By Annalyn S. Jusay
I get the impression that Alcatel is still trying to make a name for itself in the Philippines’ mobile phone market. The advantage of being an upstart is that you try hard to offer value-for-money deals to your customers. I witnessed this myself last December when I saw the Technews staff purchase several spanking new phones from this brand that cost less than 3K and I thought “cool!” I bet this was something not many people know about.
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| ALCATEL OT –C651 | | So when our editor gave me an Alcatel clamshell model to review, this writer didn’t hesitate even though it was my first time to handle an Alcatel phone. The OT-C651 definitely looked good in its bright red color and contemporary design. My first impulse upon holding the phone was to ask for its market price because it seemed I wanted one for myself. Knowing that it’s an Alcatel, I knew it wouldn’t be priced beyond your means.
The designer of this phone should get high points for the OT-C651’s funky presentation. With dimensions of 90 x 48 x 24 mm when folded up and weighing only 92 grams, it was handy enough to fit into a woman’s dainty little fingers. The external LED display added a snazzy touch and showed the date, time and battery status. On the phone’s upper side were the sockets for the charger and the headset while on the left side were the volume/zoon buttons.
Opening up the Alcatel OT-C651 revealed the 65K color screen complete with the video of a surfing man and the crisp sounds of the Pinoy rock song “Laklak.” It was really cool that this phone also boasts of an animated voice that said “You have a new text message” and “Goodbye!” whenever I turned off the phone. Whew! I thought it was Aubrey Miles on the line. This feature was something that I didn’t encounter from the phones of the more established brands. It’s a headturner and a welcome addition.
Texting on the OT-C651 took a while getting used to as what usually happens when you have to deal with a phone that has an entirely different interface. The four- way navigation key in the upper middle portion of the keypad also served as the space bar. It was flanked by the Clear button on the upper portion and the camera button below it. When I typed a text message, I had the option to “add a mood” with about 15 emoticons to choose from. But when I sent this message to a mobile phone from another brand, no icon appeared and so I deem this feature as pretty useless.
For a midlevel phone, the OT-C651 boasts of polyphonic ring tones, a phone book for 500 entries with photo call, the usual games, vibrating alert, to-do list, voice memo and other add-ons. The 4.5 MB memory is nothing to crow about, and more especially since its video capability lasts for only 30 seconds anyway. The phone has no Bluetooth but the presence of an infrared port saves the day.
My impression is that they tried to cram everything into this tiny device. Still, I think the Alcatel guys will try to market this phone to the younger, stylish set. With its looks, design, animated sounds and graphics, you will surely not be ashamed to carry this phone around town, and have a fun time besides!
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