Last year, Google announced that they would be reworking Android to support lower-end devices in an initiative called Android Go. Confusingly enough, the brand new phone debuted by Alcatel that’s running the new system is also called the Android Go, or if you want to get technical, the Android Oreo (Go Edition), and unfortunately for eagerly-waiting Android fans out there, reviews are lukewarm thus far. Oh, and you can also call it the Alcatel 1X if you please.
Per The Verge, the biggest criticism was aimed towards the OS. “In our initial hands on with the phone, the operating system didn’t run all that smoothly, despite Google’s optimizations. Stay tuned as we’ll have more impressions on Android Go throughout the week, but Alcatel hasn’t given us a thrilling first look.” Ouch. At least the price is certainly cheap checking in at €100 for a single-SIM variant and €110 for a dual-SIM variant.
That said, the phone does look quite sleek and the specs are sufficiently “low-end” enough with a quad-core MediaTek processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 5.3-inch 960 x 480 display and like other Android products it utilizes a Micro USB charging system. Some models will be without a fingerprint sensor and instead rely on Alcatel’s “Face Key” facial recognition software.
For those interested, the phone will be available this April.
