Alcatel lights up with A5 LED

Alcatel today unveiled the A5 LED, a upper entry-level smartphone with an LED back-cover. The phone's plastic back has plenty of LEDs embedded under it, which in addition to looking kinda cool, act as a music visualiser, and fire up for notifications.

When you're using the A5 LED as a music visualiser, the LEDs "dance" to the beat of the music. You're able to swap styles by shaking the phone. 

Each LED notification has a unique appearance to help you differentiate when the phone is face down. For example, the back might light up blue for Facebook, and yellow for Snapchat. 

You're also able to personalise the LED pattern the A5 LED displays when you unlock it using a feature called colour capture, where the device picks out a few major hues from a photo of your choice. This will also match the phone's operating system to the same colours. 

Other key specifications include a 5.2-inch 720p display, an eight-core 1.5GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, an 8MP rear-camera, a front-facing fingerprint reader and a 2800mAh battery. It runs Android Marshmallow. 

We're expecting to see the A5 LED in Australia in May priced at $299.

Alcatel also announced too other entry level smartphones: the A3 (pictured left) and the U5 (pictured right). The A3 is being pitched as an high definition 4G smartphone, while the U5 is billed as an affordable 4G smartphone. 

The A3 boasts a 5-inch 720p display, a quad-core 1.25GHz processor, 16GB of expandable storage, 1.5GB of RAM, a 13MP rear-facing camera, a rear-facing fingerprint reader, and a 2460mAh battery. It runs Android Marshmallow.

We're expecting to see the A3 in Australia in June for $199. 

The U5's key specifications include a 5-inch 480p display, a quad-core 1.1GHz processor, 8GB of expandable storage, 1GB of RAM, a 5MP rear-facing camera, and a 2050mAh battery. It runs Android Marshmallow. 

An Alcatel Australia spokesperson told us that they expect to the U5 to cost between $129 and $149, and to launch in May. 

Alcatel Australia contributed funding toward WhistleOut's trip to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

Read full bio