Old but good! (Alcatel MaxDB)

Member Name: fluidfernando

Product:	Alcatel MaxDB
Date:	18/01/05 (222 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Unique, Superb robustability, Very cheap

Disadvantages: Very old now, Only available on Virgin, Not the best look to a phone

I received this phone at Christmas 2000. My parents bought it for me, and I can't say that I was very happy. I looked at the phone and I put on a fake smile and said Thanks. However, this phone grew on me, and even after I bought myself a Motorola V2288 six months later, I still used this one, and I gave my Motorola to my mother the Christmas after. Payback!!

As far as I am aware, this phone is now unavailable in the shops. This phone may not look stylish, but it is very cute, and strangely unique. In this opinion I won't go on about the battery life and reception etc, that will be covered in the other bits below, but look at the boxlists to see what I thought of it.

If you buy this phone, you will be on the Virgin network as it is the only network the Max DB uses. This may sound limited, but Virgin is a very huge company, and in my opinion the best network around, and I believe if you check out the networks on Ciao, I think Virgin comes top.

Those looking for games, do not buy this product. This phone does not have any games. There are two buttons on the left hand side of the phone. These are generally for scrolling purposes, and may be hard to press sometimes. Anyone not having this phone will have a little difficulty handling it.

The phone holds 200 numbers (at least on my phone it does) and this is a lot compared with the others.

When you want to text somebody, you can ONLY use CAPS LETTERS. You have no option to use small caps, so therefore so are stuck with the caps all the time.

In terms of ringtones, ah. You cannot download any onto your phone as far as I am aware, and the ringtones are pretty poor. They all have the same sort of sound (ie that electric instrument) sound. There is one called Cool which does sound quite good.

When you receive texts from people, you cannot decipher who the person is, until you reach the end of the message, and then you can scroll again to find out who the person was. At least they tell you who its from, when some phones only give you the number. There is no predictive messaging on the phone.

You can bar incoming / outgoing calls onto the phone. This is very useful if you want to avoid certain people on the phone. The battery lifetime is excellent in my opinion - I didn't have to recharge it very often. The battery lifetime is shown on the screen with 3 bars.

The phone is very robust - it is chunky and although it may not look the best, it does provide excellent protection to the phone. You cannot change covers either.

The reception I found wasn't brilliant - and

Although this phone isn't exactly top notch now, I liked it, and prevailed with it even after the Motorola. I now have a Nokia 3310 (doesn't everyone?!) and the Alcatel is now on my shelf in my room.

Summary: