Alcatel Idol 3: Holding its own with a pretty decent 5.5 inches

No gorilla, plenty of dragon

I have no idea who makes the 8MP front camera but it works a treat and will surely meet with approval from the selfie-obsessed. The 80-degree lens means you can get yourself, your mates and whatever your are all standing in front of into each shot with ease. As is the norm these days, both cameras can shoot 1080p video at 30f/s.

13MP camera is made by Sony and works a treat. Avoid HDR mode though, it gets carried away with itself. Back panel fixed, so ditto the battery

The 401dpi IPS display is a quality bit of kit too. Covered in Dragontrail glass (a Gorilla Glass alternative from Japanese firm Asahi Glass) it’s very bright and very colourful. Apparently, the Technicolor Colour Enhance system has a hand in the latter, though I suspect this is a licence agreement for the Technicolor name and that the technology is basically Alcatel’s. Either way, it’s a very nice display and performs well in direct sunlight.

Keyboard by SwiftKey, colour by Technicolor, screen glass by Asahi

Running on top of Android 5.0.2 is Alcatel's OneTouch launcher. It’s a pretty light skinning and keeps the traditional Android app tray. As launchers go it’s easy on the eye, but comes with a news feed that lurks to the left of the home screen that you can’t disable or much modify.

It’s the Featured App section of the feed that gets my goat. Why would I want app suggestions on a daily basis? If I could just have the weather, my diary and news headlines I’d be happier with the OneTouch news ticker. And an option to choose news sources. Put anything from the Daily Mail in front of me and you are just asking for trouble.

Screen flip can be turned off. OneTouch launcher causes no offence. News ticker needs more in way of user customisation and an on/off switch

There's very little actual bloat to be found on the Idol and what little there arguably is (WPS Office, an Alcatel User portal, a wireless file transfer app) can be uninstalled. Kudos to Alcatel for opting for the SwiftKey keyboard – it’s the best keyboard app there is, in my opinion.

To wrap up, the Idol 3 comes with a comprehensive array of connectivity including Bluetooth 4.1, dual-band Wi-Fi and an NFC chip. The 2,900mAh battery is fixed in place (both SIM and MicroSD cards have to be inserted with a rather fiddly tray as the back panel is stuck fast) but can keep the video player running for well over nine hours, which is more than acceptable. Getting well into a second day of use from a charge takes no effort or care.

Reversible design means you can have the audio jack at the top or the bottom. Presumably a good thing

Signal reception and call quality were both well up to par.

The Reg Verdict

If you are in the market for a skinny phablet with a decent pair of speakers then the Idol 3 5.5" has a lot to recommend it. Light and compact and with an above-average display, it makes an excellent media player. A bit like a half-price HTC One M9.

The only real drawbacks are the fixed battery – hardly an uncommon failing these days – and the rather questionable positioning of the power and volume buttons. I'm not sure the whole “100 per cent reversible” is such a big deal, but maybe I'm just missing the point.