Alcatel One Touch Hero review: Compare notes

Alcatel One Touch Hero 360-degree spin

The Alcatel One Touch Hero measures 158.5 x 80.6 x 8.5 mm, which is 7mm taller than a Galaxy Note 3, at nearly the same width and thickness. What you get is an extra 0.3" of screen diagonal. Compared to other 6-inchers, it's smaller in all dimensions than a Lumia 1520, for example.

While the One Touch Hero isn't a small device, the slim bezels keep it usable (if not entirely comfortable) with one hand. At just under 180g of weight, it's not unpleasant to hold for longer periods either.

Design and handling

Alcatel went very minimal with the design of the One Touch Hero. Its front is not too different from the Nexus 5, while the back is vaguely reminiscent of the HTC One X. With very few design accents, similarities are unavoidable and this should be taken as a compliment rather than a dig at the Hero.

The One Touch Hero has thin bezels and is put together quite well

The large screen dictates the size and shape of the device, and Alcatel did a fine with the bezels. The bottom obviously had to accommodate the capacitive controls but other than that Alcatel did a bang-up job.

The back is made of a soft textured plastic not unlike the polycarbonate we've seen from Nokia and HTC. It's pleasant to the touch and hides fingerprints well, though it's hard to clean ones it gets smudgy.

It's not a unibody design, the back is clearly a separate panel yet it fits so tightly that it might as well be.

The rounded corners and beveled edges make it comfortable to hold in hand with no sharp corners digging into your palm. The weight of 177.6g is actually low for a 6" device, making the Hero easy to handle (unless you have small hands that is, but then you probably aren't looking at phablets anyway).

Alcatel One Touch Hero in the hand

A feature to note at the back is the row of pogo pins - those are for accessories, which use magnets to snap in place. We'll get back to those in a minute.

Display

The Alcatel One Touch Hero features a 6" IPS LCD screen of 1080p resolution, for a pixel density of 376ppi. It features oleophobic coating but there's no mention of the type of protection glass used other than it's laminated.

6" IPS LCD with 1080p resolution

The screen is sharp and with very good viewing angles (minor contrast shift at extreme angles). The colors are not the punchiest we've seen, but many people rail against the oversaturated look of AMOLEDs so this might be more to your taste.

Alcatel One Touch Hero display matrix under a microscope

More importantly, the brightness is above average but not as high as other LCD-based phablets we've played with. The black levels are nothing to write home about, which lowers the contrast. The relatively low reflectivity of the laminated glass does help outdoor legibility though, which virtually as good as it was on the Galaxy Note II or an iPhone 5s.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Apple iPhone 5
  3.997
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3.997
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Nokia Lumia 925
  3.402
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3.352
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  3.127
• Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
  3.118
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.970
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2.950
• HTC One S
  2.901
• BlackBerry Q10
  2.856
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  2.801
• BlackBerry Z30
  2.790
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2.672
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• HTC One Max
  2.537
• Nokia Lumia 720
  2.512
• HTC One
  2.504
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  2.422
• Motorola RAZR i
  2.366
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2.307
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  2.272
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  2.262
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Oppo Find 5
  2.088
• BlackBerry Z10
  2.051
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• HTC One mini
  2.003
• LG G2
  1.976
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Samsung Galaxy Camera
  1.938
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1.865
• Nokia Lumia 1520
  1.813
• Sony Xperia V
  1.792
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Meizu MX3
  1.754
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• BlackBerry Q5
  1.682
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.680
• LG Optimus GJ
  1.666
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1.578
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1.563
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1.552
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Oppo N1
  1.470
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• HTC Desire C
  1.300
• Nokia Asha 501
  1.270
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• LG Optimus L9
  1.227
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1.203
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.180
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

The capacitive touch sensor can detect 5 touch points (screens commonly go up to 10, not that there's a practical difference). It's sensitive enough to detect even light touches with fingers, but it could have been a bit more receptive to the stylus.

Another negative we noticed is that the lower half of the screen exhibits some light bleed - that is the very edge of the screen is light stronger than the middle of the screen. It's barely noticeable most of the time, but you see it more often once you know it's there.