Best budget phone on the market? (Alcatel One Touch Easy db)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	Alcatel One Touch Easy db
Date:	06/06/01 (2299 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Desktop charger included, Built-in hands free kit, Extra navigation buttons

Disadvantages: Bulky and a little heavy, Poor SMS features, Poor power consumption

Quite possibly...

The Alcatel One Touch Easy db isn't the most attractive phone on the market, nor is it the lightest or smallest. It doesn't have any gimmicky features at all either.

What it does have though is all the ability to perform all the basic tasks that most mobile users would require it to.

This is not a mobile phone that I use - my weapon of choice is the Siemens C35i (separate op) for various reasons, which include the ability to connect to WAP services on the Siemens (The Alcatel does not support WAP). I received the Alcatel phone on BT Cellnet Pay and Go from a well-known insurance company as a free gift, and have since given it away.

**~~**~~** WHAT'S IN THE BOX? **~~**~~**

The rather small blue and yellow (yuk!) box contains the following items, assuming that you have bought the phone as part of a BT Cellnet Pay & Go Package:

- Pay & Go Getting Started Guide
- Pay & Go User Guide
- Alcatel One Touch Instruction Leaflet
- Desktop Charger
- The Phone Itself
- £10 Top-up card.

**~~** The "Getting Started" guide **~~**

This is presented as a small, three page card that tells you all the basics. It folds out into a long strip and gives the following details:

Page 1:

Simply tells you to insert the SIM card and charge the battery. No details on how to do this though.

It then guides you through activating the phone, giving you the number to call and guiding you through all the entries that you should make once you have contacted the pre-pay centre.

Page 2:

Gives a list of places that sell top-up cards.

Page 3:

Gives a list of contact numbers and also provides a small card that you can write your new mobile number on and punch out.

The card once punched out is a nice size to fit into a wallet.

Overall, the start-up guide is very poor. It doesn't really provide
any details about how to get the phone up and running... and the list of retailers selling top-up cards is not really that useful. The Guide certainly doesn't come up to the same standard as those provided with phones which are billed monthly on the BT Cellnet network. The guide that I received with my Siemens C35i was much more helpful.

**~~**~~** The "User Guide" **~~**~~**

This little book is much more helpful than the start-up guide. It is 38 pages long and gives a lot of useful numbers, tutorials, and guides to using Cellnet services etc.

There is information on:

- Buying calltime

(Including number to dial, how to top up using credit/debit card etc)

- "Quickdial" numbers

(How to get to voicemail, balance, top up, customer care, etc etc using short codes)

- Making calls

(Includes a bit about making International Calls)

- Monitoring calltime

(Conditions about how often you have to top up, what happens when calltime is low etc)

- Voicemail

(What it does, a guide to the menu system)

- SMS

(Just a simple guide to what it is)

- Safety

(Just a common sense guide)

There are also a few pages detailing BT Cellnet services like InfoTouch and FindMe.

The full service agreement is also printed in the back of this little book.

**~~**~~** The Instruction Leaflet **~~**~~**

It's not really in a very nice format. Most phones I've used come with 'proper' instruction manuals, however the Alcatel phone comes with a leaflet that starts out small and becomes huge as you fold it out more!

It is nicely divided into different sections that deal with all the main features of the phone, but it can be quite hard to find the answer to any specific problem that you may have. All the individual features are well explained once you find what you are looking
for though.

**~~**~~** The Charger **~~**~~**

Has to be one of the nicest things about this package. The desktop charger is provided in the box (It's usually an optional extra with most phones)

It sits nicely on a desk or table, and you simply sit the phone in the cradle when it's time to recharge. It's a nice arrangement. The only downside is that you cannot use the phone while it is charging...


************ THE PHONE ITSELF ***************


GENERAL COMMENTS
================

Well, for a cheap phone, it's very well specified.

Apart from the usual numeric keys, you have two scrolling buttons on the left hand side of the phone. These added buttons can be used to navigate through the menus, or you can use the 2 and 8 buttons to move up and down through them.

Below the display the phone has four function buttons, arranged in a North, South, East, West configuration.

The North Button is used to access the menu and to confirm actions.

The East Button is used to switch the phone on and to dial out.

The South Button is used to switch the phone off and to cancel actions.

The West Button is used to access the phonebook and text messaging (SMS) functions.


CALL RELATED FEATURES
=====================

Making Calls
------------

Making a call is as easy as you would expect. Simply enter the number, press the dial button, and that's it!

You can also choose numbers from the phonebook and press dial to place calls.

The Alcatel phone also has the ability to insert pauses into the dialling sequence, but I don't really see the point in this.

Receiving Calls
---------------

Equally simple. You simply press the dial button to answer.

You can turn the ringer off when you receive a call by pressing the cancel button, but strangely there is no option to reject a
call.

Additional Options
------------------

The phone has a rather handy inbuilt call waiting feature. You can juggle two calls (incoming or outgoing) and switch between them using the selector button.

It does sometimes drop the call on hold if you use the feature for too long, but it can be handy.

You can also save incoming numbers into the address book while you are talking, and the phone does allow you to read your text messages while talking, although in practice this feature is useless (as you have to take the phone away from your ear in order to do so, unless you're on hands-free)

Also, you can switch hands-free mode on and off while you are talking. Just be careful not to put the phone anywhere near you ears when it is in hands free mode the volume does increase significantly!

The hands free feature is built into the phone, there's no need for a separate hands free kit. It works rather well for the most part, although the microphone doesn't have a great range.


PHONEBOOK FEATURES
==================

You can store up to 250 numbers on the SIM card, which should be plenty. You can't use the phone memory itself for storing numbers though.

Making a new entry is easy enough, you just enter the name of your contact followed by their number and that's it. They can be changed easily at a later date.

SMS FEATURES
============

This is the worst thing about the phone. The SMS features are difficult to use and you can only send and receive upper case letters.

You can store 20 messages on the SIM card, and the phone comes with a number of different templates for messages (such as messages to tell people you will be late etc) but it's just let down by a complicated menu system in this area. It also has icons that don't really show anything obvious, you have to keep referring back to the instructions to find out what they mea
n.

E.g. When a message is sent, you don't get a written confirmation. It shows a little icon to tell you whether the message got through or not.

There are a number of neat features such as "call-back" which allows you to immediately call the sender of any received message, and you can send messages as faxes or e-mails, but the whole SMS section just isn't very friendly.

AUDIO FEATURES
==============

You can select from a number of ringtones and adjust the volume of them. All the ringtones are pretty annoying though, and the volume settings don't really work properly. E.g if you set a high volume, then the phone will ring quietly at first and it will take some time before the phone starts ringing at the set volume.

You can also toggle sound on and off for key presses and for receipt of text messages. You cannot choose tones for these features though.

TIME / DATE FEATURES
====================

Simple time and date interface in there.

There's also an appointment feature which I didn't find to be very useful as it will only store one appointment at a time.

CURRENCY CONVERTER
==================

Again, not much use. It can only convert to and from Euros...


**~~**~~** CONCLUSIONS **~~**~~**

Overall, the Alcatel One Touch Easy db is a good budget phone that tries to pack a lot of features in. Most of the features are not useful enough to warrant inclusion. However, it has much better specifications than most phones in this price range and is a good choice if you're only interested in making and receiving calls on the move.

The built in hands free kit is a definite plus point...

Summary: