We haven’t heard much about the Alcatel Idol 4S since its announcement in February, but today Alcatel is finally breaking its silence regarding the new flagship.
The Alcatel Idol 4S will be available for pre-order in the U.S. starting at 8:00 am PT/11:00 am ET on July 15. Units are expected to begin shipping in early August. Pricing for the Idol 4S will be set at $349.99, and pre-orders will include a tempered glass screen protector, JBL headphones, and a case from Incipio. The Idol 4S will officially launch on August 3 for $399.99.
The Idol 4S that’s going up for pre-order later this week offers the same flagship spec list as it did when it originally debuted in February, but it’s got one new feature that’s worth noting. Alcatel has thrown a fingerprint reader on the back of the Idol 4S, which is a welcome sight as fingerprint readers quickly become a standard feature on flagship smartphones.
Alcatel’s Idol 4S runs Android 6.0 on a 5.5-inch 2560x1440 AMOLED display. It’s got a 16-megapixel rear camera with a wide-angle lens and dual-tone flash, an 8-megapixel selfie camera with its own wide-angle lens, and dual speakers. Inside of the Idol 4S’s glass body lives a Snapdragon 652 processor, 3GB of RAM, 16GB of storage (32GB in dual SIM model), a microSD slot for adding more storage, and a 3000mAh battery that supports Quick Charge 2.0.
Finally, the Alcatel Idol 4S has a couple of unique features to offer. First up is the packaging, which doubles as a VR viewer. Second is its Boom Key, which is a physical button on the side of the Idol 4S that gives you added functionality. For example, it can quickly launch your camera when the Idol 4S is locked or boost the loudness of the speakers when listening to music. You can also assign your favorite app to the Boom Key so that you can quickly launch it.
The Idol 4S will be sold unlocked and will support LTE bands 2, 4, 5, 7, 12, and 17, which means that it should play nicely with both AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S.
