. It’s an Android phone with minimalist specs. Catering to entry-level users, this device offers a smartphone experience at a low price.
There are many choices buyers will have for budget phones, to the point it can be confusing. Here’s what this Alcatel Insight review is about. Find the pros and cons as you are making a purchase decision.
At a glance, Alcatel Insight features a 5-Inch display. The camera consists of a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera. For the CPU, there’s a 1.5GHz processor with 1.5GB RAM.
Read this review for a more in-depth analysis of Alcatel Insight. Figure out if this phone can be your next low-cost smartphone.
Page Contents:
Key Specs
Alcatel Insight specifications:
- Weight: 145g
- Dimensions: 136.4 x 65 x 9.9mm
- OS: Android 9.0
- Screen size: 5-Inch
- Resolution: 960 x 480
- CPU: 1.5GHz, Quad-core MediaTek MT6739
- RAM: 1.5GB
- Storage: 16GB
- Battery: 2,200mAh, Removable
- Rear camera: 5MP
- Front camera: 2MP
Design
Alcatel Insight features a practical design at 136.4 x 65 x 9.9mm. Moreover, this phone is also light to carry. At 145g, it’s a very portable handheld. This phone’s measurement is overall below average compared to other smartphones today.
The design features a suede black color, both in the phone’s frame and it’s back cover. It’s a bit grayish and textured on the back. We found it disguising grease and fingerprints well. The texture also makes the phone snug nicely on your palm, in addition to the already perfect size.
This back cover houses the camera, the LED flash, and the Alcatel logo. At the bottom, we spotted the loudspeaker. It’s a curious placement for a speaker. When audio is playing, the speaker’s sound is muffled if you are holding the phone in your hand. It’s because your palm most likely is covering the speaker.
The front design involves a rectangle LCD screen. There’s no infinity or edge-to-edge design here. This phone will look outdated when you compare it with today’s design trend. If we’re to conclude, Alcatel Insight’s design is more sensible than trying to impress. It’s far from luxurious looking.
Read also: Alcatel Insight User Manual
Display
The LCD display on Alcatel Insight has a size of 5-Inch. By today’s standard, this size looks petite. Additionally, the display quality isn’t impressive either. The resolution is only 960 x 480, which means it’s not a high definition (HD) screen.
Being a low-cost phone means some things will get sacrificed. In this case, it’s the display. For some people, 5-inch can be too small and hard to navigate. Reading texts on it is not as comfortable as when you use a bigger display.
The bezel framing the display is thick at the top and bottom. Surprisingly, they make a nice palm rest when you hold the phone in landscape mode. The good thing about the display is, it’s protected by Dragontrail glass coating. It makes the display more resistant to scratches.
The touchscreen is intuitive enough. But like in many other low-cost phones, displays can be less responsive when your hand is wet. Although colors look good on icons and buttons, we find it a bit lacking on images.
Camera
Alcatel Insight is equipped with a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front camera. Many people would remark how low the camera spec is. However, in our experience, this setup is quite common on ultra-affordable phones.
The back camera is able to take decent occasional snaps. It comes with an LED flash, which comes in handy in low-lights. At its best, you can take pictures worth posting on social media. However, don’t attempt to use the camera for anything more serious than that.
Video recording on Alcatel Insight is another matter. The video output comes in Full HD (1920×1080.) Users get 30fps videos out of the camera. Although, you might also get shaky results and there’s no autofocus for the video.
The front camera can be better. At 2MP, it reminds us of a camera from a basic phone. At best, you can use it for video calls. We doubt its usefulness when you hope to get a flattering selfie. For recording video, you can get an HD resolution with the front camera.
Read also:
- Cricket Icon 2 Review: Very Cheap Basic Smartphone
- Cricket Icon Smartphone Review: A 5.5-Inch Affordable Phone
Storage
There’s a 16GB internal storage on Alcatel Insight. Several gigabytes are used by the phone’s system, leaving users with 11GB to make use of. Considering you won’t load the phone with too many apps and files, 11GB can be enough.
