Alcatel One Touch SmartWatch : Review
If the alarm bell was not ringing when we heard the word ” cheap ” when we were told that the new French wrist watch would have had as an operating system a proprietary system, we lost all hope.
Alcatel, in the One Touch smartwatch press release, claimed that her new wearable ” looks like a watch ” and feels ” like a real clock – and it really does. We are not talking about a terrible operating system, but the distance from the devices that mount Android Wear is obvious.
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Design and Construction
It’s pretty light, with the same face as a 10.5 mm clock, but looks a little bulky in the edges because of the bezel that contains the numbers. This bezel is not part of the touch screen, so it’s only about 80% of the face. The 1.22-inch display is composed.
The watch is actually slightly slimmer than its rival round, the 360’s of the Moto. The front of the Alcatel One Touch is 41.8 mm long, smaller than the 46mm diameter of Motorola’s smartwatch.
Want Certifications? The Alcatel OneTouch watch is waterproof with IP67 certification.
Stainless steel and micro-twisted resin strap combine well – although we have some doubts about the strap measurement.
Display
The display is pretty lively, thanks to the bold colors Alcatel has chosen for its icons. The Display: 240 x 204 dpi, has a color palette of 262K and despite the strange coupling, the images are clear and clear.
One feature of the display is that, along with the pre-installed clock icons, you can add your photos as background images (the sync within the Alcatel app app is easy), and you can also choose which type of clock use between: analog or digital, data display, etc…
And while the clock display does not have the power to make ” translucent ” images like high resolution smartphones such as Sony Smartwatch 3, personalization of the Alcatel One Touch Smartwatch is easy. If you want, you can also set the display to white icons with black backgrounds, and vice versa.
Features and OS
There is no anticipation for the coming smartwatch production with Android Wear integrated in sight for Alcactel, but in this OneTouch watch, we find a proprietary operating system that keeps things relatively simple. Simplicity is back in fashion among smartwatches.
There is a button on the side – but all that seemed to be doing was to turn the display turned off – and touching the display did not seem to do anything. Finally, we realized that in order to make the initial screen appear, Tap below the display, slightly above the number 6 on the bezel. A single touch brings you to the main menu screen with all the apps, and a double touch brings you back to the classic clock face.
Notifications are limited to application updates, though Alcatel has chosen to include some third-party apps like Facebook. The full list is: incoming calls, lost calls, SMS, calendar, email, Facebook and Messenger, Twitter, Skype, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google (and meeting venues) and WhatsApp. Small addition: You cannot answer the messages on the clock. It’s purely a notification system.
The touchscreen is quite responsive, scrolling quickly and touching the display. Everything works as it should. There are 14 apps offered by the clock operating system, and you just have to scroll horizontally to scroll through the icons and view them. We use the word app freely here, some icons simply represent settings such as on/off vibration, aerial mode, and brightness. A quick tap on an icon opens up the selected app. There is weather, time, fitness monitoring, recording activity with stopwatch, music and camera.
Music controls are limited to the default music player of your smartphone – hence no Spotify – camera shooting mode is somewhat complicated because you have to go to the menu, look for the camera icon in the Alcatel application to open it and use it. Despite the major apps installed on the Alcatel One Touch, such as Facebook and Whats’app, you cannot add more applications than the proprietary Alcatel.
There is no active and bright mode for the dial, the longest time before shutting down the screen is only 15 seconds. It would not be so bad if the wrist movement to turn on the screen was not at average speeds. We’ve found that it takes a fairly vigorous movement to get the screen on, and many times we had to turn on the screen directly with the button for pure comfort.
Activity Monitor
The fitness and wellness app is a pretty basic app: Alcatel One Touch’s built-in features include counts, calories, distance, active minutes and sleep, and more or less all that the classic Fitness Tracker features like We Band. When talking about the pedometer, there is a difference between those in a smartwatch and those in the fitness bands.
Sleep sensing is standard and monitors the deep and light sleep breakdown with the light sensor.
Distance and calories are measured using count calculations combined with personal metrics entered, such as height, weight, age and sex. As with all non-GPS models, the distances that is calculated are estimates, rather than accurate measurements – 8km of travel, for example, they can be measured. In 9.4 km.
Heart rate monitoring is present in the Alcatel One Touch even if, for immediate and consistent results, static work is preferable, such as gym or slow running, certainly not swimming or tennis, for running or running any problems.
As mentioned, the application is quite simple, and easy to use. Small jerk: you can share your stats on social networks and view contacts with a touch of the button … now Share!
Battery life
There is a 210mAh battery inside the OneTouch that Alcatel estimates can work for 2-5 days. We have heavily used the model for 2-3 days with one charging – which requires among other positive notes, only one hour – pretty impressive compared to the SmartWatch rival. An interesting and very positive feature is that the Alcatel watch battery recharges with a USB charger integrated in the watch strap – a simple feature that puts in the corner the shameful Samsung and LG adapters.
Conclusion
PROS :
- Quality / Price
- Works with Android / IOS
- Simplicity
- No charging cable
CONS :
- App limited
- Strap
- Slow synchronization
- Stay powered up while you're on the go with built-in USB charging, and toss out that...
- AVAILABLE IN 2 SIZES: S/M and M/L
- ACTIVITY TRACKER: Steps, Calories, Sleep and Heart Rate
Product prices and availability are subject to change. Any price and availablility information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of any products.
