Alcatel 990 Review: First Impressions

Alcatel, a French brand went to a sort of hibernation in terms of mobile phones for some period of time, but recently the company rises up again with a wide range of affordable and budget-wise phones – the Alcatel 990 is one of the fancier type equipped with a 5-megapixel camera that runs in Android 2.2 Froyo operating system.

Design
Its all-plastic body is solidly built and feels sturdy and reliable in the hand. It comes with a choice of back covers too which you can change to suit your mood. There are three touch-sensitive Android buttons beneath the screen as well as a central hard button for home, which is just a bit too close to the edge of the phone for comfort. It looks distinctive, but probably would have been better placed in line with the other buttons.

The screen offers an okay resolution of 480x320 pixels and looks sharp enough, though it doesn't go especially bright. It's capacitive too, rather than the cheaper resistive variety, which is always welcome at this price. That said, its responsiveness doesn't measure up with more expensive examples, and you can sometimes find yourself having to make a few presses before it kicks into action.

Software and performance

The 600MHz processor won't win any speed records and it does tend to take its own sweet time switching between apps flicking between screens, even when you haven't got that many running.

Android 2.2 Froyo feels extremely old-school these days. A little bit of Gingerbread wouldn't have gone amiss -- then at least you'd have been able to use the VGA front-facing camera for video calls. Alcatel has added a couple of widgets but otherwise the interface is pretty much standard Android, with nothing like the kind of meddling you'll see on HTC or Sony handsets.

The 5-megapixel camera offers autofocus and an LED flash. Picture quality is fairly sharp and colour balance is generally accurate, which isn't always the case at this end of the market. The flash lacks subtlety though, and tends to white everything out in close-up shots.

The Android browser displays web pages well enough but this one doesn't offer support for Flash, so you may have problems with streaming video. There is a YouTube app on board though.

It should come with a 2GB microSD card as standard on top of the 200MB of onboard memory, though you can upgrade that to 32GB if you need more space. It sits beneath the battery though, so hot swapping isn't an option.

The 1,300mAh battery is a little lightweight, even for a budget phone, but it still managed to deliver a day and a half of fairly steady use. Usefully, there's a battery saver app on board, and the lock screen also shows how much power you have left.

Conclusion
The Alcatel Onetouch 990 is quite a budget Android that features a better than expected camera and sturdy workhorse build quality however doesn't have a lot to recommend it above other budget Androids like the Samsung Galaxy Europa or the LG Optimus One.

Specifications

• Software : Android 2.2 Froyo
• Processor : 600MHz
• Memory slot : microSD
• Display : 3.5in 480x320 pixels
• Connectivity : GSM/GPRS/HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 3.0
• Ports : Micro USB, 3.5mm headphones
• Camera : 5 megapixel with LED Flash, autofocus, VGA front-facingcamera
• Video playback : MPEG4, H.264
• Audio playback : MP3, AAC/AAC+, WMA, WAV
• Radio : Yes
• Battery : Li-ion 1300 mAh
• Size : 116x62x12mm
• Weight : 144g