Alcatel One Touch 525 Review

Overall Rating

Small and compact, great display, changeable front covers, voice recorder and hands free speakerphone.

Some dodgy sounding ringtones and not very user friendly when texting.

Available at a "bargain basement" price of £79.95 in the UK on Virgin PAYG. This handset is a real bargain BUT is anything but basement when it comes to features. It has a huge list which includes a built-in speakerphone for those "hands free" moments, a choice of 30 ringtones, some of which "sound" polyphonic, WAP with GPRS, predictive texting with picture messaging, 3 built-in games and a voice recorder for those all important "must remember" things to do!
The phone weighs just 77g and has a superb standby of around 280 hours and a respectable talk time of 360 mins. The phone has a pleasant blue backlit display which has a useful zoom facility. Texting with this handset is not the easiest I have used due to the layout of the keys AND the fact that, like the early Samsung's the text scrolls from line to line. This means that any long words can take up two lines! Ah well, nothing is perfect! You can download new ringtones or create your own if you're not happy with those on offer, but you can't download any new games to this handset. The Virgin 525 comes with two clip on front covers, both of which are quite respectable, AND the option to send off a voucher for two more. Can't be bad!
In use the phone is a little gem. Easy on the pocket with its internal aerial it gives good reception and call quality and the built-in speakerphone is a really useful addition. There is no infra red, bluetooth or MMS with this phone, but then again I don't think the average buyer of the 525 would miss, or need those features. Choose it instead for its brilliant value for money and you won't be disappointed with this latest Alcatel.

Members' Comments onscarborian.'s Review

• kp575991. on 12th Mar 2003

  i have bought the mobile phone
  and i ame really happy !
  And i dont think that there are some dodgy sounds on board !
  i think alcatel wil take over nokia in the year 2050 :p
  if i ame still alive
  

• Phenomenon. on 25th Jun 2003

  Comparing and contrasting with other mobile phones (nokia etc), Alcatel has nothing to fear. The greatest disadvantage of Alcatel is that it has a real problem in marketing

• Mazz0 on 9th Mar 2004

  Damn straight! I'd never herad of Alcatel when I bought this, it was just cheap and sexy:p But it's really a very high quality phone!