It's undeniable that Alcatel's new entry-level budget smartphone, Alcatel One Touch Evolve, is an evolved phase of Alcatel's budget smartphone for major U.S. carriers. With its $99 off contract deal or $28 down and $3 monthly payments for two years terms, one would easily believe that this budget phone really lives up to its cheap status. Heck, it is even one of the cheapest mobile phone offering on T-Mobile as of October 2013, and if you are right now contemplating on purchasing an Alcatel One Touch Evolve of your own, PLEASE take time to read our in-depth assessment below.

Form & Design

Alcatel One Touch Evolve isn't really that gloomy on design and form factor. In fact, it even has a premium feel to it because of its rather sleek design for a 4-incher. It does not look that cheap at all compared with Alcatel's other offering, the Alcatel One Touch Fierce (available at $139). The Touch Evolve has this matte back cover that is accentuated by silver labeling. The cover is soft to the touch. Another redeeming factor is the shiny details surrounding the edge of the phone that give it a relatively sophisticated look. Nonetheless, the phone feels boxy, which may seem a good thing for some who wants a phone that is easily navigable using one hand.

The Touch Evolve measures just 4.7 inches tall, 2.5 wide, and 0.4 thick, so it's pretty much a phone that is easy to use using one hand without even missing or staining to tap a particular area on the screen. What's quite odd about this device though is it weighs a little heavier for its size at 4.7 ounces.

With its rather small form, compared with the phablet trend as of late, we can see that Alcatel has made it easy for its customers to access the power/lock button as it is placed on top of the phone. Alongside it is the headphone jack and nothing more. However, this device is very reminiscent of early Samsung devices that had the charging ports on the left side rather than at the bottom. Thus, holding the smartphone or using it while charging makes it awkward for users especially if they are holding it with their left hand.

The bezel of the device isn't that thin or excessively thick, but it is enough to house the capacitive buttons at the bottom area. The capacitive hot keys are very responsive without the need to double tap for standard processes. Although this gives the One Touch Evolve a checkmark to being a daily driver, its SIM and SD card slots that are hidden below the battery are its downfall in terms of form factor. It's bothersome to have the battery removed before inserting a SIM or switching SD cards to expand the 4GB built-in storage. This may be understandable a few years ago when mobile phone makers were not yet aware that they could have the two slots placed on the sides of the phone. But in today's context, where everyone seems to be pretty demanding on the functionality and ease-of-use of mobile devices, this is just a pain to do and watch.

Screen Size, Display, and Functionality

Alcatel One Touch Evolve sports a 4-inch 480x800-pixel screen, with 233 ppi. This may seem quite understandable given its price range and entry-level, but we find the screen rather disappointing in terms of brightness and performance. Display is quite dim and icons appear fuzzy even at maximum brightness. And though texts are easy-to-read and the wallpapers appear saturated because the display supports 16 million colors, all of these good feats disappear when the phone is used outdoors or in broad daylight. The screen is highly reflective, so users need to either cover the phone with their other hand to view messages and emails or simply hold the phone against the sunlight. Additionally, the screen can collect fingerprint smudges easily, which adds difficulty in making the most out of it in the outdoors. One good trick we can recommend is to keep a cleaning cloth at hand to wipe of the smudges whenever the screen becomes too murky to the eyes.

Camera: Front & Back

The 5-megapixel camera in the One Touch Evolve is decent enough for average shooting. It does the job with minor issues only such as the fact that it doesn't take close-up photos well due to its fixed focus lens, which is only capable of adjusting the lighting of the shot. The absence of flash is also another issue when it comes to taking photos under poor lighting conditions. Capturing photos indoors is doable, but cannot promise quality images with little to minimal digital noise. A noticeable halo-like effect can be seen when snapping on bright objects. It is not also uncommon for photos to appear washed out.

Nonetheless, Alcatel has managed to incorporate a handful of extra features to the rear-facing camera such as continuous shot (burst mode) and smile detection. Facial-detection and panorama mode are also available, adding value to the budget phone for people who enjoy these added functionalities. Furthermore, the Alcatel One Touch Evolve's smile detection technology works impressively. It reacts to smiles rapidly upon detection and it can ignore other facial expressions as well.

The back camera can record 720p videos, which play well both on the device itself and on computer devices. No noticeable pixelation can be seen, but the sound could become muffled and distorted especially if the video is taken outdoors.

Meanwhile, its front-facing VGA camera is nothing close to those of other smartphones. It takes significantly dark and washed out self-portraits and photos taken under brightly-lit conditions. Plus, it lacks all the aforesaid features that the phone's rear-facing camera has.

Operating System & Preinstalled Apps

Alcatel One Touch Evolve comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.1, and although this is an upside compared with other mid-rangers that are still stuck with more outdated OS versions, it still doesn't make the cut now that Android Jelly Bean 4.3 is available, and besides this device might most likely get stuck in this version indefinitely.

One thing to commend about Alcatel though is the custom Android modifications it has incorporated to this device, which somehow resembles Samsung's TouchWiz overlay on a certain level. The colorful menus and the square-shaped icons as well as the different toggles give the phone a novelty look that is very reminiscent of Samsung's latest devices.

When it comes to preinstalled apps, the One Touch Evolve comes with Gmail, YouTube, and Google+ along with other standard built-in apps. However, the YouTube app is very disappointing since it does not play videos in HD and automatically switches the display resolution of the video to the lowest playable one, even when a fast WiFi connection is readily available. Interestingly, instead of having the stock Android browser, this budget smartphone comes with Google Chrome. A notes app is also available along with a special setup wizard that walks newbies through setting up the phone, and a movie studio that enables easy video tweaks and editing. The default keyboard of the phone is the gesture-based Swype, which pretty much gives users a hand in encoding texts quick and easy through a swiping gesture from letter to letter.

Call Quality

Call quality in the One Touch Evolve is surprisingly superb. Voice calls sound crisp and clear without muffling at all. But this compliment is taken aback right away once the speakerphone is used. Voice calls sound flat, muffled, and even robotic at times. Yet this is subject to change depending on the network. It is important to note that for this testing, T-Mobile network was used.

Performance & Battery Life

For a newly-released phone, Alcatel One Touch Evolve is behind its other competitors that come with 4G LTE support. Because it only supports 3G, download app and accessing websites take several minutes to finish. The 1GHz processor isn't adequate to allow fast processing without lags in between sudden app switching. Opening apps sometimes require one to do double taps. Playing games or even loading one takes time. However, simple games such as Temple Run 2 can run without freezing or unwanted slowing down. The only problem is that the graphics don't look particularly sharp given the pixel density of the device.

As for battery life, Alcatel One Touch Evolve has a 1,400mAh battery, which the company claims to last for 17 days on standby with 3G connection. Alcatel also promised that it can provide up to 13 hours of talk time. But based on testing results, the phone significantly dropped to 30 percent when left alone over a weekend fully charged.