Alcatel, the same people behind TCL in China are rumoured to be working on a new Windows 10 phone that boasts high-end hardware.
Early reports from Chinese media states that the TCL made Alcatel Idol Pro 4 is set to receive hardware that we would normally associate with flagship Android smartphones. Accord to this report, the phone could ship with a Snapdragon 820 chipset and even a 2K display.
Gizchina News of the week
Another area that the Windows 10 powered phone is set to take the fight to Android phones is in the camera department, although at this time the details are unknown.
We’re not sure when this Alcatel Windows 10 ‘Super Phone’ will be available, but we will keep our eyes peeled at MWC.
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is the phone mentioned really the “superphone” in the Thumbnail? That looks like a 50$ Elephone G2…Who even buys windows phones in the first place? With these kind of specs the only Windows phone argument (Price) is gone, like this there is no reason to buy it.
Actually ooks like an old Lumia phone with a different camera housing.
Yes it really does, though the G2 is also quite similar. I’m not so into Lumia phones. But I know very much about Chinese phones,I’ve owned plenty….(Dont call me Elephone Employee bcs I post a pic of an elephone plz)
As long as you dont’ start making ridiculous claims about Elephone you’re good lol. I owned an Elephone and a Doogee and dozens of other brands of Chinese phones.
The P6000 actually was a really nice device but then it failed after 2 months and i couldnt get it to work again, my Elephone G1 had speaker problems, and the doogee pixels I’ve had fell apart after 1 week…. Since then, I’ve moved to more sophisticated CN-brands
I had the P6000 too, it was good for about a month for me then everything stopped working bit by bit. My Doogee DG2014 lasted about 3 months and it was a very well made phone. Then I hit the 3 month mark and the camera stopped working, then the sim card reader stopped, then the digitizer and so on. Eventually it just wouldn’t turn on.
Not to mention aftersale-service on Aliexpress after the purchase-protection period is over and the seller got his money…
I avoid Ali at all costs for phones, I have had too many bad experiences with “trusted” sellers there. I only use them now for cases and accessories.
Yeah started doing that too, Dx always had best CS for me, would always allow sendback and refund if the device is broken.
I use mostly Pandawill, Merimobiles, 1949deal and Honorbuy (they are the ones that run the Gizchina Shop).
any experience with gearbest? i’ve bought quite a few usb chargers, earphones, gadgets and have been pretty satisfied. but still a bit hesitant when it comes to a phone purchase. too many horror stories of resellers installing malware
Not directly, like you I have only ordered some accessories with them. But I have heard negative things about their phones.
no, the photo is actually the Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL.
its taken from this article, where its clearly listed as the Fierce XL
http://wmpoweruser.com/alcatels-idol-pro-4-may-be-the-promised-superphone/
Looks pretty crappy…
I doubt it will have a camera at least comparable to what 4 years old Lumia can offer, too.
Windows 10, is a real slow starter, but what might help here isn’t the amount of expensive phones. They need more in the mid-range and Windows needs to optimise power management a lot.
There are going to be a few Windows phones at MWC keep your eyes open! I know of about 10 that are in the works from a variety of manufacturers but I am not certain which ones will be at MWC.
I bet you know quite a lot Balco 😉
I don’t work in the department that produces the phones, most of those are made at Microsoft Mobile in Finland. My department deals with the Android and Windows Apps developed by Microsoft and it’s studios (we have a number of dev studios around the world that are working on app development). Check out Arrow Launcher and Next Lock Screen! (selfless promotion lol).
There is a rumored Surface phone which is kind of like you describe but last I heard it won’t be ready for MWC. That’s about all I can say without getting myself into too much trouble.
Ahh ok, insightful 🙂
I had a beta invite for Arrow Launcher quite a while back, I did try it for about a month solid, but it just wasn’t my cuppa tea…
Not tried the Next Lock Screen yet though.
I dont use Arrow either lol. Currently I use Aviate by Yahoo!.
The Surface Phone will probably run full-blown Windows 10… RT 😛
Windows 10 doesn;t have an RT equivalent. RT was discontinued 2 years ago, but is still supported for devices that run it.
off topic question, but why is outlook such a bad program for normal end users`in a corporate network? it tops the list of most incidents in many servicedesks
I couldn’t tell you, that is not my department.
