TCL, the Chinese company that owns the Alcatel brand
and the rights to launch BlackBerry-branded phones, has just announced a flip
phone that will be released in the United States very soon.
We're not sure whether or not to call the GO FLIP 3
a dumb phone since it's powered by KaiOS, the same mobile platform that runs on
many Nokia phones. The important thing is that the phone features Google
Assistant support and 4G connectivity.
Alcatel said the GO FLIP 3 will be available at
T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile sometime in October. However, AT&T and
Cricket Wireless will offer the feature phone as well starting September 27,
but under a different name – SMARTFLIP.
Both GO FLIP 3 and SMARTFLIP have the same specs, so
you won't have to worry about getting the phone from one carrier or the other.
Now, as far as the specs go, the feature phone sports a small 2.8-inch internal
display, Real-Time-Text (RTT) for conversational texting, Text Telephone (TTY)
mode for the hearing impaired, and a Readout feature for the visually impaired.
The GO FLIP 3/SMARTFLIP promises up to 7 hours of
continuous talk time on a single charge. Also, the phone includes 8GB of
expandable storage (up to 32GB). No word on prices yet, but we expect this one
to be very cheap.
