Tag Archives: Phones

Teenagers: they love BlackBerry’s more than life itself. They have become the standard accessory for kids who want to communicate, use social networks and most importantly be one of the crowd. RIM rules the smartphone market as far as teenagers are concerned, but their parents maybe feel differently. The cheapest BlackBerry is currently £120 without contract and then there is the monthly cost to use the RIM service so this will cause them to look for alternatives. This isn’t easy because cool is cool and replacements are not easy to find, and it seems as though the BlackBerry logo alone is enough for most young people. Some manufacturers have noticed this and are trying to build cheaper phones that fulfil most of the BlackBerry functions while retaining some of the iconic BlackBerry design. The Orange Rio is an example, but it is so poor in so many ways that I could never recommend it.

The Samsung Ch@t is currently available for £49 without a contract and this is quite low when you consider what this phone is capable of.

This is definitely not a smartphone, but not every phone needs to be. Consider the target market and the specs start to make sense; texting, emailing, snapping, social networking plus a bit of browsing. Too many people spend £35 / month or £400 just to do the above and so phones like this make a lot of sense. They won’t push the buttons of most of you reading this because they offer limited flexibility and expansion, but they are designed to undertake specific functions that the majority of people will need, particularly teenagers.

It’s never easy to review a budget phone when you are used to high-end devices because the natural tendency is to look at the bad parts, but I am going to consider it for what it is and try to be objective.

It is striking how like the Curve 8520 this phone is on first glance, and somewhat surprising given Samsung’s track record regarding unoriginal design. The keys are shaped like those found on the BlackBerry Bold 9700 to add to the effect and it is topped off with an optical trackpad which feels and works identically to the BlackBerry phones. Stand ten feet away from this phone and it is a BlackBerry, it seriously is.

When I hold this in one hand and hold my Curve 8520 in the other, one of them creaks and feels slightly flimsy. The Ch@t feels as solid as a rock in comparison which is crazy when the price is considered.

The keyboard is not bad at all and fairly well spaced. It takes some getting used to and is not of the same quality as the BlackBerry equivalents, but it isn’t far off at all. All of the punctuation is logically placed and there are shortcuts for email and symbols as well. Guess what- you can lock the phone by holding one key as well which is yet another nod to BlackBerry.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is on the top side next to the microUSB jack which uses a sliding cover to protect it when not in use (very nice) and besides the volume keys on the left-hand side that’s you lot. Two shortcut keys are placed either side of the optical trackpad to cater for the usual commands such as ‘menu’, ‘back’ etc. and these are flanked by call end and start buttons. It’s all very physical and feels good when you need to bang out emails quickly or make and receive calls.

From a form factor and build quality point of view, the Ch@t exceeds in almost every area and feels more like a BlackBerry than it should do. That of course is not a bad thing for the purchaser, but to deny the similarities would be bizarre. The screen is clear, but suffers in bright sunlight- it is just about viewable in heavy brightness, but only just.

The onboard software is not quite up to the level of the hardware, but there is a lot here and despite some inconsistencies there are some genuine highlights. It all looks rather basic, but attempts to offer much more than rival budget phones. Email support is generous with IMAP working perfectly well for me and social networking is high on the agenda here with automatic support for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Friendster, MSN, Yahoo!, Palringo and a neat feature called Bluetooth Messenger- that should be enough for any teenager. However, there are some bizarre quirks such as not being able to click links in tweets and the Wi-Fi connection settings being stuck in the applications folder. Some of the quirks work quite well- I like how emails, tweets and other notifications move from left to right so that you can read them without opening them and the games bundle is really impressive for such a lowly priced phone. The internet browser is poor at best, but adequate for basic browsing on mobile site and the overall selection of apps will cover most needs. The PIM software is a highlight and is supplemented by a dictionary, FM radio, voice recorder, file manager, memo app, world clock and the list goes on and on. You can change the themes, fonts and the home screens and even transition effects are available.

There is a backup manager and full security settings are available for good measure and it all comes together to create a pleasing interface for you, of your teenage child, to do what needs to be done.