The external storage option on this device allows you to install a 32GB SD card. It may be an inadequate feature if you find it on a more expensive phone. However, for a phone like Alcatel Insight, the capacity proves to be just fine. We wish it could be bigger. But at this price, the storage specs limitation is understandable.
Performance
Alcatel Insight’s performance depends on the 1.5GHz Mediatek processor that runs everything inside. There is the 1.5GB RAM completing this to perform the setup. Both work in tandem to make everything run well.
Only it is not that smooth on this phone. We can rely on it for light tasks, but we can clearly see struggles when things went more intense. Never too many apps are opening for the performance to remain swift. It’s not a really good phone for multitasking.
The 1.5GB RAM helps a little in improving the performance level. We’re glad Alcatel Insight doesn’t go for the lowest 1GB for the RAM. Although this phone can use a smaller capacity, more is always better.
Users will definitely encounter delays and lags when navigating the phone. Many of today’s apps, even like social media apps, require a lot of processing power. Therefore, lags always happen on low-cost phones like this Alcatel Insight.
The Android on this phone is Android 9.0, which is a 2019 release. Today, it’s not the most recent version out there. Hence Alcatel Insight doesn’t benefit from the latest performance updates on Android 10.
The UI on Alcatel Insight is simplistic. There’s no modification on its Android, meaning you get a basic version with no bloatware. It’s important to keep the OS minimal too for the sake of performance.
You’ll get the complete package of Google apps pre-installed. The phone supports accessibility features like Google Assistant too. included in the phone also Hearing Aid compatibility, which rated M4/T3.
For sensors, Alcatel Insight packs a complete standard package. That involves Accelerometer, Ambient light sensor, and Proximity sensor. It means you can use apps that utilize them. For example, a mobile game that uses a tilting mechanism as controls.
Overall, not many left to be desired in terms of performance. This smartphone is the basic you can get on Android phones. Reflected in its price, buyers need to be aware of many of its performance limitations. That summarizes our Alcatel Insight review for performance.
Connectivity
Alcatel Insight is a 4G LTE phone. It supports the most-widely used bad while still also cater to older networks (3G/2G.) On the other hand, you may consider the upcoming 5G. When the 5G becomes common, this handset will soon become obsolete.
At this point though, it’s still okay to have a 4G phone. Especially if you don’t spend a lot of money on it. The call quality is mostly adequate. Dropped calls can happen once in a while.
The phone also provides Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Enjoy surfing the net with ease. If you have a wireless Bluetooth earbud, it can pair with Alcatel Insight normally. For data transfer to a computer, there’s the MicroUSB connector you can find at the bottom of the phone.
The last thing to mention here is the GPS. If you often use a phone to navigate your city, you can be glad because this phone provides it. However, the Maps app on this phone can have a lot of lags at times. It’s more of the performance rather than the GPS.
Battery
Alcatel Insight employs a 2,200mAh removable battery. In line with the whole minimalist specs of this phone, the battery also comes in a small capacity. Moreover, Alcatel Insight doesn’t need a lot in terms of power. The small display, especially, is like a blessing in disguise.
Performance for the battery is mixed. It should get you through the day, but a bit more phone usage than usual will need you to charge twice. There’s no quick charging feature here. However, we found the average charging time. It’s not too long for the battery to fill up due to its small capacity.
Is Alcatel Insight a good phone?
The single attractive thing about this phone is the price. At $9,99, it almost equals a single trip to McDonald’s. If you’re looking for a simple smartphone, spending ten bucks sounds like a sensible thing to do. Especially if you don’t need anything other than calling, texting, and some rare internet browsing.
However, anyone that is beyond just casual users might have a lot of complaints about this phone. For these particular buyers, we recommend not purchase it. There are a lot of other options out there. So, that’s our final verdict in this Alcatel Insight review.
Alcatel Insight Pros
- Cheap price
- 4G support
- Enough RAM
- Clean Android
Alcatel Insight Cons
- Low performance
- Poor camera
- Poor display
