My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: How the US$60 Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 manages to Pop - Lower Pricepoint and Great Battery life

Thursday, July 30, 2015

How the US$60 Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 manages to Pop - Lower Pricepoint and Great Battery life

The US$60 to US$110 Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 is a diminutive 4” screen device that’s great for your kids as their training-wheels smartphone.



However, it accepts the regular mini-SIM as described in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to make you own Micro-SIM or Nano-SIM Card” with the second SIM slot working in dual-standby mode.

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 – The overweight smartphone that does reverse-selfies

The Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 is a little overweight, weighing in at 116 g (4.09 oz) with slightly bulging dimensions of 122 x 64.4 x 12 mm (4.80 x 2.54 x 0.47 in). It only comes with only two (2) colours:

1.      Bluish Black
2.      Pure White


The 4” 480 x 800 pixels resolution TFT capacitive touchscreen has a 233 ppi pixel density and is capable of displaying some, 256,000 Colours. That 4” touchscreen has no supporting front-facing camera.

Instead, the Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 only has a rear-facing 3.15 Megapixel camera that takes 2048 x 1536 pixels and shoots Standard definition Video (480p) at 30 fps.

Still, selfies don’t require a front-facing camera; you can do selfies with the selfie-ready rear-facing camera!

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 – Expand with microSD Card and Microsoft OneDrive Cloud

The Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 is powered by a Dual-Core 1.3 GHz Processor. The Google Android 4.3 Jellybean chomps through some 512 MB RAM with 4 GB of space for your Apps and music.

This isn't so bad, especially when most thumb drives can hold just about 4 GB, with 32 GB still the exception in Jamaica and the Caribbean. You can expand using the microSD Card slot to 32 GB.

Not only that, you can get up to 100 GB in the Cloud using Microsoft OneDrive as noted in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “How Dropbox users and Bing Search users can get Free 100GB Microsoft OneDrive Cloud Storage”.

Geography Students and Gym Rats best new friend – Pairing with a Fitness Tracker

The reason why the Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 is overweight isn’t clear, but it might have to do with the fact that TCL Corporation stuffed an accelerometer, a GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 into the chassis. 

This means you can pair up with your favourite Fitness Tracker that have been doing so well in the past two (2)  years as reported in my blog article entitled “IDC Stats for Wearables in the First Quarter of 2015 - US$13 Mi Band Fitness Monitor @Xiaomi No. 2 as Apple Watch to dominate Smartwatch segment by Q4 2015”.

Combined with such wonderful Apps such as Google Earth as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$399 Google Earth Pro now Free as Profit in Selling Bacon than the Whole Hog”, your Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 doesn’t look so underwhelming anymore! 

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 – Music and Video goes well with some great headphones

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 plays MP3, AAC+ and WAV formats and makes MP4 and H.264 Video pop on your screen!


Purchase an AmazonBasics Ultra-Portable Micro Bluetooth Speaker as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$25 AmazonBasics Ultra-Portable Micro Bluetooth Speaker is a DIY Party Boombox” and you’ll be taken to a whole level of sound.

The Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 also packs a Stereo FM Radio with a mini-speaker that guarantees that you’ll catch every T-20 Cricket match at Kensington Oval or at Sabina Park.

You can do so discreetly with a great pair of US$119 Marshall Major II on-ear headphones plugged into the 3.5mm jack. as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$119 Marshall Major II on-ear headphones provides good sound for your smartphone Music”.

Personally, I’d go with the US$39 Shure SRH144 or SRH145 Headphones that’s a lot cheaper as noted in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$39 Shure SRH144 and SRH145 Headphones is a Sure bet for Excellent Sound on a budget”.

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 – Reporter mini Camera and Tape Recorder

The Document viewer makes documents easy to read.

Download the Microsoft Office, Excel and Powerpoint as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “Microsoft Office 365 goes Freemium Model - One Becomes Three as Word, Excel and PowerPoint with US$6.99 monthly to remove Restrictionsand you have a Microsoft Office Editor on the go!

Photo viewer and its limited editing options make posting online a snap and you can record audio with the Voice Recorder! Once on the Internet via 3G Internet or Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, you'll be able to IM (Instant Messaging) via WhatsApp and FB Messenger and post on Twitter via the pre-installed Apps.

You can read SMS Text and email quite comfortably on this device and share Internet with up to five (5) of your friends and even share music files with other devices via the Wi-Fi Direct or Bluetooth 4.0.

Throw in a US$99 TextBlade from WayTools as described in my MICO Wars blog article entitled “US$99 TextBlade from WayTools is a Bluetooth Keyboard for Bloggers covering Press Events and you've basically graduated to a live-event blogger!

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 vs Alcatel OneTouch Idol 2 Mini – Battery Charger Required

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 Li-Ion 1300 mAh battery is smaller in capacity than the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 2 Mini at 1700 mAh.

So a portable battery charger is needed as explained in my Geezam blog article entitled “How to extend your smartphone’s battery Life with a Portable Battery Charger”.

The Alcatel OneTouch Idol 2 Mini bests its older sibling with 510 h of standby time while on the 2G Network and only 400 h standby time on the 3G Network.

Talk-time is also slightly longer with 13 h 30 min of talk-time while on the 2G Network and 9 h 30 min (3G) talk-time on the 3G Network. Bottom line; just don’t do a lot of talking on this smartphone and walk with a Battery Charger!

Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 – The Price is right despite being overweight

The Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 is a budget smartphone. At US$60 to US$110, the Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 gets great battery life while playing music and videos, albeit it is a shade heavy, not that you’d notice!

In short, the Alcatel OneTouch Pop C2 manages to pop while remaining Zen!

Here's the link:




No comments: