BenQ-Siemens AL26 Hello Kitty

Discontinued
15th August 2006

The BenQ-Siemens AL26 Hello Kitty is a basic slider phone styled after the popular Japanese cartoon character.

It's not a completely new phone, the AL26 hardware is essentially identical to the Siemens AL21. But even though the AL21 was a basic phone, it scored well in terms of design and usability, so the BenQ-Siemens AL26 has been built on a good platform.

The specifications are a little basic - the BenQ-Siemens AL26 has a 130x130 pixel display, but no camera, Bluetooth or MP3 player. It does comes with GPRS, a WAP 1.2 browser and Java support though, so it will meet most people's basic needs.

It's a very lightweight phone, at just 78 grams. Despite this, the BenQ-Siemens AL26 has a pretty good battery life giving a maximum of 5 hours talktime and 9 days standby.

The "Hello Kitty" theme goes beyond a few graphics and a charm accessory - this version of the AL26 carries on the theme into its wallpapers, ringtones and preloaded games.

You can forgive the AL26's basic specification because BenQ-Siemens have put a lot of work into this as a nicely packaged consumer device, and given the reported excellent build quality of the AL21, it looks likely to be quite a pleasing phone to use too. It's certainly a distinctive handset, and it shows that the BenQ-Siemens partnership is capable of producing some promising products.

BenQ-Siemens aren't alone in their love of Hello Kitty - Taiwanese manufacturer OKWAP has been making Hello Kitty themed handsets for some time, including the A267, i516 and A236 handsets. Some of these even make their way into Europe from time-to-time.

BenQ-Siemens say that the AL26 Hello Kittywill be available from August 2006. It will be available in two tri-band versions, GSM 850/1800/1900 for North America and GSM 900/1800/1900 for the rest of the world.

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