Key difference: The Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra features a 4.65 inch HD AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. The phone is powered by Dual-core 1.2 GHz processor on a MediaTek MTK 6577 and 1 GB of RAM. The phone has a width of 6.45mm, which has led the company to tout it as the thinnest smartphone on the market. Samsung Galaxy S4 is the successor to the very popular Samsung Galaxy S3. The phone is available with either the 1.6 GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 5 processor or the 1.9 GHz Snapdragon Fusion Pro quad-core processor, depending on the market.

Alcatel-Lucent is a global telecommunications equipment company based in Paris, France. It is best known for providing telecommunications solutions to service providers, enterprises, and governments around the world. In addition, they also focus on fixed phones, mobile phones, converged networking hardware, IP technologies, software, and services.

Among its many series of phones, one is the Alcatel One Touch, which is an Android based smartphone series. Some of the newest phones under the series are the Alcatel One Touch Idol, Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra and Alcatel One Touch Idol X.

The Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra features a 4.65 inch HD AMOLED capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. The phone is powered by Dual-core 1.2 GHz processor on a MediaTek MTK 6577 and 1 GB of RAM. The phone runs on Android OS, v4.1 (Jelly Bean).  Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra also features an 8 MP primary camera with digital zoom and LED flash, as well as 1.3 MP secondary front-facing camera for video calls. The phone comes with 16GB of internal storage, of which 13.3 GB is available to the user. The device also supports MicroSD to expand external usage up to 32 GB.

The phone has a width of 6.45mm, which has led the company to tout it as the thinnest smartphone on the market. However, to get this accolade of the ‘thinnest smartphone’, the device has had to compromise on some matters, such as the phone does not feature an audio jack. The phone does come with a USB to 3.5 mm jack adapter, which means that the USB port doubles as an audio port.

Samsung is one of the key players in the smartphone market. Their innovative Galaxy line of phones and tablets has been making public loyal to the brand. With the launch of the S4, the newest phone on the Galaxy line, the company has even further strengthened its position in the smartphone market.

Samsung Galaxy S4 is the successor to the very popular Samsung Galaxy S3. Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 are similar in many ways; however, they are also different. S4 has more advanced features though it does retain most of the look of the S3. The company boasts new features into a slightly smaller and sleeker design. The phone’s screen has been increased to a stunning almost 5 inches with only slight decrease in size of the phone. The screen is a full HD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that provides a greater resolution of 1080 pixels, almost 441ppi density. The weight of the phone has also been decreased to 130 g and the width of the phone has been reduced by 1mm. The phone has sharper and straighter lines with just curved edges. In terms of design it is quite similar to the S3. The chassis is made up of polycarbonate plastic and the display is highly sensitive that accepts touch through gloves. The phone is available with either the 1.6 GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 5 processor or the 1.9 GHz Snapdragon Fusion Pro quad-core processor, depending on the market. It is available with 16/32/64 GB internal capacity options and if that is not enough it can be upgraded by another 64 GB using the SD slot. The S4 comes with 2 GB RAM, which has become a norm for smartphones these days.

The phone comes with a stunning 13 MP primary camera, a 2 MP secondary camera and HD video recording capability. The S4 runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, but it has yet to be seen if it will offer an upgrade to the new Key Lime Pie version when it is available in mid-2013. The phone is available in two colors Black Mist and White Frost, though there may be chances for other colors once the phone is available for purchasing. Now for the fun part! The phone offers brand new features that are sure to pull in some big spenders. The S4 offers hovering capabilities known as Air Wave, which allows users to swipe between screens, videos, photos without actually touching the screen. Another fun feature is the Smart Scroll and Smart Pause; Smart Scroll uses a sensor and the front camera to automatically scroll when a person is done reading a certain paragraph. The scrolling can also be controlled using tilt. Smart Pause uses the sensor to pause videos automatically when the phone senses that the person is no longer looking at the screen and then resumes when the person looks back at the screen.

Group Play is a feature that allows users to use NFC or Bluetooth to tap and transfer videos, photos, music and even engage in multiplayer games with other S4 users. There are many new camera features as well including dual camera, sound & shot, drama shot, story album, cinema photo and eraser mode. Dual camera allows users to use both the cameras at the same time including when trying to take a photo. The person taking the photo can place their face to the photo taken using the secondary camera or vice-versa. Sound & Shot feature takes 9 seconds of audio when capturing a photo. Drama Shot combines all the actions from a Burst shot into one screen. Story album enables the users to create an album using their shots and audio. Cinema photo feature allows the users to animate one portion of an image, while keeping the rest simple. Eraser Mode allows users to erase objects from the image that they do not wish to include. Other features also include S Health (users can track their diet, steps, exercises, etc.), S Translator, S Voice assistant, Galaxy S Voice Drive and Integrated Optical Reader. Samsung has yet to announce the release date and the price of the S4.

The information for the detailed table about the two phones has been taken from the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra website, the Samsung website, knowyourmobile.com, expertreviews.co.uk and GSMArena.com.

Image Courtesy: alcatelonetouch.com, samsung.com