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Alcatel OneTouch Pixi 3 (4.5) review

 Review: March 2016  
 

Rating: 3 stars

In a nutshell: The OneTouch Pixi 3 (4.5) is the best of Alcatel's low-cost Pixi 3 family of budget smartphones. With a slim and lightweight, pocket-sized form, it gives you a good basic smartphone experience, with 4G support, a quad-core processor, and a good-sized screen. But it's underpowered for running serious apps, and suffers from poor battery life.



 

Design & looks

The 4.5 inch version of Alcatel's One Touch Pixi 3 series has a longer screen than the 4 inch model, but the same width. It's slimmer than the cheaper models, and is quite a nice-looking phone for the price.

The screen has the same rather basic 218ppi resolution as the 4 inch version, and is at the bottom end of what you might expect for a phone costing between £50 and £100.

Android KitKat

Just like the other Pixi 3 phones, the 4.5 inch version runs Android KitKat 4.4. It includes a user-friendly wizard to guide you through getting your contacts set up, and logging in to social media. This makes it ideal as a first phone.

Popular social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Viber and WhatsApp are already installed on the phone, as well as a small selection of games. You also have access to the Google Play apps market.

Performance

The phone comes in two different versions - a 3G version with a dual-core processor, and a 4G version with a quad-core Mediatek MT6735M processor. Neither version is particularly powerful, and the Pixi 3 is only suited to running core apps and simple games.

Onboard memory is 4GB, with an option to add a microSD memory card up to 32GB. This is enough for a phone of the Pixi 3's potential, as it's unlikely that you'll be downloading too many apps.

Twin cameras

The phone has a 5 megapixel rear camera with an LED flash and HD video recording, plus a front VGA camera. It's fair to say that photography isn't the phone's strong point, but it enables quick snaps and video clips.

Connectivity

The Pixi 3 (4.5) comes in two versions. One supports 3G and quad-band 2G, and the other also has 4G LTE network support in addition. Both also have support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB connectivity.

Battery life

The 4.5 inch model of the Pixi 3 has a larger battery than the smaller versions, and battery life is acceptable, but not exceptional.

Conclusion - basic, but cheap

The One Touch Pixi 3 (4.5) is the best of the Pixi 3 family. With a faster processor, larger screen, 4G connectivity and a slimmer form, it's a match for many other smartphones in the under-£100 price bracket.

There are better choices however, such as the EE Harrier Mini, Samsung Galaxy Ace 4 or the Microsoft Lumia 640. But all of these phones are limited in some way, and it's hard to find a really good smartphone for less than £100.


Alcatel OneTouch Pixi 3 (4.5) features include:

User questions

Sorry - questions and comments on this page are now closed.

I have lost my ring tone?

Asked by doreen from uk on 27th Feb 2018
also no text message sound

How long does it take to fully charge a new phone?

Asked by Mary from New Zealand on 14th Oct 2016



Alcatel OneTouch Pixi 3 (4.5) user reviews

Sorry - reviews and comments on this page are now closed.