Idect X3i €89.99 Highs: This is long and slender and looks like something Captain Kirk might have been comfortable talking into or killing with.
While the handset may be high-tech, the base station is pleasingly old-fashioned and relies on a red LED display to tell you how many new messages you have. The handset has a beautifully back-lit keyboard, can store up to 200 names and was comfortable to hold cradled between shoulder and ear while furiously typing this sentence.
Lows: We tried and failed to set up the answering machine through the handset as was the case with the other models, and it was only after leafing through the instructions that we realised it was set up through the base station, something that was both needlessly complex and distinctly muffled.
Verdict: Flash but fussy and pricey
Star rating: ***
BT Mango €69.95
Highs: Very easy to set up and menu system is pretty intuitive. It is sturdy and sits securely on the base station. It can store up to 255 names - more than any of the competition - and has a range of personalised ringtones which can be assigned to individuals numbers.
Lows: Whether BT should be commended for deciding on an orange and off-white colour combo is open to question, but in PriceWatch's opinion the answer is a absolutely not. It is childish and clunky looking. Like the other models, it can't send SMS messages straight out of the box. Unlike the others, however, it failed to tell us that it had failed to send - fortunately, we weren't sending messages of national importance. It has five "melody" ringtones which are as unmelodious as you could possibly get.
Verdict: Too orange and toylike
Star rating: **
Philips Digital Phone €104.99
Highs: Very slickly packaged, right down to the soft cloth bag for the phone and base station and the kitsch purple velvet presentation box. It promises high-definition voice quality, although we were unable to really say if it made that much difference as we don't have high-definition ears. Being able to transfer all the numbers from our SIM card onto this phone in seconds was very handy, setting up the answering machine took seconds and the hands-free function worked well too. It also has a rudimentary Tetris game, which allowed us waste 15 minutes of our lives.
Lows: While it makes much of its SMS function, setting it up was beyond the technical capabilities of PriceWatch. The base is nice and neat but the phone doesn't actually sit that securely into it.
Verdict: Deadly but dear
Star rating: ****
Binatone Icarus 1500 €19.99
Highs: Ah, so this was what mobile phones used to look like way back in the mid 1990s before we started demanding MP3 players, GPS systems and multi-million pixel cameras be squeezed into impossibly slender chrome devices. It is incredibly cheap and very easy to use. There's no complex menu system to go through during set up, so you just plug it in and start talking. The buttons are nice and big so if you're big of thumb or short of sight it will work out nicely.
Lows: In the company of all the perfectly turned-out competition, this was always going to look a little frumpy. While many of the functions of the other phones are questionable - does anyone ever use a phone's memo function? - this is a bit Spartan.
Verdict: Very cheap but very frill-less
Star rating: ***
Siemens Gigaset A160 €39.95
Highs: This is the second cheapest of the models tried and comes from a company which knows a thing or two about phones, so it's pretty user-friendly. The sound from the earpiece is crystal clear and the buttons are nicely spaced out. It can store up to 40 names in its directory and has 10 melodies, only three of which are truly obnoxious.
Lows: While it is absolutely fine, it is entirely unremarkable and just a little dull. Some people might welcome the absence of frills, but PriceWatch can't help thinking that for just a few euro more we could have got ourselves a phone with a colour screen, an answering machine and maybe a game of snakes or something.
Verdict: Cheap but dull
Star rating: ***