Music quality is ridiculously good for a phone of this price, I really mean that. It is excellent and different effects are available such as classic, rock and jazz. Throw in the ability to share and rate tracks, create playlists, use Bluetooth headsets and see full details of every track and it is a hugely positive experience from a media perspective.

Video playback is of course not the best thanks to the low resolution screen and won’t be used for anything other than quick clips- it reminds me of the quality we saw in the early PDAs.

The camera is a 2 megapixel effort and is best overlooked. OK for quick snaps, maybe, but at this level you have to wonder why they are included. I guess that all phones have to have a camera nowadays whether it is worth including or not.

Call quality is better than expected, in particular the speakerphone, and this is another area that will be high on the agenda of anyone young enough to not know who Bruce Springsteen is.

One more thing- the battery is excellent which is probably because this is a 2G only phone. The lack of 3G is noticeable in some apps, but only serious emailers will notice the lag and at times Twitter can be slightly slow to load.

Conclusion

I love the Samsung Ch@t! It is cute, well built and the music quality is seriously good. It is far from ideal for most people, or is it? Most people want calls, texting, social networks and little else from a phone. If they can have a decent keyboard, good battery life (which this has) and a fun experience then the Ch@t will suffice perfectly well. It looks and feels like a BlackBerry Curve, but comes in at under £50. Price should never be a major factor when reviewing a phone, as the T-Mobile Pulse mini demonstrated by not even being worth £20, but the Ch@t is a steal at £49. Got a teenager? Don’t want to spend £120 on a phone they will lose anyway? Get them a Ch@t.

The Alcatel OT-255 is the cheapest QWERTY keyboarded mobile phone you can buy today. It is, believe it or not, currently selling for £4.95 + a £10 topup which puts it at the bargain basement end of the entire mobile phone market. The Alcatel name does not fill many people who have an understanding of mobile phones with great confidence and with good reason. Alcatel has a revered reputation is certain areas of mobile technology, but when it comes to mobile phones it is a completely different story. I remember joining a company years ago to take control of mobile purchasing. On the first day I sat in a meeting and was told that they would only be purchasing Alcatel phones because they were cheaper. My negotiations concerning the cost of poor reliability, image for the sales reps etc. fell on deaf ears and the orders were placed. I left the company 4 days later and returned to my previous employer.

Ever since those days I have never touched an Alcatel phone, having preferred to spend my time testing and reviewing proper phones that reach out to those of us who want the best possible mobile experience. Alcatel continues to tread the boards of the ultra-budget market and to this day has not seen fit to make phones that are ambitious in terms of the technology held within. So, why am I reviewing the attractively (?) named OT-255? I really do not know, but I have to give it credit for standing out among shelves of sleek silver feature phones and smartphones that can tend to look alike in their general forms. It looks ‘budget’ in almost every way and there is no attempt at hiding the fact, but it does have a certain charm that sets it apart from the crowd.

First impressions

The box is tiny, seriously small, and you would never think that a mobile phone was inside it. To be fair there are few accessories to squeeze in because all you get is a very low quality set of headphones and an AC charger. Both of these use the mini-USB jack on the right-hand side and there are no other openings at all- the back is completely bare and all that remains is a convenience key on the left which brings up a vertical carousel to access apps quicker.

Let’s concentrate on the front because almost nothing is happening elsewhere. The general layout is very similar to many other front facing keyboarded phones; the standard QWERTY keyboard is set below a navigation / selection key and the call start / end keys. The screen sits above all of these and looks kind of strange due to its diminutive size and the larger than average surround which makes it look even smaller.

