Alcatel announced the Idol 4S at MWC in February. Today, it announced the phone would ship in the US. In August. That's over five months after the phone was announced, near as makes no difference to half a year. It will go on sale for pre-order on July 15th for $349, and will later see its price increase to $399 on August 3rd when the phone begins shipping. Alcatel will also offer financing for "as low as" $37 a month, though they fail to address how long that financing term is, which is sort of important.

The Idol 4S is one of two Idol devices Alcatel announced at MWC. The cheaper Idol 4 was not mentioned in today's release, and that's probably for the best - its Snapdragon 617 processor is a bit of a red flag at this point, and I tend to get a bad feeling about any phone using a 615/6/7-series chip these days.

The 4S packs a 5.5" Quad HD Super AMOLED display, 3GB of RAM, 3000mAh battery, dual SIMs, dual front-facing speakers, Snapdragon 652 processor (i.e., the good 600-series chip), 16MP rear and 8M front-facing cameras, and an all-new metal and glass design that has a decidedly Samsung-y vibe when viewed from the back. It will run Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Alcatel's fairly light software UI. Alcatel says the 4S will get Android 7.0 via an update, but how long you'll have to wait for it is anybody's guess - Alcatel took its time updating last year's Idol 3 from Android 5.0.1 to 6.0, but it did come through in the end. The phone also includes that nifty VR headset box.

The Idol 4S enters a mid-range smartphone market that has changed considerably since the phone was announced in February - Google's Nexus 6P is seeing discounts scraping the $400 zone, the OnePlus 3 has turned out to be quite an excellent device, and ZTE announced today that its new Axon 7 will go on sale in the US soon for the same $400. There's little denying each of these phones have something to offer over the 4S, either. The OnePlus 3 and Axon 7 have more RAM - the former fully double the Idol's 3GB. Both come with twice the storage (64GB). Both also offer the newer, faster, and more efficient Snapdragon 820. Don't get me wrong, the 652 is a very good chip, but the 820 is a hard option to ignore at the same MSRP, especially when it comes alongside other spec perks like more storage and RAM.

Alcatel will have a tough sell of the Idol 4S here in the US among finicky unlocked smartphone buyers. Let's hope its newest phone has a few tricks up its figurative sleeves.

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