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. The Sony Xperia L is a mid-range smartphone. It features a 4.3-inch screen with a resolution of 854x480px and a scratch-resistant cover glass. It runs on Android 4.1 with a Dual-Core 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8230 chipset and 1 GB of RAM.

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.

The Sony Xperia L is a mid-range smartphone. It features a 4.3-inch screen with a resolution of 854x480px and a scratch-resistant cover glass. It runs on Android 4.1 with a Dual-Core 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8230 chipset and 1 GB of RAM. It also has all the bells and whistles, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G HSPA connectivity, as well as NFC support. The NFC is integrated with a one-touch connection to external displays in order to allow for big screen playback of videos or photos. The phone does not however have LTE capability.

Still, its saving grace has to be its 8 MP camera, which uses Sony's latest mobile Exmor RS sensor and offers a built-in HDR mode for both stills and video. The Exmor RS sensor is supposed to improved clarity and color reproduction, while the HDR mode will allow for better pictures in various different kinds of lights.

The phone is powered by a 1900mAh battery and has a battery STAMINA Mode for optimizing power consumption. The phone is available in three colors: white, black and red. It also has an LED light on the bottom of the phone that can be customized to blink different colors to indicate an incoming phone call, a missed call or text message. The light can also be programmed to blink in correspondence with the rhythm of the song played on the built in Sony Walkman music player.

The phone also comes with pre-installed Sony apps called Walkman, Album, and Movies. These are part of a pre-loaded software suite that allows for consuming and sharing a vast library of multimedia content.

The information for the detailed table about the two phones has been taken from the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra website, the Sony Mobile website and GSMArena.com.

Image Courtesy: alcatelonetouch.com, sonymobile.com