Upon purchase the phone was okay, probably worth about 3 stars as a cheap but reliable budget phone. The camera's not great but at this price point can't expect much more. What brings the phone rating down to a single star is the Alcatel has elected months later to push out large amounts of bloatware under the guise of updates. What these "updates" actually do is install not only unremovable applications, but applications that cannot even be disabled. The names of these software parasites are "Joy Launcher" and "File Manager". Even if one installs an alternative Launcher (Nova, etc,) the unwanted software from Alcatel still keeps rearing it's very ugly and invasive head.

Update: I just updated my 5 star (!!) review to a 1 star.... This used to be a great phone for a great price (see all the nice details below). Until about a year ago. Then, Alcatel got greedy and started pushing "updates" for individual applications and the entire OS, which turns the normal benign applications like launcher, file manager and calendar, into annoying malware which keep spewing ads, notifications, and installing random applications you don't want. And that's just on the surface - I'm suspecting there's more evil stuff going on that I am not aware of. Stay away from this phone like the plague. You can't imagine how sad I am - I liked this phone so much that I actually bought 5 of them for my whole family, and thought my next phone will be a newer model of Alcatel Idol. Obviously, no longer.

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I'm really happy with this phone. It is packed to the brim with features, has a very modern Android (it updated to 6.0 right after I unpacked it and connected it), has tons of storage space (I added an 32 GB SD card, so I now have about 45 GB of free space to store applications and data - thank's to Android 6's "emulated storage" built-in feature). It looks beautiful, has the perfect size (4.7" is not too small, but also not too large), and the speakers sound great. People are genuinely impressed when I show them my new phone, and even more so when I tell them how little I paid for it - this is definitely NOT one of the crappy half-functioning super-cheap phones - this phone is a rare combination of being great and cheap.

We bought two of these phones (at full price, so this is an actual customer review, not one that may be biased by having received it for free or at a discount) a few months ago and still really love them. We spent quite a bit of time researching all of the options available both above and below this price range, and this phone looked to be a great value, and it really is. We are very pleased with our purchase. We use it with T-Mobile on one of their pre-paid plans and have had a very good experience with the phone and T-Mobile. We are also going to be traveling outside the country, and this phone comes unlocked and supports all of the bands that we need.

Pros:
The screen looks great, and is very bright and crisp.
The camera takes very nice pictures and video.
The phone fits nicely in the hand and looks and feels like a much more expensive phone. The build quality is excellent.
We charge them after a couple days of normal use, so the battery seems to last a respectable amount of time.
The sound, as other reviewers have mentioned, is just excellent. This thing can really put out some sound, and gone are the days of not being able to hear your phone ring! Playing music on it sounds great, and is stereo (one speaker at each end of the phone).
The phone is reversible, with a microphone and speaker at each end, so it doesn't matter which way its facing when you pick it up to answer it, the phone will just take care of it based on the orientation using the gyro sensor. This isn't really a must have feature, but it is kind of nice.
It plays videos (such as YouTube) very well, and it feels very smooth and responsive in every app we've tried.
The value for the money is great, and we would still be very happy with it if we paid more.

Cons:
Wish it supported dual sim cards instead of just one, but you get a microSD card spot instead, so not too bad and most people probably only need one sim card slot anyway.
Wish the volume could be adjusted in smaller increments, but this isn't the phone's fault, it's an android thing and not a deal breaker at all.

In closing, we are very pleased with our purchase of two of these phones and would quickly and happily buy them again. If you are looking for a great unlocked GSM phone and don't want to pay an arm and a leg, then give this one a try. We highly recommend it!

Received in box: Phone, sim tray tool, charger w/ cord, JBL in-ear headphones w/ variety of tips, and multi-language manual.

Let me start this review by stating that I've had cell phones for nearly 20 years. I always tend to go "middle of the road" with my phone models, keep them 1-2 years, then get a new one. No flagships, but no junk, either. I've had LG, Samsung, Moto, etc. Most of the big players in the American market. I've never had an iPhone. I mention this to give a frame of reference on how my experience with cell phones was formed.

When I was shopping for a phone, I just happened across this one. I had heard of Alcatel before, but never really considered any of their phones. The reviews of this particular model all seemed favorable, and at this price-point it seemed like a really solid choice. I won't re-hash the basic specs that you can read all over the internet, but I'll touch on some things that I've noted and liked/disliked:

First impression of the phone: It has a very nice look about it. It's very thin and very light in the hand. The whole face of the unit is glass, and the sides are chromed plastic that give a pretty high-quality look, overall. No complaints.
The phone comes with a surprisingly nice set of JBL in-ear headphones with mic and controller. I don't personally like this style of earbuds, but I did try them out and was definitely pleased with the sound quality of music, videos, and phone calls.

After inserting my sim and SD cards, and charging up for a bit, I turned on the unit. It walked me through a pretty standard set-up routine, then I let it update Android, and put my usual apps on it. After a bit of personalization and sorting out un-used apps, this thing was ready to go. All the while, I noticed how nice the screen was and how apps popped open quickly, and just the overall positive impression the phone gave me.

