for Smartphones and Cell Phones
| December 2, 2019 — 15:21 GMT (15:21 GMT)
| Topic: Mobility
AI assistants on your phone: Who is the smartest of them all?
Voice assistants from Amazon, Apple, and Google all improve on smartphones but Google Assistant is still top dog.
Since I cover smartphones here on ZDNet, I tend to focus on the latest and greatest flagship devices. Occasionally, other interesting phones catch my eye and for the past few weeks I’ve been trying out the Alcatel GO FLIP 3 on T-Mobile. A few key software pieces, based on KaiOS, have been added that make it a modern flip phone that can actually serve as a very capable daily driver.
Software
Press and hold the red power button to turn on the GO FLIP 3 and you will see the home screen appear on the inside display. The time, date, battery status, and various connection status icons appear on the display. Options at the bottom of the home screen include notification, app launcher, and contacts.
The default home screen also has four icons on the left side that you can scroll through with the directional pad, one move left and then scroll up and down through these four icons. These include the app store, Google Assistant, Google Maps, and YouTube. You might think YouTube on this is ridiculous, but actually when you select to play a video it moves automatically into landscape orientation on the display and the rear speaker pumps out decent volume. It was a much better experience than I imagined and is fine for the occasional video session for news clips and such.
Press up on the directional pad to access a volume slider and six quick settings. These include toggles for cellular data, Bluetooth, WiFi, and airplane mode in addition to display brightness controls and an icon to launch the camera. Volume is surprisingly quite loud on the rear-firing speaker, which is important for the typical customer looking for a capable flip phone.
Press in once on the OK button to access the app launcher. Apps loaded by default include messages, call log, contacts, camera, Google Assistant, app store, web browser, image gallery, clock, music player, FM radio, calendar, calculator, video viewer, email, file manager, notes, voice recorder, and settings. I also tested out Twitter and a scientific calculator that I found in the app store. As you can see it is a very capable feature phone and you can customize the arrangement of the app icons in the launcher too.
There is a solid predictive text entry engine in the phone, but you can also simply press and hold to active Google Assistant voice to text entry. This was awesome and with my voice I was able to easily bang out long text messages and notes. As I said earlier, the use of Google Assistant on a feature phone like this is a perfect use of the technology.
In regards to the KaiOS app store, there are lots of games, social apps (Twitter, WhatsApp, and Facebook), utilities (EPUB and document readers, for example), news apps, health apps, and more. It’s not a massive store, but there are a number of decent options and given the small display I can’t imagine needing more than a few on this phone.
Given the form factor and design, the GO FLIP 3 is designed with accessibility in mind. For those who are speech or hearing impaired, the GO FLIP 3 offers the highest value of hearing aid compatibility with an M4/T4 rating. In addition, Real-Time-Text (RTT) allows your phone to transmit messages as they are being written and may be used with Text Telephone (TTY) devices.
Daily experiences
I was satisfied with the Alcatel GO FLIP V and could see some limited uses for that phone, but having Google Assistant and 3rd party app support on the GO FLIP 3 greatly increased its capability. The hardware is mostly the same on both of these phones, but using Google Assistant to perform many of the tasks and perform text entry makes the GO FLIP 3 a pretty awesome phone for $100.
VoLTE and WiFi Calling is supported so you get the best capabilities for connectivity and calls. I found the signal strength to be solid and was able to use the phone just about everywhere I tested it without any problems. Calls sounded great on the phone and people I was talking with said I sounded good too.
The camera is not very good on this phone so it’s pretty limited to the occasional social shot or time when something extraordinary happens that you just have to capture. Pair it up with an iPad with WiFi hotspot connectivity for a solid mobile experience.
The T-Mobile GO FLIP 3 supports T-Mobile’s 600 MHz frequency as well and is a great spare phone to have or one for your loved one who doesn’t want a large glass smartphone. This is the best flip phone I’ve ever tried and I may have a hard time getting my SIM card back out of it.
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for Smartphones and Cell Phones
| December 2, 2019 — 15:21 GMT (15:21 GMT)
| Topic: Mobility