Alcatel OT-708

I bought this phone when it was first released back in September for £49 on Orange, including a £10 top-up. For that price, this has to be one of the best phones on the UK market for under £50 . Im not sure on its availability/price in other countries but I would expect the price to be similar.

It's touch screen is very responsive and resistant to damage and scratches, however there is no handwriting support. This phone comes in a ...
...Green from CarphoneWarehouse. This phone has some pretty decent features. It has a nice 'widget' section on the main screen from which you can access music, images, internet, messages and the weather and you can drag the icons to the main screen section to enlarge them. I absolutely love the clever little weather application, it found my town easily and its weather forecast is extremely accurate!

I also like the LED light buttons ... more

I bought this phone when it was first released back in September for £49 on Orange, including a £10 top-up. For that price, this has to be one of the best phones on the UK market for under £50 . Im not sure on its availability/price in other countries but I would expect the price to be similar.

It's touch screen is very responsive and resistant to damage and scratches, however there is no handwriting support. This phone comes in a variety of colours; silver on Orange, Blue on Tesco and Green from CarphoneWarehouse. This phone has some pretty decent features. It has a nice 'widget' section on the main screen from which you can access music, images, internet, messages and the weather and you can drag the icons to the main screen section to enlarge them. I absolutely love the clever little weather application, it found my town easily and its weather forecast is extremely accurate!

I also like the LED light buttons on the front, they're very nice and also responsive and when browsing the menu you can flick your finger to the side, to scroll through the menu. The menu itself is very simple and easy to use and very rarely seems slow, its usually quick to browse through and much better than other more expensive phones I have personally used. Its design and build quality seems quite good. However the plastics feel abit cheap, but this helps keep the weight down to 82g whilst still making it feeling robust

As for multimedia capabilities, you can take/view images/videos and not just ones taken from the 1.3 megapixel camera built in to the phone, as I have been able to view photos taken from my digital camera. The image quality is good for a 1.3 megapixel when outdoors but when indoors, the pictures are very grainy if the room is not well lit. The camera has quite a few different effects and lighting settings, aswell as digital zoom and options for 50/60Hz banding. An ebook reader is also built into this phone, but only .pdb files are supported( no .pdf ) There is also an MP3 player and an FM radio, both work quite well with good sound quality. However, only a limited number of file types are supported. There is also a MicroSD slot(up to 4GB) and bluetooth v2.0(with A2DP) built into this phone. This phone also supports Java games and applications, which so far work quite well .

Internet capabilities are okay at best as this phone only supports GPRS, but mine does not display Orange's web pages properly but displays every other web page I have tried, as it should. I would of been happier if this phone supported EDGE or UMTS.

As for battery life, mine seems to last about 5 days at the most with a few calls, texts and GPRS daily usage.

The free downloadable software available for this phone(Alcatel PC Suite), is also quite useful, allowing you to transfer files, text messages and contacts between the PC and phone and also allowing you to use the phone as a modem or web cam.

My only disappointments with this phone are that it only supports GPRS, the camera is only 1.3 Megapixel and that it lacks handwriting support and support for more file types.

Overall this is a very good phone and if you buy this on Orange, you get earphones and a 1 metre long USB cable bundled within the box. I recommend it to anyone who is going to buy a pay as you go phone for under £50

 

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