Orange Monte Carlo deals & review

Another Orange handset and another Orange phone named after a random city. This time it is Monte Carlo, a city famed for its wealth and elegance, and of course its casinos. You need to be of a certain high social standing to even dream of living in, or for that matter afford to live in Monte Carlo. So, does the Monte Carlo live up to the high class image it is trying to portray?

The Monte Carlo is certainly one of the most high powered and feature filled handsets released under the Orange brand and, like the earlier San Francisco, offers excellent Android value for money. It is also one of the largest Orange phones released thus far with an impressive 4.3" screen with WVGA graphics and multitouch support. The Monte Carlo also runs on Android Gingerbread with all the frills that this entails.

Compared to other phones of a similar nature the Monte Carlo is a little under powered with an 800MHZ CPU and 512MB RAM. Still, it is competent at what it does and comes with 3G and Wi-Fi for excellent web support. This includes full web browsing, email and instant messaging support as well as online entertainment from the likes of YouTube.

The Monte Carlo also comes with Android Market so that you can customise the phone with various themes, apps and games. Social networking is also covered with Facebook and Twitter support, and other social networks that have apps available on Android Market.

For photography, the Monte Carlo includes a 5 megapixel camera complete with LED flash and video support, and you can upload photos to share and videos straight to YouTube. The phone does of course come with Orange branding, which includes an Orange interface and various Orange apps preloaded onto the phone. This is an Android phone though, so you can customise it however you like once you have taken it out of the box.

So perhaps the Monte Carlo name is not quite as pretentious as it would first seem. It has decent connectivity with 3G and Wi-Fi, a good camera on offer, the latest Android complete with Market and social networking support and an excellent, spacious and colourful touchscreen. The only criticism is that due to having Gingerbread on board it could have perhaps done with a little more processing power. But just like the San Francisco, Orange has yet again produced an excellent Android phone that offers superb value for money.