An Acceptable Cheap Phone (Alcatel OT-E227)

Member Name: DavyMichelle

Product:	Alcatel OT-E227
Date:	28/08/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Good Sound Quality, Light, Good Battery

Disadvantages: Very Limited Features, Storage and Quite Old Fashioned

I recently damaged my mobile phone and wanted to pick up a new PAYG (pay as you go) mobile cheaply from Orange. I had been with Tesco mobile, but have had some problems with the service lately so decided it was time for a change. Looking through the Orange site, none of the new phones particularly appealed to me, especially as I already have a decent MP3/MP4 player as well as a good digital camera. I didn't want to pay good money for a gadget I would only use the phone function on!

I picked this Alcatel OT E227 from the reconditioned models section on the Orange PAYG section. Technically, it was free, and this offer is still available at present though only for the girly pink model now. What makes it free is that it costs £19.50 but it comes with a £20 credit voucher. For the price I paid (well, technically I earned 50p), I really can't complain too much!

Getting the phone set up is extremely simple, and nothing more than a case of inserting the sim card, inserting the battery, and plugging in the charger. Then I just had to switch it on and get started with registering my phone and then updating my address book. After the registration went through, which took 24hrs because I imported my old number, getting started using my phone took a matter of minutes.

I knew I was buying a simple phone when I purchased this, but I must admit I was a bit shocked at just how prehistoric this is. The phone functions are the same as ones I had on my early mobile phones back in the late 90s. There's no calendar, just the ability to program in date reminders (which is hard to do without a calendar to check your dates on!), and the calculator is really fiddly and long-winded. There's no internet access, so make sure you don't choose the Orange tariff that comes with free internet access!

There's no camera, no video, no music etc. There's just a small selection of pre-programmed ring tones to choose from. In fairness, I happily found an acceptable tone for both my text messages and my ring tone so I was happy enough in that respect.

The text messaging facility is a bit of a pain. Writing a text message is straightforward and easy to do, as is sending one. But receiving them is a major issue as the phone can only store about twenty to thirty messages! I find myself deleting messages every few days as I'm constantly getting the "sim full" message. I looked to see if perhaps I could change my settings to save directly to the phone, instead of the sim, but I can't find any way to do this.

Making calls is where this phone excels. Accessing the phone book is simple enough, though it takes two or three clicks to bring up the directory instead of the one click that it takes with modern phones. But once you hit the call button, you get crystal clear sound quality from this phone. I was surprised at just how good the sound quality is in fact, and felt that it made up for some of the phone's downfalls.

The battery life on this is also very good, with the fully charged battery lasting several days, and only taking a couple of hours to charge at a time. The charger it comes with is a lot smaller than a lot that I've used on more modern phones too. I also like the slim design of this phone, and the fact that it's really lightweight. It definitely feels a bit cheap to be honest, but I do like that this doesn't weigh my pocket down.

All in all, this is a cheap phone (well, a free one actually) and you certainly get what you pay for. It's perfectly useable though, even if it does miss out on a few modern functions and features that I've grown accustomed to having easy access to. If I had my choice again, I don't think I'd choose this one. But I'm hardly beating myself for having gained 50p for giving it a try. I think I'll get a new phone in the next few weeks and relegate this one to the kitchen drawer in case of emergencies. I wouldn't put off anyone trying this themselves if they really do just want a phone that makes calls though, and aren't bothered about storing large quantities of text messages and having things like a decent calendar and calculator etc on their mobile.

Summary: Recommended For Light, Infrequent Mobile Users

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