Alcatel Onetouch Hero 2 phablet brings stylus, LTE

Alcatel has introduced its new Hero 2 smartphone, a 6-inch phablet featuring an aluminium body and an integrated stylus. The latter works alongside "optimized hand writing recognition" to ensure that using the phablet as an on-the-go note-taking device doesn't result in digital gibberish.

The Hero 2 features a 6-inch Full HD IPS display with 5-point multi-touch and Dragontail glass. This is joined by an unspecified octa-core 2.0Ghz processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16 of internal storage. To boost that number, there's also a microSD expansion slot that supports up to 32GB.

The phone offers 4G LTE connectivity, 802.11 a/b/g/n, WiFi Direct and Display, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and USB 2.0. Around back is a 13.1-megapixel camera with auto focus and an LED flash, able to record 1080p video and coming alongside camera software with features like HDR and panorama. There's also optical image stablization.

The rear camera is joined by a somewhat larger than normal 5-megapixel front-facing camera. Powering all of this, meanwhile, is a 3100mAh battery that Alcatel says offers 380 hours of stand by time on 3G and 4.5 hours of talk time on 4G.