Actually, as you’re a MS employee (not sure which area obviously) But what are your thoughts on : –
Why don’t MS make a fully blown Windows 10 phone that runs Windows 10 Mobile when in phone mode, but dockable via USB-C to a Screen, Keyboard and Mouse and then suddenly transforms to Windows 10 Pro (x86/x64 Desktop version..) Obviously I would expect this would need an Intel CPU then but obviously the Cherrytrail Atom could come in nicely there..?
That’d make an awesome phone as it’s the ultimate 2-in-1 Truly take your work with you lol
Dude, I would totally buy THAT Windows phone. Imagine if they went full blown ASUS on us and also made a tablet screen it could dock into.
One device to rule them all…
Dude, you didn’t even need a KB and a Mouse they could have used the phone’s screen.
Half of it is a KB and half is a touch-pad, would have worked perfectly>
Could have built a USB type C port that connects to the display and use the phone as a general PC(like the BS Continuum which costs extra!), or could have included it with the 950 series at least! Those phnes cost nearly as much as an Iphone 6S and offer non of the benefits.
I can’t stomach banging out another Windows Mobile rant, so I’m gonna reuse one I posted earlier about another upcoming Windows Phone.
“OK, it’s official. Microsoft is paying 3rd-party companies to produce phones for them. They must be. No company run by sane, business-savvy individuals would produce a phone for 2.5% of the smartphone buying public. 2.5%… that’s Windows Mobile’s market share. Let me break that down for you. If you take 5%, already a paltry figure, and decrease it by 50%, a big decrease, you have Windows Mobile’s market share. Not good enough? OK, chew on this: 2.5% is such an insignificant number that the U.S. government considers the entire country fully employed when only 2.5% of its citizens are unemployed. Still not grasping the pathetic state of Windows Mobile’s affairs? I can’t help you then.
Time to face facts, Microsoft. Windows Mobile SUCKS. It doesn’t matter if a phone has a 50-core processor, 25GB of RAM and a 6-billion gigapixel camera with inter-dimsenional auto-focus, if you put Windows Mobile on it no one will buy it.”
Actually now that I’ve re-read it, I should have mentioned that Windows Mobile’s market has actually been declining for 3 years. Any other company would be out of the smartphone business right now. That’s how bad it is.
Maybe Microsoft reads the comments on mobile tech blogs and thinks that each and every person who says something positive about a Windows phone is actually going to buy one (a phenomenon I still don’t understand).
Anyway, the main takeaway here is that no phone can save Windows Mobile because it SUCKS.
The problem is you are comparing Microsoft’s market share to Android as a whole instead of individual Android companies. For 2015 Microsoft (not including third parties) had 2.2% market share. 2.2% doesn’t seem like a lot, but that is still close to 40 million phones sold. Xiaomi by comparison has about a 5% market share, HTC has 3.5%, Sony is about 2%. Most companies are still in business despite having less than 2% market share. 2% seems like a small number but it is 2% of a total market size of 2 billion.
You may not be a fan of Windows Mobile but consumers are buying it.
That’s hardly true. Windows 10 is a horrible mess, while M$ have done great with Windows 10 for PCs the mobile version offers pretty much nothing new and it crashes/freezes like crazy.
People who buy it, only use the smartphone for skype/facebook and web browsing, and even that part is not very pleasant.
M$ did a great job with Windows 8/8.1 and the Lumia 535/735(offered similar specs to Android counterparts with a generally equal/better performance in some cases) line of phones.
How can you go so wrong, so fast?
What is hardly true? Microsoft does have a 2.2% share. Microsoft does sell just about as many phones as a brand like Sony each year.
As or your issues. I use it everyday for work on a Lumia 640 (as a side note I prefer Android 100%, and also use an Android phone for work) I have no issues with it crashing or freezing. I hated Windows 8 mobile, I’m actually starting to like Windows 10. There have been problems with specifics apps crashing like Cortana, but it has since been fixed. Those problems happen on all platforms.
But that’s exactly my point. Those other companies are all vying for a piece of Android’s 80% world market-share. The market demand there is evident. In the case of Windows Mobile, there literally is no demand for it, even in its home country. So why make a WM device at all? It’s a 2-horse race and everyone knows it except for Microsoft.
Speaking of those other companies, the ones under 5% world market-share are losing money hand over fist. Companies like Xiaomi are a bit of a different animal because they compete mainly in their homeland. Last I checked Xiaomi’s market-share in China was 15%. That’s 15% of a huge market, for a company that’s scaled accordingly.