OK, it’s time to take a look at each aspect of the OT-255 with a list of the specifications to start us off-

Dimensions 100.5 x 58 x 12 mm
Weight 76 g
Display Type TFT, 65K colors
Size 128 x 160 pixels, 1.8 inches
Full QWERTY keyboard
Sound Alert types Vibration; MP3 ringtones
Speakerphone  Yes
Memory Phonebook 500 contacts
Call records Yes
Internal 1.8 MB
Card slot No
Data GPRS Class 10 (4+1/3+2 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE No
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth No
Infrared port No
USB Yes, miniUSB (charging only)
Camera   No
Features Messaging SMS, MMS, Email
Browser WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Radio FM radio with RDS
Games 2
Colors Black, Apple Green, Orange
GPS No
Java No
- Fake call
- Organizer
- Voice memo
Standard battery, Lithium 650 mAh
Stand-by Up to 380 h
Talk time Up to 9 h

Features

Screen (3/10)

At just 1.8 inches the screen is obviously very small and the resolution, at just 128 x 160 pixels, is even smaller in comparison to other phones on the market. Below is a representation of how it compares to the iPhone 4’s resolution-

That is a huge difference between the two and even allowing for the size difference, it highlights just how much smartphone screens have moved on. However, let’s give Alcatel a break and presume that they were not aiming to produce a crystal clear viewing experience. The screen just about suffices for email and text messaging, but web browsing is not really possible on a screen this size.

To its credit, it is viewable in many conditions, but don’t expect to be doing too much in very bright conditions and it can glare somewhat at the maximum brightness setting.

General Performance (7/10)

Once it has started up and realised that you have turned it on, it plods along quite satisfactorily. There isn’t a lot for it to do that could be described as tough on memory and that is a good thing because there is only 1.0MB available to the user despite the claim in the specs of 1.8MB.

Camera (0/10)

I didn’t manage to take one photo that was worth saving with the OT-255. Oh I forgot, it hasn’t got a camera.

Voice quality (6/10)

The call quality was better than I expected which isn’t saying much. It produces a deep(ish) tone when held to the ear and the volume was quite adequate for general use. The speakerphone offers a somewhat garish tone which would be expected in a phone that is so small and light.

Media (1/10)

There are some wallpapers included alongside some better than expected ring tones, but with 1.0MB of internal memory and no expansion options you could at most download 1 minute of a song or a few seconds of a video.

Signal (8/10)

There’s no 3G or Wi-Fi here of course, but the signal is surprisingly strong. I have a full signal on Vodafone at home which is something few other smartphones have managed when switched to 2G, iPhone 4 included.

Battery (8/10)

When you think about a 650mAh battery it would be all too easy to presume that the phone will barely get through a half day of use. You then check the quoted battery time and see 380 hours standby and 9 hours talk time and you think that Alcatel has gone mad. However, from my initial tests the quotes seem to be quite accurate which is hugely impressive for such a small battery, no matter how basic the onboard operating system.

Data entry (9/10)

The keyboard is the main attraction of this phone because it sets it apart from the rest of the ultra-budget brigade and it deserves to be. It looks unusable, but it really does work well and I found myself typing away within the first few minutes at a decent clip. All of the punctuation you need is included alongside easy to access symbols and it just feels right. I am hugely impressed by this keyboard.

Software (7/10)

What can you really expect from a smartphone that costs less than £5? How about contacts, text messaging, email (multiple account support),n FM Radio, WAP browsing (yes it really does say ‘WAP’), weather forecasts, world clock, alarms, stopwatch, media, games, calendar, fake call, notes, tasks, calculator, converter and ICE for emergencies.

It’s a decent line-up and one that will give many people all that they need, and more, from a simple mobile phone. The data entry also makes some of these incredibly useful and emailing and text messaging were much more positive experiences than I expected. Of course you cannot not add extra apps and the included games are appalling, but I have to give credit to what is a flexible and complete line-up which belies the current price point of this phone.

Conclusion

The Alcatel OT-255 is not a smartphone, if any of you can tell me what one is I continue to listen, and it is not up to the quality of the most basic mobile phones from the likes of Nokia and Samsung. It is, however, much more functional that I expected and is passable as a backup phone that you could take out when you don’t want to be carrying a £400 piece of modern technology with you. It is incredibly light, the battery lasts forever and it is a more than capable caller and emailer. It is less than £5- none of that makes sense really.