Small, Light and Lovely! (Alcatel One Touch 525)

Member Name: e-ruby

Product:	Alcatel One Touch 525
Date:	26/01/04 (783 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: small, light and pretty, polyphonic sounds, +++so many more

Disadvantages: somehow hard keyboard

Bare with me in order to see all caps!
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I so hate this!
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19 still counting???????????????.
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I'm sorry about all this but they said I had to write below the 25th line in order for my text to appear normal!








even not the 25th! agrr!!!










doesn't seem to work yet..............




















I am not one who would spend too much money on a single item that can at any time be lost or stolen, but nevertheless, when talking about an item of everyday use, quality and endurance is a very important factor.

There came a time when I really needed to upgrade my mobile (I had the Nokia 3210, ancient I know) so I made a thorough market research. I wasn?t looking for a phone with colour display, cameras or any such gadgets as I think these have a long way still to go in order to make it worthwhile to buy them. I was looking for a phone with long battery life, good melodies (preferably polyphonic), light and comparatively small.

And I found it! I fell in love with the Alcatel 525 immediately!

It is very small and light, has a blue screen, changeable covers (it comes with 2 in the box but you can buy more), polyphonic sounds, composer for melodies, voice memo/melody recorder, very loud speaker that can be used as a handsfree, vibrating discreet mode, alarm clock (you chose the melody of the alarm), wap, downloadable polyphonic melodies/screen images, you can send images/sounds/smilies to other Alcatel phones, event-appointment planner/reminder that you can program to also send sms to any number you choose (very useful for birthdays, now you don?t forget!), large directory (phone + sim), voice dialling (love it!), s
ms T9 predictive text (you can even add words to dictionary), calculator/currency converter and 3 games: 1. Eyes & Star (tick tac toe classic), Run Run (platform game), Killer Exp (the most fun of the 3: you have a missile/ship and travel through planes avoiding fire and enemies and gaining points).

I can say that I was very excited with it and was playing for several days with the different features it provides but according to your use you?ll find which features you find absolutely necessary and which not.

The things I found really necessary were: The event planner, the alarm clock that you can program with any melody you prefer (by the way the snooze is very effective as for actually turning the alarm off you have to unlock the keyboard->go to menu->alarm?), the discreet vibrating mode, the voice dialling and the amazing standby time! I actually forget when I last charged it (with moderate use it lasts 1 week!)

I was a bit concerned about the messages as I had a bad experience from an old Alcatel model my mother owned where if you were slow in writing, your message was lost! This wasn?t, luckily, the case with the 525! Now if you are slow/receive a phone call while writing etc. your message is saved in ?To Send? folder for later use. It has a very large inbox (depending on your sim) and T9 with the option to add your own words to the dictionary.


Here are the Specs from the website:

Dimensions (L x W x H): 98 x 42 x 21mm
Weight : 75g
Volume : 72cc
Patch antenna
Standard battery : Lithium Ion 600 mAh
Talk time : Up to 6 hours (Pmin, 50%DTX)
Standby time : Up to 280 hours (Paging 5, static)
DriveKey? : 3 positions
Enhanced white-blue backlight
Display : up to 6 lines of text or 4 lines with zoom effect* (large font 13X14 pixels)
Dual band : E-GSM 900/DCS 1800
Speech Codec : EFR/FR/HR
SIM card : SIM 3V, SIM 3V/5V, SIM 1.8V/3V compatible (not compatible with 5V SIM card)
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SATK : r.99 + Class C (launch browser)
WAP 1.2.1 (Push - UAProf. - WLTS Class 2)*

VOICE
FACILITIES
Built-in hands-free loudspeaker
Voice memo (up to 20 memos over 2 min)
Voice dialing (up to 50 names)
Record your own melody (from
voice memo to melody)
MESSAGING & FUN
Downloadable melodies (polyphonic or buzzer), icons (animated or not) via WAP or SMS *
EMS functions (icons, smiley, animations, sounds) - EMS release 4.0
30 embedded melodies
Create your own melodies (2)
Challenging games (3) with sounds and with exchange of high score by SMS (for 2 games)
Intuitive use of SMS
SMS counter while writing
Predictive text input facilities *
Predefined SMS (5)
Mailing list (4)
Send a SMS to an e-mail address
COMFORT FUNCTIONS
Large graphic display with blue backlight and inverse contrast mode: up to 6 lines of text (96 X 65 pixels)
DriveKey?: 3 position navigation key
New intuitive MMI with graphic animations and menu icons
Zoom effect: adaptive fonts (4 to 6 lines)*
Silent vibrating system
Calculator / Euro * & currency converter
Directory facilities (up to 250 numbers phone) + SIM card / Group directory (3 contact groups) / 3 numbers associated
Appointments, birthdays, wake up alarms
Direct access to voice mail (key "1") and silent vibrating system (key "5 ")
ADVANCED SERVICES
GPRS class 4 (3+1)
WAP 1.2.1
M-Services features
SATK R99 + Class C (launch browser)
Location services enabled (SATK
features: timing advance and NMR)


I've had it for 7 months now and I can say I am very satisfied with it, worthed every penny! I would recommend it to anyone wanting a good phone with no out of the world useless gadgets, but still providing many useful comforts.

Summary: