Back at the beginning of March, I met up with the Alcatel OneTouch team while I was covering MWC for PhoneDog. And its latest phone could be one of the best value-for-money devices on the market today. The pre-orders were meant to go live tomorrow, but the company decided to surprise us with an early pre-order and price-drop. If you pre-order before tomorrow, April 21st, you’ll pay just $199.99 for a device which promises to be pretty great. You can grab it on Amazon (with Prime) or direct from Alcatel OneTouch’s site.

Alcatel OneTouch – of course – has partnered with T-Mobile a number of times in the past. Most recently, the company’s budget tablets were being given away for free. This time however, the manufacturer is selling its devices unlocked and SIM-free. What’s more, this new device is compatible with all of T-Mobile’s LTE bands: 2, 4 and 12.

Other specs include:

• 5.5-inch 1080×1920 display (443ppi)
• 64 bit Octa-core Snapdragon 615 chip – 1.5GHz quad + 1GHz quad
• 13MP rear camera
• 8MP front camera
• Android 5.0 Lollipop
• Dual front-facing speakers with JBL audio
• 16GB storage – expandable to 128GB
• 2GB RAM
• 2,910mAh battery (13hrs talktime on 3G)
• Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n

As well as that, it possesses a neat feature that means it’s never upside down. When turned on its head, the screen content turns around too. But more than that, there are earpieces and microphones both above and below the display so that you’re never holding the device the wrong way.

After today, the price jumps to $249.99 – which is still great value for money – but why wait when you can save $50? The device will ship some time in May. I’ve also been sent one to check out, so I’ll be sure to share my PhoneDog unboxing video with you as soon as it’s ready either later today or tomorrow. In the mean time, you can check out my hands-on video from March:

Sources: Amazon, Alacatel OneTouch