The Alcatel One Touch 810 is firmly targeted at teenage girls hoping to get their very first mobile at a price parents are willing to pay. Of course, teenagers will want social network access – and the 810 offers that – plus it has some interesting customisation choices. All this, plus a free gift, for less than 50 quid.

Cute compact

This is definitely a phone for the girls – its design is reminiscent of a makeup compact, with a clamshell body and mirrored surface. It measures a neat 70x70mm square and has lovely rounded corners. The bottom half of the shell is finished in a white pearlised effect– it is definitely cute, especially as it is only 16mm thick. It’s lightweight too, at just 94g.

Lift the lid and you’ll see a 2.4in screen. It has a resolution of 320x240 pixels. The bottom part of the handset is home to a QWERTY keyboard, a pair of soft keys, end and send buttons as well as a navigation button. It’s quite a lot compared with other phones these days – and with symbol, function and shift keys it offers plenty of combinations.

A cover hiding the micro-USB port sits on one corner, while on another resides the 3.5mm audio jack. On the outside of the handset there is just one key – and that’s the volume rocker. Open up the clamshell and a customisable LED display appears

The keyboard works well when in use and is very responsive. The keys feature a slight curve that has been designed to help avoid incorrect keystrokes. We like the modern look of the white keys with dark grey text, but unfortunately the keypad is backlit once you start typing and all contrast is lost so that you can’t see the text very clearly.

DIY – design it yourself

There are plenty of chances to make the phone your own – including the ability to make your own design for the LED display. You can choose the five shortcuts that sit along the base of the home screen, and ringtones and wallpapers are also assignable. Media-wise, the 810 offers support for AAC+, MP3 and WMA audio files as well as MP4 – however, you will need a microSD card – you can expand the memory up to 16GB this way.

You get no Wi-Fi or 3G so don’t expect to do a lot of web surfing, but the GPRS/WAP are fine for a bit of social networking.

Alcatel has pre-loaded Java apps for the likes of Bebo, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and MySpace – you’ll find them using the My Friends shortcut. The onboard camera is a 2-megapixel model, which can also act as a webcam if you connect it to your PC using USB.

Our conclusion

Plenty of teenage girls will be happy to find the Alcatel One Touch 810 in their stocking this Christmas. It’s simple to use, has a quality build and offers plenty of social networking possibilities. It may not offer Wi-Fi or 3G but then it’s a SIM-free phone that costs less than 50 quid.