My observations:
-To me the most important thing with a cell phone is... its ability to function like a phone. It seems weird to feel the need to state this, but I bet a lot of people rarely actually call people and talk to them w/ their cell phones. I have T-Mobile, and while I generally don't have reception issues, my neighborhood actually seems to be pretty spotty and my last phone would often drop calls in certain sections of my neighborhood. In my house, I would often have to use my wi-fi to make calls. The Alcatel works better than any other phone I've tried. It never dropped calls, crystal clear reception and people that I've talked to said it sounded like my calls were as clear as a landline.

-The speakers on the Alcatel are really quite good, considering the size. Music sounds really nice on the speakers, and the output to headphones is above average. I like that there are 2 speakers, one at either end of the phone. Gives a bit of stereo effect if you're watching a video.

-The picture quality of the screen is quite nicer than I expected. Colors are good, images seem decently sharp. Not as nice as a Galaxy, or iPhone, but... look at the price difference. I watched a bunch of Netflix, Youtube, etc. and I was really impressed overall.

-I found the size of the unit to be almost perfect for me. I actually am a very tall guy, big hands, etc. and you would think that I'd like a bigger phone, but honestly, I like to be able to put the phone in my pocket, or be able to access all of the functions with one hand. Overall, it's just convenient for me to have this size. I really wish that phone manufacturers would settle down with making ever-larger phones and make some quality ones in this size.

-The battery life is very good. I am not exactly a "heavy user" but I do make calls, check emails, check Twitter, and watch the occasional vid. I don't really do games, aside from the occasional solitaire. I leave the wifi and GPS on 24/7. I easily got over a day before needing to charge. If I had particularly light usage during a day and didn't watch any video, I could go nearly 40 hours before needing to plug-in.

-I am not any kind of expert on Android's different iterations. I don't tweak my phones, or run different ROMS or anything like that. I can say that this phone's OS/ skin/ whatever didn't bug me. It just worked. No complaints. Seemed like standard Android fare that I'm used to, and nothing raised any flags for me. Just a decent system with things doing what I expected them to do.

-The cameras, both front and back, are pretty good, I think. I take a lot of pictures for work and hobbies, but not for "portraits" or anything like that, more record-keeping. My requirements are pretty low. I can say that with good lighting, the rear camera took very nice pictures. If you're used to phones in this price range, the cameras are going to seem pretty normal. Nothing bad to report, just a solid camera.

As for what I didn't like about the phone:

-This is very subjective, and not really a big deal (actually it's bordering on silly of me, if I'm being honest): the power button was on the left side and
the volume rocker was on the right. This is opposite of every other phone I've had. I was constantly turning the phone off when I had been intending to change the volume. As I said, not a big deal, but just something I thought I'd mention.

**AND NOW FOR WHY I RATED THIS 2 STARS:**
-The astute reader will note that most of this is written in the past tense. I have returned the phone. As much as I like nearly everything about this phone, I experienced a deal-breaking problem with two of these.
My first phone had a stuck pixel in the lower right section of the screen. When viewing lighter colors on the screen, it wasn't terribly noticeable. But when viewing darker materials or movies, or whatever, it really stuck out. I guess I'm pretty lucky in that I've never had a phone with any kind of problems, but I'm realistic. I know problems slip through the cracks sometimes. I just figured it was "my turn" to get a bad one. No big deal. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime, right? So I sent it back, and ordered another one. After a day or two of using the new phone, I noticed that the screen had a problem in roughly the same area as the other one, though it was a different problem. Lower right hand side of the screen. When running my finger across the screen, I'd get a distortion in that spot like when you press a flatscreen too hard. I wasn't pressing too hard, though. No different than any other area of the screen. While this defect was much less bothersome than the stuck pixel, it was still a problem, and I figured it would only get worse with time. So, back it went while it was still under the return period for Amazon.

So, overall, I cannot recommend this particular phone. I really wanted to like it, but the fact that it had a screen problem on two of them in the same spot kind of spooked me off of it. I will keep my eye on the Alcatel Idol series and may try it again someday, as I really was impressed with so many aspects of this phone.

I'm very late on the smartphone bandwagon mostly because of plan prices and phone prices, but I found a $30/mo tmobile prepaid plan and all that was left was to find a phone. I did a lot (A LOT) of research over a few months, and landed on this model because of price, ram, reviews, and the availability of being on tmobile band 12.

Since this is my first phone I don't have anything to compare it to, but I do love it, can't go back to a basic now. I've had it just approaching 2 months and no complaints with the software or usability. The call quality isn't so great, but it could be just that I work in an area that maybe have bad reception, and getting the sim card in was such a chore, the card kept falling out while trying to slide it back in - frustrating but i eventually got it in. The camera is fine, the display is great, the sound! my god the sound blew me away. Overall you can't go wrong for the price, and I bought a case with screen protector on amazon as well for $8. I highly recommend if you're looking for a phone with not much bloatware, enough ram and easy usability.