I have a Motorola 3788 on the one2one network, which can be purchased for around £40 now, with £10 credit (when you register the phone). For a cheap phone, it works really well, and is suitable for putting in the glove compartment for emergencies only, because you only have to credit the phone, or make a call once every 365 days - meaning, if you don't use it, you don't pay a penny.

Many people will buy a mobile to send text messages, and this one can too. This phone has no predictive text, so it may take you longer typing in your message than other phones. Also you only get to see two lines of text on the display at any one time, so it can be a bit difficult reading a longer message, as you will have to keep scrolling down all the time.

The battery charged up seems to last for quite a while on standby, although it seems to take a long time to re-charge (a few hours), but this isn't really a problem, because you can just leave it recharging over-night.

To check your account balance, you simply call the number “121” (Which in itself is a good idea, because you will not forget it) and an automated voice will tell you. I think it would have been a little better if you could get your balance on the screen, so you can check it more easily in a noisy place - which I believe you can do with Vodafone.

Unlike some of the more expensive and popular (Nokia) phones, you cannot play games, Change the logos, nor make/download your own ring tones - which is what many kids like the phone for, so maybe you should not get this phone for children, because they may not seem “cool”. Saying that though, there is a facility to change the ring tones to some default ones (eleven to be exact), which are mainly boring ringing sounds, but there are some musical ones which are quite good.

When you have your phone turned off, as with other networks, people will be sent to your personal “answering machine&
#8221;, in which you can actually record your funny or otherwise recording. Although with one2one, picking up voice mail is free, unlike orange which is a great idea, because it would not cost you anything to take the call in the first place, so there is no disadvantage in using the voice mail facility.

One advantage over phones on a land-line is that you can store friend’s numbers on your phone, and then when they call you, it will give you their name, and say “X is calling, answer?” so you can chose to avoid people if you want, because if you press the cancel button when someone calls, it will divert the call to the voice mail facility, as if the phone is not turned on.

In conclusion, get this phone if you want a very inexpensive, reliable and robust phone that you will use to make calls and to do some text messaging, but not really for children because there is no real customisation like different ring tones and covers or games, which they seem to like more than the actual phone functionality!.