Imagine if Apple’s North American smartphone market-share fell to 15%. Apple’s impending demise would be front-page news. By comparison, WM’s US market-share is 2.8% according to the latest published figures. Ouch. Their world makert-share is even worse at a virtually non-existent 1.1% (again, according to the latest figures. I said 2.5% earlier because that was the last figure I’d seen). Double ouch.
If Windows Mobile was any good I wouldn’t beat up on it so much, but it’s not. The app situation is still pathetic, and the Metro design language hasn’t changed since the Zune HD (I would know, being one of the few people that bought one).
Android was better 5 years ago than WM is today. It’s time for MS to either scrap it and start over, switch to Android, or cut their losses and get out of the smartphone business altogether.
It’s not a 2 horse race at all, its a 1000 horse race. Samsung is competing with LG, HTC, Sony, Xiaomi, Apple, Google and Microsoft to sell devices. It doesn’t matter how big the overall market share for Android or Apple is, that means nothing to Sony who only sells about 30 million phones a year. Number of units sold is much more important than OS Market Share.
Again I get you don’t like Windows Mobile, it’s not for everyone. But there are millions people around the world that do. I don’t like Sony phones, and they don’t sell well at all compared to Samsung. So I guess Sony should stop selling phones?
I would agree with you if MS was vying for a piece of the Android handset market. But they’re not. They’re trying to sustain a platform the smartphone market has flatly rejected. WM share of the overall smartphone market isn’t just dismally low, it’s decreasing year by year.
I get that, numerically speaking, a large number of people still buy WM devices. But don’t you have to take into consideration the cost of getting those devices into the hands of consumers? If Elephone sells a million units… OMG, staggering success. But their company and costs are scaled accordingly. MS needs to increase WM device sales 10-fold just to break even. It’s not an apples to apples comparison.
As an MS employee, particularly someone that works in PR/Marketing, I get that it’s insulting to hear someone put “WM” and “SUCKS” in a 2-word sentence of that respective order. I certainly didn’t mean to insult you personally. And I know that as a point of professional pride and duty to your post at MS, you have no choice but to defend your product.
But naming the Xiaomi Mi5, an Android phone, as by far your most anticipated device at MWC 2016, belies what Balco-the-smartphone-enthusiast really thinks.
MS is vying for a piece of the Smartphone market which is a 2 billion strong. And 40 million people are adopting it each year. Platform doesn’t matter as much as you seem to think it does. Actual unit sold is the only thing we look at. MS knows it will never catch Android or iOS, both of those platforms have been around too long for anyone to catch them. Hardcore enthusiasts like us buy phone based on platform. Average consumers by them based on brand names, they don’t know the difference between AOSP, Touchwhiz or Windows. That’s all they know is whether they can reach Facebook and Youtube. And the “average consumer” far outweighs enthusiasts in this industry.
As a MS Employee I have no allegiance to Windows Mobile. My department actually works mostly on Android apps developed by MS. But I do use it for work (along with an Android phone) and it isn’t the worst system I ever used.
The Mi5 ins’t my most anticipated device. It is the device I plan on buying but my most anticipated device is the Gionee S8. I have never hidden what I think, I like Android phones, which is why I am on this site which is largely dedicated to Android.
I think you completly underestimate the MS 10 System. IN combination with Continium it really has features you miss on Android. And who would like to have another and another and another Android phone, it becomes boring.
I’m open for the MS world if there would be something like the surface phone comming I would consider to get one. I can only hope that MS does go the Apple way, 1 very high end product per year and the low end, give this to some others,….
But will you buy one?
That’s the odd phenomenon with people who praise WM phones on tech forums. They don’t buy them.
I want more info on the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4 and 4s!
M$ couldn’t get Win 10 to run good on their devices(even with SD808 and 810, but the phone runs just like an SD400), what hope does Alcatel have?
hp elite x3 look better
Isn’t there a rumour that MS will drop support for Windows phone? Hence, some phone manufacturers have shelved or discontinued their plan to come up with phones with Windows mobile.
Here is some free advice for Alcatel. Put on stock android, spend some money on camera optimization, make sure the battery doesn’t suck and try to sell it in the West for about 400$ or maybe 450$ at max. Also don’t go crazy with a huge inventory since only tech enthusiast are going to buy it and people that search for good deals.
Banggood and Everbuying are both good. I think Everbuying is the same as Gearbest.