The VM800 has a very definite target market. It’s a low-priced handset which puts social networking, texting and web browsing firmly front and centre – and is the pinkest phone we’ve ever seen.

Internet on the Virgin Media VM800

The QWERTY keyboard and well-priced web tariff give further clues as to the VM800’s positioning. The phone itself is available for an impressive £49.99 on prepay, a cost that includes £10 talktime, and if you top up at least £15 a month has ‘unlimited’ data. There is a cap of 1GB per month, or 25MB a day, but that’s more than many other contract data plans and ample for most people’s needs.If you don’t top up £15 a month, then you pay 30p for each day you use the internet, and still get your 25MB limit.

These keen prices play a large part in the VM800’s appeal, which is why we mention them early on.

Part of the reason this phone is so low priced is that it doesn’t include Wi-Fi, GPS or even 3G, so internet browsing is slow, and that 25MB daily cap albeit unreachable. This will put some potential users off, but at least you get the superb Opera browser, which makes the best out of the slow browsing speeds.

What is does have is Bluetooth, which is a pleasant surprise, so you can pair it with a Bluetooth headset for hands-free chatting. The 2.2-inch screen is comparatively small and fairly low resolution too.

QWERTY keyboard on the Virgin Media VM800

While the VM800’s keyboard can’t hope to compare to a BlackBerry, say, or a Nokia, the slanted keys are nicely spaced and raised but take a while to really get the hang of. They work well in general, but the phone can’t keep up with fast typing, which will affect your accuracy and leave you frustrated. This is not ideal for a phone that pushes messaging and social networking, and may be too high a price to pay for the low cost. It is also very basic so doesn’t capitalise after a full stop, for example.

Navigation on the Virgin Media VM800

You operate the phone using the 28 shortcuts laid out in a grid formation. These take you to things like internet, messaging and calendar as well as news, which shows you the headlines and leads you online for the full story, weather, powered by Accuweather, and My Friends. This is a portal to all your social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace. There’s also Palmringo Instant Messaging. Almost all of the shortcuts take you to the internet – maybe that 25MB allowance isn’t unachievable after all.

It’s no smartphone but the shortcuts do make it feel substantial.

Games and camera on the Virgin Media VM800

An accelerometer means that games respond to movement. The onboard games include Motorboat, a quick-lay game with truly basic graphics, and a simple labyrinth game that got us bizarrely hooked. They’re hardly the stuff of high-end smartphone applications.

The camera is also basic, a two-megapixel model with no flash. As you would expect, neither still photos nor video footage are great quality, but photos taken in bright conditions will probably do you for uploading to Facebook or sending as an MMS.

The verdict on the Virgin Media VM800

Both the phone and the data tariff are well priced to attract young, female we imagine, social networkers. Certainly it’s simple to use, fun and good looking. But the slow internet speeds and basic features might be too limiting for some.