Alcatel offers a cheap mobile

TELECOM EQUIPMENT MAKER Alcatel-Lucent is offering its OT-S319 handset for a bargain bucket price this Easter.

If Jesus comes back this holiday and is still interesting in 'saving' he can't do much worse than invest in the handset for the low price of £4.50, a price so low that first time users will be able to throw their phones against walls with impunity every time they get through to one of those automated message services.

Apparently the phone is the least expensive available in the UK, but there are some compromises to be made in any purchase. The phone is a pink clamshell, the type of thing usually found clamped to the ear of a tweenage girl, and is fairly basic.

Although it has no camera, the phone crams in WAP - yes WAP! - an MP3 player and an FM radio. Perhaps because it is so feature light, the handset is said to be good for seven hours of talking about boys and makeup before losing the will to hold a charge, along with 12 days in standby, should its user happen to fall into an eye-shadow induced coma.

The phone is pay as you go on the Orange network and costs £4.50 until the 8th of April when it will return to its full £9 asking price. µ