Alcatel has extended its partnership with T-Mobile, and announced the availability of two new smartphones through the rapidly growing network. From the beginning of September, sequels to the Fierce and Evolve phones launched this time last year will go on sale. The Fierce 2 and the Evolve 2 are two mid-range Android 4.4 KitKat phones, which should appeal to smartphone fans on a strict budget.
The Fierce 2 is the larger, more impressive of the two phones. It has a big 5-inch screen with a 960 x 540 pixel resolution, and is powered by a 1.2GHz, quad-core Snapdragon processor. There’s 1GB of RAM and a rather lowly 4GB of internal memory, but at least Alcatel has had the good sense to add a MicroSD card slot, although it only supports sizes up to 32GB.
Flip the phone over and you’ll find a 5-megapixel, auto-focus camera, which comes with the usual Android 4.4 software features such as an HDR and a panorama shot mode. The selfie cam won’t make you look your best though, as it’ll only shoot in VGA resolutions. Alcatel says the 9.9mm body hides a 2,000mAh battery which should return six hours of talk time.
T-Mobile’s other new Alcatel phone is the Evolve 2, which has a smaller 4-inch touchscreen with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution. The processor drops down to a dual-core chip running at 1.2GHz, and accompanied by just 512MB of RAM. Android 4.4 KitKat is designed to run on basic hardware like the Evolve 2, so hopefully performance won’t suffer too greatly, at least under normal usage.
Like the Fierce 2, the camera has 5 megapixels, but loses autofocus, and the VGA camera remains above the screen. The internal storage stays the same, and there is a MicroSD card slot too.
Both phones will be on sale in September, although the exact release date and pricing has yet to be confirmed. We’re expecting to hear from T-Mobile soon, and will update here when we receive more information.