REVIEW: Alcatel Myflip (Go Flip), A 'Smarter' Flip Phone [$10 / KaiOS] By OSReviews

Keck your OS reviews about a year ago, we did a review on the Alcatel, go flip a fairly affordable flip phone that ran on Kai OS, an up-and-coming operating system, design for flip phones and quote-unquote, dumb phones, which are already smarter than flip phones from yesteryear. It actually uses a Qualcomm snapdragon 210 processors, which is quad-core, has built-in Wi-Fi and Kai OS itself even has an app store well at the time. I wasn't a big fan of the go flip just because it sold for around $70, which I think is a little high in terms of the price compared to some other low-end Android phones which were available and furthermore, the go flip which is available through T-Mobile, unfortunately has a lot of restrictions such as, for some reason, T-Mobile decided to ban and remove the app store function. Restricting those features it was essentially like any other dumb phone and again, the price itself of around 70 to 80 dollars at the time was also not extremely competitive. Well, a year later, and things have kind of changed. Alcatel has since sold to go flip to pretty much every single carrier, and we're checking out a version today designed for trace and total Wireless, which actually does have the Kai OS store, enabled, what's even more incredible, is in the month sense, because this phone has become really popular.

The version here can be found on Amazon for around $9, so without any contract at all you're getting a device which is a pretty insane value now has the same snapdragon 210 processors, which is quad-core clocked at one point, one gigahertz actually has a newer version of Kai OS the operating system than the one from T-Mobile, which has not received any updates. It's basically on you can think of it as version zero, anyways there's some quick instruction manuals, there's also a micro, USB, cable, slash wall plug, and then we have just the phone itself. So, let's peel off in the B protective film small display on the front for showing you time and date, information another one covering up and protecting the display inside back cover is removable either way. So you can also pop out and swap the battery. If you want to do that, underneath it, you can find access to the micro, SD thought for expanding the memory and also the sim card slot.

The battery capacity by delay is 1,350, William hours, which may seem quite low in terms of smartphone standards, but on a flip phone. It's a very energy efficient thanks to the Snapdragon 210, the smaller screen and also the OS. It actually can still last you for quite a while around two days three days before you need to recharge it again. Now a closer look at the design here. One difference with the Aqua Tango flip from T-Mobile is that the T-Mobile variant does have a glossy her finish versus the trace version, which has more of a matte finish to it.

There's a 3.5, millimeter, headphone jack, always nice to see, and also a microUSB port for charging and then have a very large and comfortable space for the controls, the d-pad and also the numbers which are in t9 layout. So obviously, if you're typing up messages, it's going to be a little of a tedious process, because it's not an accord e standard. But overall there is predictive text and again the keys themselves are really large and spacious. So, overall we have a pretty decent construction as well as designed for the really low price now of just $10. Taking a closer look at the software and performance.

The front display shows you the time and date. You can also use it to see information like the volume and also, if you have a missed, call or incoming call, you can also see it displayed on the front now. One thing you aren't able to do, however, just like with the previous device is use the front screen as a viewfinder for the camera for taking the selfies, which is a little unfortunate. That would have been a nice feature to see. The screen here is still a regular TN panel, which means that it, the viewing angles, aren't going to be the best, but overall, it's still quite bright, as well as a nice in terms of the colors.

Now I can tap on the side here to access shortcuts, which is a new function that allows us to quickly toggle on or off, Wi-Fi change. The screen brightness. We can also do things like access that calculator at an easy click. Now on the previous version of Kai OS, this was actually not a function that we had and said. If you tapped on this key, it simply brings up some contacts.

You can quickly speed dial, so it's an improvement in terms of usability, in my opinion and in the main screen, which is going to be that list of applications remains about the same. All the legibility of apps is a little better on the new phone, because we can see very quickly in the top what the app is called if we are moving through it's a little easier and larger to read verses before we have the name for each app displayed underneath and smaller font. The store definitely opens up a lot of more possibilities. Now it's still not going to be as extensive as say on androids Play Store, but overall we have a nice collection of additional content that you can download play around with and expand the utility of the device. So under recommended.

There are things like chess. There is also kind of a history app there's, also a voice recorder that you can download motivational quotes, there's also a barcode scanner, which is pretty useful, other timers and small games that can also be downloaded and played now. A lot of these apps are written in HTML, so they are going to be web apps, as opposed to on Android native apps. Take up more space. It's not going to be again super demanding or graphically intensive as on regular Android native apps, but for a basic feature phone like this.

It's definitely the right strategy to go with. If you want to get an app just simply tap on it, and it's going to be very quick to download. We should be able to see it as one of the new apps under our last page, so we can directly tap onto it, and you can see that we are able to kind of shift up down, left and right using the d-pad to move along and overall again, it's actually not too bad, as you might think, from such low end, hardware and Tower of Babel is similar actually to stack. So you have to try and align the building when it comes down using your reaction and if you're off a little, then the tower is going to get smaller and smaller, and the objective is to get taller and taller with as many matches as you can actually have a d-pad to use to physically press down does make it pretty enjoyable to again play back some of these basic games with, and again it's doing a better job than expected. Again, all these titles and games were features that we simply didn't have on the T-Mobile version of the phone, even though it was identical in terms of hardware, they even have a little of haptic vibration to them.

