Alcatel A7

Alcatel has introduced a brand new budget smartphone at IFA 2017, the A7. While it’s low in price, and relatively low on specs and interesting features, the A7 offers a larger-than-average screen and a good-sized battery for its price.

The 5.5-inch Full HD display and 4000mAh power pack potentially make this a great budget buy for those who use their phone for basic tasks but rarely have it out of their hands, while there's also a decent 16MP rear camera.

Alcatel A7 release date and price

The Alcatel A7 is available now in Europe for €229.99 (around £210), but its UK release date and exact price are yet to be confirmed. The phone will be launching in Australia in early 2018, where it’ll cost $299 SIM-free.

Design and display

The A7 is a sleek-looking budget smartphone with a refreshingly bold design. Its metallic black casing is stylish but it avoids being dull thanks to the subtle engraved spin effect on the casing and the addition of old accents around the home button, top speaker, fingerprint sensor and camera lens.

This design should certainly help the A7 stand out slightly from other budget smartphones. However, it’s a shame that there is only one color choice. Though it looks good, it seems like a wasted opportunity on Alcatel’s part that it didn’t play around with a variety of casing and accent color combinations to give consumers a greater degree of choice. 

The phone’s edges are smooth and pleasantly curved and the metal casing feels smooth on the palm. The 5.5 inch display is larger than average and though it sat comfortably in our palm, we did struggle to stretch our thumb the whole way across the screen, which leaves us feeling that those with smaller hands may feel less comfortable using the device one-handed. 

We found the Full HD screen more than up to the task of using up the extra space with a bright and clear display. Alcatel isn’t doing anything astonishing with its display here, other than making it larger than average for a budget handset but it certainly performed well. 

You’ll either love or loathe that the phone’s fingerprint scanner can be found on its back. Though we didn’t get the chance to test how accurate the scanner is, we were slightly put out by the fact that it sits directly below the phone’s camera lens. While the new Idol 5 kept the two far apart, the A7 unfortunately leaves open the possibility that you’ll smudge your camera lens every time you unlock your phone to take a picture. 

Wired headphone lovers will be glad to know that a 3.5 mm headphone jack can be found on the phone’s top while on its bottom there are two speakers flanking a micro USB charging port. On the phone’s right side you’ll find two buttons, one for volume and the other for power. 

Battery and camera

When it comes to battery, the A7 wants your attention. It offers an impressive 4000 mAh battery which can be quickly fully recharged in around 2 and a half hours. This is a good sized battery considering the phone’s budget price point - the more expensive Idol 5, for example, only offers a 2800 mAh battery. However, given that the A7 is being targeted towards those who “never rest” good battery life is a pretty essential to have. 

As far as the camera is concerned, the phone also performs fairly well. It’s got a 16 MP rear camera and a 8 MP selfie camera. We got the chance to try out the rear camera and as far as we could tell it was more than capable of taking good shots of your everyday life but we’d prefer to use it in more conditions than a conference hall before making a full judgement. 

Other specs and features

Inside the A7 you’ll find a MT6750T Octa Core chipset and 3GB of RAM. 3GB isn’t a huge amount but from what we could see the phone didn’t struggle to keep up with our quick switching between apps. We’ll reserve our thoughts on whether or not the phone can efficiently cope with the multi-tasking its target market will no doubt want to achieve. 

There’s 32 GB of storage on offer with the A7 which is perfectly reasonable amount. Fortunately for anyone looking for more storage, there’s the option to expand up to 128 GB using a micro SD card. 

The phone is running Android 7 software, but with Android Oreo coming this might not be the case for long. We’re not entirely sure how long it’ll take Alcatel to bring the software to the A7 but it’s unlikely to be one of the first phones to get it.

Early verdict

Overall, the A7 looks to be an appealing budget smartphone proposition from Alcatel. Its specs aren’t anything particularly special but given its price that’s really not surprising given its low price. If you prioritize battery life, price, and don’t need your smartphone to do anything particularly fancy, it could be one to watch.

• IFA 2017 is Europe's biggest tech show. The TechRadar team is in Berlin to bring you all the breaking news and hands-on first impressions of new phones, watches and other tech as they're announced.