Virgin VM800 deals & review

Talk about rebranding, the Virgin VM800 is really the Alcatel OT800 hook line and sinker. Don’t be fooled by its full-QWERTY Blackberry-esque form as the Virgin VM800 is no smartphone. It’s just a basic feature phone with social networking graces. But for many people, those Blackberry-ish styling that has a quick resemblance to the Blackberry Curve is enough incentive to get it especially for a price that’s easily just a fraction of the real thing. 

Measuring 111 x 58.2 x 13.9mm with a lightweight 103g, the handset comes with a smallish 2.2-inch TFT LCD screen with QVGA resolution and 256k colors. Just like the Alcatel OT800, it has an array of body covers with striking colors that are interchangeable – cherry red, ocean blue, hot pink, apple green and titanium grey. 

Specifications

Like any budget mobile phone, the Virgin VM800 gets no 3G, WiFi or GPRS. This is just your basic dual band GSM (900/ 1800) radio with class 12 GPRS and no EDGE data speeds for a maximum of 48 Kbps throughput.

International roaming is constrained and you will need a GPRS data plan to make use of its Opera Mini web browser and access to your social networking accounts in Facebook and Bebo. Local data connectivity is supported from its Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and microUSB v2.0.

Imaging gets an outdated but decent 2 megapixel fixed focus camera with basic video capture capability. Multimedia gets a stereo FM receiver with RDS and the media players for MP3 audio and MP4 video. For a music phone, it has no 3.5mm headphone jack so you will have to suffer what is usually a mediocre proprietary stereo earphone set but you can go wireless stereo listening with its Bluetooth A2DP profile support.

There’s on board memory for up to 800 phone book entries. You also get 20 MB of user memory that’s really next to useless for a multimedia entertainment phone but no matter, it has microSD external memory expandability for up to 4GB. Talk times are a generous 9 hours, definitely one of the longest in the market.  It also allows up to 450 hour in stand by from its standard Li-Ion battery rated at 850 mAh when fully charged.

Considerations

If you’re a heavy MP3 listener, 4GB of memory may not be enough as it can easily be filled with about 200 or so MP3 files. If you like to watch MTV videos, this can fill it up even faster. Just when most other mobile phones already have a minimum of 8GB memory expandability, this one gets half. You may need a couple of 4 GB microSD cards although they are getting scarcer to find.

Verdict

The Virgin VM800 is Alcatel’s best mobile phone unit to date and while its features are nothing to brag about, there’s not much to complain about at its price point. For young social networking teeners wanting to have a serious looking handset, except the one in pink, this is a great choice.