Alcatel OT-V212 Zebra review

You pretty much know what you’re going to be getting with a mobile phone when you receive jewellery in the box. When we opened the tiny box of the Alcatel V212 Zebra, two coloured bangles dropped out; they would probably only fit on a 12-year old's wrist. And yes, the handset is most definitely looks based, and would fit nicely in the pocket of a 12-year-old.

The first thing that you'll have to acknowledge about the Alcatel OT-V212 is that it is cheap – you can pick it up for fifteen quid, ‘exclusively’ at Woolworths, and is only available as prepay. And that’s how you’re going to have to judge it - anything that cheap isn’t exactly going to be a multimedia marvel.

The V212 itself does look like the sort of thing that you might be able to pick up at a toy store – one of those things that you might have played with as a five year old after your mum decided that it wasn’t a good idea to let you play with a real mobile phone.

But if you can get past the cheap plastic casing and the zebra-print patterning, it’s not so bad to hold. The phone is very small and can be easily carried around, without you knowing is there. And funnily enough the plastic gives it a certain robustness.

The Alcatel V212 Zebra is a basic, solid phone which reminds us of early Nokia in its feel, but is smaller than they were. It’s simple and user-friendly, and the keypad is fairly fine to use, although with repeated use might lead to discomfort because you are basically just pressing bits of cheap plastic.

However there’s no getting around the fact that the OT-V212 lacks any kind of 21st century specification. It’s only dual-band, and you won’t be able to surf the web or take photos without Internet or a camera. The only things that it can do effectively is call and text, although it does offer a colour screen.

What it does offer isn’t bad for the price – five hours talk time and 400 hours stand by battery is good enough for a phone of this type, and there is a FM radio for entertainment. However the sound quality is poor and you’ll need to be outside in order to get decent reception.

The 65k, 1.5-inch internal screen is adequate and is quite brightly lit, but the phone’s limitations mean that you’re there’s no prospect for the downloading of games here, and even if there was it is unlikely to be able to handle anything. The only game available is a functional version of the game ‘Tetris’.

Most people going to Woolworths to pick up a prepay phone for little more than a tenner will fully know what they are going to get, and the OT-V212 does all the basic things you want from a phone well, and offers space for about 250 text messages and 255 names. There are also some pretty funky ringtones as well as standard alarm and calendar.

In these days of the credit crunch and tightened budgets, a low-end phone with this sort of price is probably a necessity. From the styling and way the phone has been marketed it has definitely been released with children and younger teenagers in mind, as most parents will not mind spending £15 on a phone.

Any older than about 12 and I would say a teen would have problems with buying the OT-V212. Mobile phones are a form of status, and even though Virgin seems to be working hard on the styling, no cool kid in their right mind would touch a phone like this. It lacks all the specs that they would demand and the lack of a camera would be a real problem for most.

But anybody (child or adult) who is after a basic phone which does the job it’s expected to do without all the bells and whistles could do worse than to choose the OT-V212. You can make calls and text with no problems, while the construction of the phone is quite solid and its small size does suit a lot of people. But don’t bring this phone out in front of users obsessed with specs, as you’ll get laughed at down the street.