Alcatel has started the year with a clutch of neat and quite stylish handsets for the budget PAYG market. This one certainly looks the part, a sexy little flip phone in glossy white with silvery plastic edging and some funky but functionally pointless metallic strips on the cover.
Inside is one of the most basic phones you’ll find. It’s not fashionably thin at 22mm, the screen does a mere 4K colours and has a coarse 120x80 pixels resolution on a small display, there’s no USB or Bluetooth or GPRS, and there’s no music player. On the plus side, it’s a very solid clamshell with a good, positive hinge, one-handed operation, and a nice feel in the hand. The keyboard isn’t bad, either – number keys and navigation are all styled on the one pad, with demarcation provided by a clever mix of lines and indentations (it works better than it sounds). The navigation and function-selection keys could do with some visual indications on them – only the long-press ‘off’ key is marked – but you do get used to the layout. Just as well there’s so little option and function selection to be done …
Bit of a cutie, but short on brains
SPECIFICATION
Size:
Length 86mm, Width 44.3mm, Depth 22.5mm
Weight
81g
Main display
TFT, 4K colours, 120x80 pixels
Camera
No
Connectivity
Dual band GSM
Battery
Standby 250h, Talk time 5h
Features
Clock, 16-voice polyphonic ringtones
Features
20MB internal memory, microSD card slot, FM stereo radio
VERDICT
FEATURES 50%
SALEABILITY 60%