Unbox This! The Data Enabled Alcatel OT 316 from Airtel Zambia
There’s a new product in town and we just had to get our hands on it to give you the nitty gritty. The Alcatel One Touch (OT) 316 is being sold by Airtel Zambia for only K110 while the distributor price is K100. Not quite in the low end smartphone category but hey it’s the cheapest data enabled cell phone currently on the market customised just for Airtel subscribers. Cheap in the sense that it comes with quite some generous offers. The phone is network locked, therefore, you cannot use another SIM card in it other than those on the Airtel network.
The deal is you get free 50 MB data every month for 4 months as long as you use K2 of airtime throughout those months. That’s K84 is saving over a four months period! Airtel Zambia is giving away K21 worth of data internet to its users. It is imperative that the SIM card and phone are kept together over the period of the offer otherwise the offer is null and void. This is because the SIM card and phone are specifically paired for you to enjoy the 50 MB promotion. The phone comes with a SIM card, thus, all you have to do is register it in order to activate it. Alternatively, if you choose to use your own SIM card, then you can go to any Airtel store to have it paired. The end of the offer will occur at the time that a different SIM card is put in the phone because it automatically unpairs it. Sadly, there is no re-pairing being offered in the pipeline. Perhaps dual SIM card phones would be more beneficial for the Zambian market.
The Alcatel OT 316 comes has a camera, radio, and memory card slot (up to 8 GB). It also has a music player and a torch. Features that are very handy for those load shedding moments that we’ve all become too familiar with in Zambia. The phone additionally comes with headsets. The charger is a USB type which has become quite universal among phone manufacturers; therefore, no need to worry if you forget your charger because almost everybody has the type these days. The camera is VGA (Video Graphic Array) meaning that it has a resolution of 640 by 480 which is equivalent to 0.3 mega pixels. In this day and age of ultimate selfies, this camera is pretty much useless. I tested it on my boss and I could hardly see his face just his teeth because he smiled. Nonetheless, you absolutely cannot forget the awesome data giveway. It’s plain and simple 50 MB. Let’s face it, there has never been an opportune moment than this to serve the data-hungry customers. Good luck unboxing your phones!
