6" Alcatel Hero 2+ comes with CyanogenMod, octacore Mediatek CPU, available for $299 unlocked in US this spring
Dan Seifert / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
On the same day Alcatel unveiled its flagship-priced-for-the-masses Idol 3 line starting at $200, it also announced the Hero 2+: a six-inch phablet shipping with CyanogenMod preinstalled and an octa-core MediaTek chip at $299 unlocked. The pairing matters because CyanogenMod gives a no-name-in-the-US brand a software identity beyond price.
This lands squarely in the push by Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers to sell carrier-free phones directly to American buyers — a lane ZTE entered months later with its $450 Axon phablet and Nubia Z9.
First-order effects
- US buyers get a large-screen, octa-core MediaTek phone for $299 with no contract, extending Alcatel's unlocked lineup alongside the Idol 3's $200–$250 tier.
- CyanogenMod gets its highest-profile retail distribution to date in the US, moving the community ROM onto a mass-market shelf product.
Second-order effects
- ZTE's unlocked push — the Axon at $450 with 4GB of RAM — forces the sub-$300 segment to compete on specs-per-dollar rather than carrier promotions, squeezing the subsidy model's hold over mid-range buyers.
- Rival low-cost OEMs now face pressure to differentiate on software as well as price, since CyanogenMod hands Alcatel a customization story its Idol 3 rivals lack.
Third-order effects
- CyanogenMod's commercial OEM strategy is a bet that custom Android could be a durable differentiator; its later fork into the Lineage project suggests the ROM-first business model did not survive, leaving vendors like Alcatel to lean on hardware bundles instead.
- If the unlocked-direct pattern holds, the US mid-range market restructures around open-channel pricing from Asian OEMs, with carriers ceding the $200–$400 band to online retail.
The trend: Chinese and Taiwanese handset makers are bypassing US carriers with aggressively priced unlocked Android phones, briefly using CyanogenMod as their software wedge before the ROM project collapsed into Lineage.