Wallet-friendly big-screen Android comes with extras (hands-on)

BARCELONA, Spain--Do you remember the Alcatel One Touch Scribe X from CES last month? Well, the Alcatel One Touch Scribe Easy is a lot like it, but less tailored in appearance and more midrange in specs.

The Scribe Easy's main premise is that's it an extremely affordable Android 4.1 device (4.2 at launch) that comes with a cool magnetic cover and a stylus you can use to transcribe handwriting into text in several custom apps.

For the roughly $130 U.S. full retail price, the specs are fine: a large, 5-inch, 800x480-pixel screen, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, and a 5-megapixel camera.

I love that you can tuck the stylus into a loop in the magnetic cover, but the handset design is another matter. The Scribe Easy's wide profile fit awkwardly in my hands, and its grooved sides scooped in, so that I was painfully aware of the rim around the screen pressing into my palm.

Although it may not be the sexiest device around, I'm guessing that the wallet-friendly price and included accessories will get people considering the Scribe Easy as their next device, though I'm also guessing that the round rather than pointy stylus tip will turn some people off.

Already available for sale in China under the TCL brand, the Scribe Easy comes to Russia first in March, followed by other markets.