Jun
09

Alcatel is back!

June 9, 2009 · Filed Under Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Music, Technology  · 1,004 views

Remember this mobile phone brand? Their most memorable unit was given a moniker “The Safeguard Phone” or “The Soap Bar Phone” since it’s shape reminded the owner of a soap bar. One strong selling point of the Alcatel brand is the price. Now they have come back with better-designed phones, still at the most competitive prices.

At the age of the colored, multi-media, multi-tasking mobile phones, a lot of brands are competing for a piece of the mobile phone market. Alcatel has once again innovated a series of phones that are not too shabby, feature-rich and competitively priced. Their newest model has even forayed to the touch-screen mobile phone competition. The price, as you guessed is a quarter of the other touch-screen brands. Alcatel’s design for their mobile phones now are not bad either, they have even revamped their logo to match the new style of their phones. The lowest model looks even better than the highest model of the other brands, and where can you get a mobile phone at under 5USD.

To reposition itself and reintroduce the Alcatel brand, they partnered with Playboy, yes playboy the mens men brand to release the first ever playboy phone. I just hope they don’t put Hef as the phones default wallpaper.

The actual model name for the Acatel Playboy phone is the Alcatel V770. The phone comes in standard piano black and white models, but the special edition playboy series V770’s come in a plethora of styles and colors. They even plastered the Logo bunny all over the phone. I like the gold version which looks really blinged out, but there is the chrome/silver and pink version as well. Some more other models come in custom colors. All Special Edition Alcatel Playboy phone comes preloaded with the Playboy Playmates images, wallpapers, screen savers and videos.

Alcatel V770

Alcatel V770

One retailer gave Gee Please a unit for review and testing. I got the white model with the silver trims. It looks expensive. The finish is sleek and glossy. Size is thin and wide, and the first time I held it, I dropped it and dented the corner. Amazingly, the dent is so small for a 3ft. drop. It also didn’t even dazed the phone. The display is quite vivid and bright, it is quite large and the color is crisp and everything is detailed even to the navigation icons.

Navigation is a breeze; it uses the standard icon grid system. The v770 is posed as a music phone, so it comes with a nice-looking ear phone which is not ugly-sounding either. However, the cans use a mini-usb to attach to the phone, I hope Alcatel opted for the standard 3.5mm jack. It also has a microSD slot for more music and videos. For a basic phone it is really great.

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

My qualms with the Alcatel v770 however is that the camera is not too great. No front camera for video calls and no dedicated controls for music playing aside from the keypad. It does not have a standard 3-column keypad layout as users are accustomed to with the other phones. Rather it has four which is hard to text on. The 4-Column keypad is not even qwerty. Another annoying thing is that your messages can’t be saved on the external card, rather on the built-in memory which limits your number of saved messages. Once the message memory is full, you cannot receive further messages until you clear out it’s message memory.

Stronger points of the Playboy phone is it’s display which is vibrant even under direct sunlight. Sound for Alerts and Music is quite loud which won’t allow you to even miss a text message or a phone call with it’s loudness. Navigation is quick and responsive. The phone signal is also quite strong wherever I am as compared to my other mobile phones. The built in mobile web browser is quite fast and renders mobile sites very well. Like accessing Yahoo Mobile is so quick and accessing your mail is like accessing it on the standard Yahoo Mail on your Computer. Not to mention the battery life that juices up for five to seven  days on standby on actual test. Overall for quality versus price, you won’t lose on the Alcatel v770 or the limited edition Playboy versions. Don’t expect to be like Hugh Hefner though, he is “The Man”, you only have “The Phone”.

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

Alcatel v770 Playboy Phone

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