ALCATEL A5 LED

LIGHT UP YOUR LIFE WITH ALCATEL’S NEW SMARTPHONE

$TBC, alcatel-mobile.com, available TBC

While other handsets make do with aluminium unibodies, 4K screens and other niceties, Alcatel’s latest phone takes a entirely different route to grabbing headlines, with an interactive LED cover, designed to capture the imagination of a younger crowd.

The cover – a protective case, much like the HTC Dot View with the HTC 10 – can be used to good effect, so you might set the grid of LEDs to light up when you receive incoming calls or messages, for instance, and you can customise the way it looks with cover patterns and themes. It’ll also light up and display animated patterns while you listen to music, and if you shake the device, the pattern will change.

Case aside, what you’re getting with the A5 LED is a decent, if a touch basic, handset, with a 1.5GHz octa-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 2800mAh battery, and an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera.

A 5.2-inch 720p display and Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system are the only downsides, to what is a decent (though not mind-blowing) phone. So will a funky interactive LED cover be enough to place it in your palms the next time you buy a handset?