[Onetouch Idol 3 General] okc_car_dude:
Idol 3 vs G Stylo (full GSM Version like on T-Mobile)

I currently own both devices. Well... I actually sold my Idol 3 (5.5) recently from a matter of convenience. (a friend broke their phone S5 and had been eyeballing my Idol 3 for some time. Btw, he said he likes it over the S5 hands down, but sound is very important to him, so take it as you will.)

That being said, the Escape just cannot even compare. I'm also going to assume you're talking about the real Stylo (16 GB / 2 GB RAM / 13 mp cam), and not the "half-Stylo" (1/2 the storage, and 1/2 the RAM, and only an 8 mp cam.) that Boost or Cricket have. (Their Stylo 2 is a big upgrade here, but still only has 1.5 GB RAM)

****spoiler alert!

Basically, for a sharper screen with better colors, awesome sound, and a faster chipset for web-browsing, gaming, and download speeds, get the Idol!

For a great all-around and very stable device with nice software and a pretty nice everyday camera for the price, with a big and still clear screen, get the Stylo!****

Now, obviously there is no comparison in sound. The Idol 3 is the second loudest and easily the clearest-sounding phone I've ever heard in my life. Also, it is worth mentioning that the speaker on the Stylo is Mediocre. I often cannot hear shows well enough to make out words when people are talking in the same room. At work, the $90 Core Prime has a louder speaker and that's just sad.

To get to the meat of it. When I switched from the Stylo to the Idol 3, several of my Stylo Complaints were alleviated:

1) I could listen to videos in normal environments without headphones or cupping the phone.

2) The headphone output was better amplified, so I didn't have to turn up my car volume as high.

3) Headphone output has better bass

4) The GPS works without having to set my phone on the dash.

5) It doesn't do that crazy glitch that the Stylo does when you take out headphones (or in my case, an Auxiliary cord) and when you put it back in, the volume is severely attenuated, even if I turn it back to maximum (for my car).

IT STILL HAPPENS ON 6.0, BTW!

6) It doesn't remind me everytime I plug in AUX that listening to music too loud can damage my hearing. (This gets especially annoying when you are doing errands and are in and out of your car.... *btw, do yourself a favor and turn off the JBL audio effect. You'll thank me.

7) Not to knock the Stylo screen, because it's probably the clearest one available at Wallyworld in it's price / size range, buuuuuuut... the colors onscreen are a little washed out. Despite the Stylor being VERY sharp for a 720p display and I've seen it look clearer than more than one 1080p phone in it's range... The Idol 3 does a WAY better job at color reproduction. Plus, it looks sharper, too! ^_^

8) Speaking of screens, the Idol 3 not only has auto-brightness (whereas the Stylo does not... really, LG!? A ≈$200 without auto-brightness!?) Not only does it have auto-brightness, but it can easily tuned to your liking using the slider, while still giving you maximum brightness in sunlight and minimum brightness in darkness.

9) Native flashlight support that is very responsive.

Icing on the cake:

1) Since the Chrome web browser it multi-threaded, web browsing is notably faster on the Idol 3 with it's 8 cores.

2) It gets a better Wi-Fi signal and tested at nearly twice the speed (also partially due to the better processor, I'm sure) in my bedroom, on the other side of the house from the router.

3) The Idol 3 has an immensely better GPU for gaming.

4) Miracast for wireless 1080p screen mirroring!

5) Both have great battery life, but the Idol edges out here a bit.

6) The screen gets crazy bright for a budget phone and is the best phone I've used for Sunlight viewing. To elaborate on this and the last point, this phone's screen is like an anomaly. It just sips the battery in most situations, and yet, gets super bright with ease. It got 8.5 hours of screen-on time in Phone Arena's test, and over 9 hours on Tom's Hardware's test.

Okay, so it's not all good, of course.

1) If you clear out the cache, running apps, etc... the Idol 3 will win most quick tests to pull up an app and do a quick task... HOWEVER, the Stylo seems more stable from day to day and requires less cleaning.

2) Occasionally, I did get a bit of freezing or lag, but only occasionally and not bad enough to make me wanna throw it or switch. The LG doesn't seem to like to run aftermarket keyboards a lot, either... it definitely does a better job of it.

3) Understand that until the Alcatel (some say if it...) gets the Marshmallow update, it still has the infamous Lollipop RAM leak and it will sometimes randomly dump unused or paused programs from the RAM. (This was honestly only mildly annoying to me, since it was never a program in the foreground. However, it was noticed enough to have me waiting anxiously for ≥ 6.0!

4) No Band 12 LTE support for T-Mobile (as per T-Mobile's request that they remove it, since it does not have VoLTE, and cannot make calls on Band 12).

In general, it doesn't get as good of a signal as the Stylo. (however, the faster processor usually more than makes up for the slight difference in signal strength, but it could be felt by some users in a poor coverage area.

5) You significant other / movie patrons / or anyone else around you may complain because even on the minimum brightness setting*, the screen is still 26 nits. (not very dim, at all for complete darkness. My wife immediately knows anytime I turn it on at night, cause it's comparatively rather bright.) *although, I like to think this is just how they tuned the screen to be so it's so efficient.

One or the other:

Okay, so obviously you get more software stuff from LG, like a great factory keyboard out of the box. However, this is a mixed bag. What some people call great software others call bloatware, and I personally like how Alcatel keeps it slim, but funtional... although I'd like a better keyboard! =P I do think they'll deliver on the keyboard, though. since they have a decent one on the later introduced Fierce XL (aka Pop 3 5.5).

Camera Comparison! Okay, now that those are out of the way... what we have all been waiting for!:

*I may post some comparison pics if asked, but most of my analysis is from everyday usage of both devices at one point.

Pro Idol 3:

-The Idol 3 has MUCH better color representation. Very realistic.

-Also, as long as lighting is good, the Idol takes better pics and has a stronger flash for very / completely dark situations.

-8 mp wide angle selfie cam is even wider than the Stylo, with more resolution and better color. Plus, the selfie cam easily recognizes faces and adjusts the environment to bring the face to light, so to speak. Conversely, the Stylo sometimes tends to favor a lit background to a dim face... leaving your face dark! Because of this, Idol all the way for Snapchatters!

*Edit. Maybe the Marshmallow update has taken care of this, now. It wasn't doing it today (May 25, 2016) when I was trying to show someone this tendency.

Pro Stylo:

-The LG has auto HDR that actually does help when needed.

-Despite the aforementioned things and declaring the Idol 3 an early winner when I first got it... I realized that the better daylight and bright room shots just don't do enough to justify it's far worse low light performance. While the Idol can produce some very visually pleasing bright pics... the Stylo is just the better All-around everyday camera, imho.

I know this was long, but I hope it helps!