Newest Alcatel Flagship Smartphone Actually Comes Bundled with a VR Headset

Virtual reality is everywhere this year, with VR headsets and a wealth of content breaking into the mainstream. Now, smartphone manufacturer Alcatel wants to make it more affordable to embrace the medium.

The budget-phone company is releasing a bundle that includes a VR headset with its latest flagship phone, the Idol 4S.

Alcatel’s newest flagship seems like an attempt for the company to make a name for itself on the market. According to The Verge, the Idol 4S has “a more refined design and higher-end components.”

Those higher-end specs include 3 gigabytes of memory, a Snapdragon 652 processor, and Quick Charging capabilities, according to Alcatel.

The phone, which features a 5.5-inch HD display, has a 16-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. And with just a few tweaks, the phone can run Android 6.0.

The phone also has an exterior button, called the Boom Key, which can be used to trigger special actions in certain apps — including triggering the camera’s burst mode and switching on a volume or bass boost in a music app, according to Engadget.

The Verge reports that, for the price, the Idol 4S is a fast, responsive midrange phone — and it’s able to compete, performance-wise, with phones that cost the same or slightly more.

But the feature that Alcatel probably hopes will set the Idol 4S apart is its included VR headset. Rather, the packaging the phone comes in is the headset.

Unlike Samsung’s Gear VR, which is the result of collaboration with Oculus, Alcatel’s headset is based on Google’s open-source ‘Cardboard’, according to Engadget.

While probably not the best VR headset on the market by any stretch, the Idol 4S bundle seems like a good way to test out virtual reality tech at an overall affordable price.

The Alcatel Idol 4S is currently available in the US for $399 — with the included headset.