So whenever you hit a wall, the phone actually does vibrate a little. So the games, of course, are up to developers, but with Kay as being a very promising up-and-coming, we should be seeing more games and apps in the coming days as well. So some other productivity tools, by the way which you are able to download, include access to again QR code scanners, barcode scanners, weather apps, news, apps, radio, apps or internet radio apps, that is which are again all accessible and do function well. The whole maze is essentially a bootleg copy or a clone of Pac-Man, but overall is still quite entertaining to play around with there's the same ghost and kind of avatars that we can use and overall it does work quite well jump is another fun game. Basically, there are platforms that are moving across the screen and the objective are to use your reaction to get higher and higher it's a little fast in terms of the animations, but overall it is functional and again another fun little title that you can try out moving back to some core features of the phone.

That start with, say the camera that we previously jumped into this hasn't really changed compared to previously you have the same sensor. It is able to also record video in terms of other settings that we have included a self-timer. You can turn on off grids. Here's on photos that we captured using the camera and again when you're outdoors with sufficient sunlight. It actually isn't that bad.

In fact, it does a little better than expected, I'd say, but again, it's not going to be a replacement for a more expensive camera that you may have, however, again for the super budget price that you're paying here again only $10 I would say it actually is a decent little camera that is built on in next in terms of the web browsing again, it's one of the highlights of Kay s, because the browser is based on Firefox, so you are able to easily go to websites like YouTube and watch them back directly. Now. One thing to keep in mind, though, is because the resources at the phone are still quite low in terms of RAM to optimize on system performance. There is no multitasking anti OS, so you aren't able to switch back and forth between, say the other apps. In fact, there's no way to preserve an app in the memory.

Every time that you go back in the home screen, the app completely gets purged from memory, and it does ensure that the performance for the most part is still quite smooth and fluid for an entry level device in terms of the processing power. I. Don't always trust again the ability for you to watch back these videos and this horizontal widescreen view is already an upgrade compared to before, where there was no software feature for you to switch the screen orientation. So, even if we went into full-screen mode before the video would still keep on playing in this tiny portrait mode which was really cumbersome. So it's another nice subtle, update using the software.

The default search engine is Google, even though this particular phone doesn't have Google Assistant in some Google apps like maps and also YouTube's pre-installed. That's just because this is one of the earliest CAI OS phones released, and there are even newer phones available now with CAI OS. In fact, Alcatel have even released the flipped 2.0 and even the 3.0 just a few months back with updated hardware, that's a little faster and also access to an even newer version of Kay s4 software that enables access to those Google services. As for being a phone and making phone calls again, it hasn't really changed compared to the original. My foot that we checked out, which is to say that reception quality is also quite good, and I was able to consistently get around three bars in the Seattle region.

The microphone itself picked up my voice without any issues. Even unsightly crowded environments again having a flip phone, is just a really comfortable form factor, because your mouth is naturally closer to the mic. So taking a look at the settings here again, it is divided by networking connectivity there's another tab for personalization, which we are able to do things like change the display wallpaper, and there are a few different presets which are built on em, there's a separate wallpaper gallery, and you can see that they are quite vibrant and beautiful. Some of them are very similar to Android others, which are borrowed from the days of Firefox OS. So we can take our pick and choose.

You know the version that we liked the most. Maybe this one and I can tap on save, and it will be changed so overall, UI navigation is pretty snappy and responsive in terms of search. We can also change the search engine from here, so all of these can be customized. Security, I can even add a screen lock if I wanted to and also add a password, so that's more or less it. As far as our hands-on review of the Alcatel, my flip again, the version here from track phone /, a total wireless and some other CDMA networks here in the US, just really feels like a completely different phone than the T-Mobile / GSM variant, which is simply missing a lot of the features, even though the technical specifications, including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 210, the camera, the overall form factor remains unchanged, which is ready quite good for a budget phone, especially now that you can find this for under nine dollars, which is just an insane value.

Minor complaints would be the fact that again, if you are someone doing a lot of text entry, then again, flip phones in general are still not going to be your best bet compared to say keyboard phones and that Blackberry style from yesteryear that had a full QWERTY layout. Just because those are a little faster for typing things out versus this, which requires a little more hunting, unpacking and pressing the keys multiple times to do the various commands. But if you're, primarily making phone calls, you want a simple device, and this is definitely worth a closer look. So you can check out more details if you are interested in links down below a great backup. Phone upgrade to travel phone device for kids or the elderly has been the trace such total wireless edition of the Alcatel.

My flip kayo s powered flip phone.

Source : OSReviews