By Kate Solomon on Tuesday, 4th May 2010

If you’re a fan of touchscreens and Qwerty keyboards together on the same average-looking device, then no doubt you’ll be thrilled to hear that budget phone manufacturer Alcatel has launched the One Touch XTRA. It has chrome finishing yet is soft to touch. It’s robust yet compact. It has amazing capabilities, yet a low price. It’s a phone, and yet it socially networks! Yes, as the press release assures us, that’s twice as much fun all round.

We’re sad to say that touchscreen is resistive – and at just 2.4-inches we can imagine it’ll be a bit of a chore to use. Thanks goodness for that Qwerty, eh?

Other groundbreaking selling points include email, IM, and ‘access to social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter’ – we’re assuming this is via online widgets or shortcuts as opposed to apps. You can also enjoy other widgets like weather and news. Also featured are a media player, microSD slot, FM radio and 2MP camera with webcam function.

All this and it’s only £49.99 on Orange Pay-As-You-Go. Budget-handset-apathy induced mocking aside, that’s a pretty good deal.