The latest Alcatel smartphone will ship in a virtual reality headset

By Gabe Carey February 11, 2016

the latest alcatel smartphone will ship in a virtual reality headset aot 930x523 — Evan Blass/VentureBeat

Most companies aren’t all that creative when it comes to packaging. In the best case scenario, you can expect a cardboard box decorated with some uniquely crafted art that might look pretty on a shelf. Going where few tech makers have before, Alcatel is making itself an exception by shipping its latest smartphone, the OneTouch Idol 4S, in a box that doubles as a Virtual Reality viewer.

This news comes from VentureBeat, who says the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 4S will be encompassed by a hard plastic box that can be used as a VR viewer in a similar vein as Google Cardboard. With it, you’ll be able to slip your phone into a fitted slot and look into its eyepieces to see into virtually rendered worlds. A single button located on the side of the device can be used to interact with the various games and apps supported.

While this can easily be deemed innovative, the OneTouch Idol 4S itself is little more than your basic mid-range smartphone. With a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display, an eight-core Snapdragon 652 SoC, 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of built-in storage space, it might be impressive if it had arrived a few years prior. At least if it’s stuck in the past, however, it’s stuck with expandable microSD storage too. Its photography capabilities are a little more impressive, though. The rear camera captures a sharp 16-mexapixel image using an f/2.0 aperture lens while the front-facing camera can manage 8 megapixels and even features flash.

Alcatel is targeting a price-point of under $400 for the OneTouch Idol 4S when it arrives in May, which should make up for the less-than-impressive tech specs. The combination of a low price point for the phone, a QHD display, and a package that doubles as a VR headset could make the OneTouch Idol 4S a poor man’s GearVR.

Topics

Tech News

Former Digital Trends Contributor

A freelancer for Digital Trends, Gabe Carey has been covering the intersection of video games and technology since he was 16…

Computing

The HP Victus gaming PC with RTX 3060 has a $550 discount

The HP Victus 15L gaming PC in white.

Gamers don't need to spend more than $1,000 if they want to buy a new gaming PC because there are affordable options like the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop. From its original price of $1,400, you can get it for just $850 as HP has applied a $550 discount on this machine. However, you shouldn't delay your purchase because there's no assurance that the gaming PC will still be 39% off tomorrow. If you want to make sure that you get it for less than $1,000, you're going to have to complete the transaction for it within the day.

Why you should buy the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop
You shouldn't expect the HP Victus 15L gaming desktop to match the performance of the top-of-the-line models of the best gaming PCs, but it's surprisingly powerful for its cost. Inside it are the 13th-generation Intel Core i7 processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, with 16GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the best place to start for gaming. It's enough to play today's best PC games without any issues, and it may even be capable of running the upcoming PC games of the next few years if you're willing to dial down the settings for the more demanding titles.

Computing

This 17-inch HP laptop is on sale for just $300 — but hurry!

The HP 17t-cn300 17.3-inch laptop against a white background.

If you want to buy a laptop with a relatively large screen, the good news is that you don't have to break the bank with your purchase because you can get the HP Laptop 17t for a very affordable $300. It's on sale from HP with a $200 discount on its original price of $500, but there's no telling how much time is remaining before this offer expires. We don't think it will stay available for long because laptop deals like this almost always get sold out quickly, so complete the transaction as soon as possible to make sure that you don't miss out on the savings.

Why you should buy the HP Laptop 17t
With the 17.3-inch display of the HP Laptop 17t, you'll have a lot of screen real estate to work on your projects and watch streaming shows. It's pretty affordable for a laptop with this large screen, which offers HD+ resolution for sharp details and vibrant colors. However, despite its big display, the HP Laptop 17t maintains portability because it's only 0.78 of an inch thick, which makes it easy to slide into your bag when you're on the go, and it won't be too heavy to carry around because it only weighs about 4.6 pounds.

Computing

What to do if your Intel CPU keeps crashing

Pins on Core i9-12900K.

Despite being among the best processors you can buy, some high-end Intel CPUs have faced a wave of instability over the past few months. Intel is investigating the problem, but the company and its motherboard partners have already worked toward some temporary fixes to improve stability on high-end Intel CPUs -- even if it comes at a performance cost.

Before getting into the fixes, keep in mind that they are temporary. Intel will release a statement on the instability soon, likely with more direct guidance on what affected users should do. In addition, the scope of the problem isn't clear -- if you're not experiencing issues, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
Who's affected