Alcatel Onetouch Hero 2 review: Lacks Samsung Galaxy Note 4 wow factor

The Hero 2 is a solid budget alternative to the Note 4 with a decent screen and camera, but go for the Samsung if you want that oomph.

The Alcatel Onetouch Hero 2 will be sold for Dh1,699. The National

If you were wowed by Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 like us but can’t quite bear shelling out top dollar for the privilege, help could be on the horizon from Alcatel.

The French phone makers are set to launch their newest phablet, the Onetouch Hero 2, in the UAE next month, retailing for a mere Dh1,699 – several hundred dirhams cheaper than Samsung’s flagship beast.

But how do the two models compare?

While its lines are perhaps not as clean and sculpted as its Korean rival, the Hero 2 certainly doesn’t feel cheap.

And its black plastic body sits comfortably enough in hand. At 175g in weight, it’s a whole gram lighter than the Note 4, not that you’ll notice. The standard trick for a large screen budget phone is to keep the size the same but cut down on screen specs. But while the Hero 2’s IPS LCD technology has been around for a while, the handset display looks beautiful.

It doesn’t have the wow factor of the Note 4’s Super Amoled screen, but nonetheless the deep colours and explosive action sequences of the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer are beautifully rendered on the Hero 2. Alcatel hasn’t scrimped on the camera either; while its 13.1MP primary camera falls a little below the Note 4’s 16 MPs, its secondary, selfie camera boasts 5MP in comparison with the Note 4’s 3.7 MP.

However, the corner cutting becomes apparent in the Hero 2’s user interface, which has a slight but noticeable lag compared with its higher priced rivals. This is most noticeable when playing around with the built-in stylus, which falls very short of the Note 4’s, although whether this matters is a moot point. Ultimately, the Hero 2 is much of what you’d expect from a budget phablet. Eschewing the whistles and bells of a Note 4, it’s a big phone with generally solid performance, let down by a slightly sluggish user interface.

If you don’t mind a bit of a lag, it’s a solid alternative to Samsung’s flagship. If you miss that extra bit of oomph, and don’t mind shelling out more, the Note 4’s still the one to go for.

q&a sketching oodles of doodles

I’m bored of typing; I want to be able to write and doodle on my phone / tablet with a real pen!

You sound a little weird to me, but both the Hero 2 and the Note 4 have built in styluses, so what do I know?

Exactly. So how does the doodling experience compare between the two?

It doesn’t. Using the stylus on the Hero 2 is like almost every other stylus experience out there, and feels more like a knitting needle on glass than pen on paper. There’s also a noticeable lag between when you write or doodle something and when it appears on the screen. The Note 4 stylus experience by contrast feels exactly like putting pen to paper (don’t ask me how), meaning my signature looks more like my signature than the mark of Zorro.

That’s great, which means I can use the stylus for … remind me …

Well, no one’s really that sure. While it’s nice to write an occasional hand written note or do a little sketch, even with the best stylus, will you really use it every day?

Hmm, fair point. So what else is noteworthy (not Note 4 worthy) about the Hero 2?

Well, it runs the relatively up to date Android KitKat and comes in one colour, dark grey. It’s got a slightly low 16GB of memory built in, but a card slot that allows you to add much more.

Follow The National's Business section on Twitter