Alcatel Shine Lite

Alcatel Shine Lite is an affordable smartphone with mid range hardware specifications. Released at October 2016, the Alcatel Shine Lite features a shiny design with glass and metal material choice for an elegant and seamless design that shines. It explains the name of the smartphone which is built to shine. The body of the smartphone features a curved 2.5D Asahi Dragontrail Glass surrounding the metal body on both sides which makes for a comfortable grip. It has 3 colour choices to fit different personalities which are Satin Gold, Pure White and Prime Black. The Alcatel Shine Lite measures at 141.5 x 71.2 x 7.5 mm (5.57 x 2.80 x 0.30 in) and weighs at 156 g (5.50 oz). It is slightly heavier than other smartphones due to the Asahi Dragontrail Glass front screen and back panel design. For hardware specification, it features Mediatek MT6737 chipset, Quad-core 1 processor, and 2GB RAM. As for storage, it features an internal storage of 16GB with support of microSD card for storage expansion up to 256GB.

The screen of the smartphone is a 5.0 inches IPS LCD fully laminated capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and a pixel density of approximately 294 ppi. The screen support multitouch up to five fingers. On the back  is the camera which features a 13 megapixel sensor and large aperture to bring snaps to life. It also features dual-tone flash to ensure natural looking pictures. The dual-tone flash also enable user to capture vibrant, realistic colours and sharp details even under low light environment. It takes quite good photos for a entry level device; even under low light conditions. For the front camera, it features a 5 megapixel sensor with LED flash to capture brighter selfies. The front camera take controls of selfies with innovative rule breakers such as Gesture Shot, Easy Shot, Face Show, Selfie Album and Split Catcher to enhance selfies along with gesture controlled selfie functions.

The smartphone has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor which allows to unlock the phone by a single touch. Besides that, customization such as using different fingerprints to open different app can be done, even from standby mode. User can also safeguard privacy even further using fingerprint to secure private Safebox. It allows locking away personal documents, images and videos from prying eyes. For audio, It features dual-mic noise cancellation and AWINC8738 audio amplifier for clear audio during phone calls. As for wireless connectivity, the smartphone provide support for Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.2. As for battery, it is powered by a non-removable Li-Ion 2460 mAh battery. The Shine Lite is a reasonably priced mid range smartphone but there are many other choices in this category mainly from the Chinese manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam