In keeping with their habit, Alcatel revealed quite a bunch of new phones at the MWC. Sitting in their booth there were no less than eight new handsets, which is more than any other maker out there.
Of course, there is the little issue that most of those are only dummies and not actually working but they still kinda count. If a carrier shows interest in any of the designs, it will likely be prepared for market release.
The big gun at the booth (big in Alcatel terms anyway) was the Alcatel OT-980. The QWERTY-equiped touchscreen device is running on Android, and that makes it the first ever Alcatel smartphone.
The rest of its ammo includes Wi-Fi and 3G with HSPA. Well, okay, design appeal isn't completely out of the question either as, cheap materials aside, it resembles a certain Palm handset with the same form factor (you didn't hear us say Pre, did you?)
You can expect the Alcatel OT-980 to arrive some time in the second quarter of the year.
Touchscreen meets a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard in the Alcatel OT-880 XTRA too. The side slider offers a much larger keyboard than its regular slider cousin but lacks the smartphone capabilities. It certainly does look a bit better though, and its launch is scheduled for Q1 this year.
The third device that Alcatel introduced in the Crossover category as they call it is the OT-806. This time there is no sliding involved and the QWERTY keyboard and touschreen display share a panel. Another selling point is Wi-Fi connectivity. The OT-806 should come in Q3.
Alcatel OT-909 is the first of three full touch handsets that the company unveiled. With 3G, GPS, microSD card slot and a built-in FM transmitter it's the best spec'd representative of the Touch category.
The other two members of the full-touch Alcatel family are OT-708 and OT-710. Compact and with distinct youthful appeal, fun-to-use is likely their strongest asset.
The Alcatel OT-800 will come in three different flavors - the youthful Tribe and the more mature Chrome and Carbon versions. Those will have different designs but identical functionality.
Looking more like a powder compact than a mobile phone and coming in pink, the Alcatel OT-808 is definitely a phone aimed at the ladies. It sports Facebook and Twitter plus a full QWERTY keyboard so we can certainly see some potential there.
Alcatel promote the OT-606 as a dedicated messaging phone and it certainly looks the part. Almost as basic as they get in terms of both hardware and software, the Alcatel OT-606 only has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard to brag about.
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