Ten... dirt-cheap voice phones

Samsung E2550 Monte Slider

Available for under thirty quid from Orange, the E2550 is a good choice for the yoof of today with its Facebook application and rather fine media player that has a sound enhancer straight out of Samsung's MP3 players. The handset also comes with a Micro SD slot good for cards of up to 8GB. It has A2DP Bluetooth too but sadly no 3.5mm audio socket, the headset connecting to the micro USB port. The bespoke UI is simple but functional. You get a 1.3Mp camera, voice memo facility and an FM radio that you can record from. It's a very stylish and slim handset for a slider and has a smooth, solid opening action making it look and feel more expensive than it is.




Sony Ericsson Spiro

The Spiro isn't really a budget phone, but with Phones4U offering it for under £30 pre-paid there was no good reason not to include it. The Spiro is the small brother of the Sony Ericsson Zylo but, unlike that phone, it has a 3.5mm audio jack in the top that lets you make full use of the Walkman music player, which is a very nice feature on a phone this cheap. Social networking is taken care of with a decent little Facebook application and you get A2DP Bluetooth, a 2Mp camera, an RDS FM tuner, a Micro SD slot good for cards up to 16GB, and Obigo's Q7 web browser, which looks good on the very crisp and colourful screen. For one-third the price of the Zylo you're getting a darn sight more than one-third of the phone. If I had to pick holes, battery performance isn't great for a power pack rated at 1000mAh and the push email system doesn't seem to work, a problem exacerbated by the user guide refusing to even acknowledge its presence.