The spiritual successor to the slow-burn hit that was Orange’s San Francisco, the Barcelona is another Android phone with the phone network’s own branding.
Already up on Orange’s online store, it will arrive running Android 2.2, but there’s no news on whether it’ll be brought up-to-date with the latest version of Android.
The phone is split between a physical Qwerty keyboard and 2.6-inch capacitive touchscreen.
We’re looking forward to comparing that keyboard against the BlackBerry’s tried-and-tested keys, and recent entrants like HTC’s ChaCha.
You’ll find all the typical Android features here, like an FM radio and a 3.2-megapixel camera facing out of the back. We suspect the phone will arrive like the Orange San Francisco, at a very competitive-and tempting- price.
It’ll find itself under tougher competition this year, with the likes of HTC offering some impressive mid-range phones like the HTC Wildfire S.
Whilst rival UK networks O2 and Vodafone are also attempting to nab entry-level smartphone customers with phones like the customisable Vodafone Smart, again running Android, or O2’s Alcatel OT990. Both of these are running Android Gingerbread (2.3)- something Orange may want to note.
The phone itself weighs under 120g, and is just under a 1cm thick, and its looks betray what we expect will be a low pay-as-you-go price tag. We’ve been in contact with Orange, and we’ll be updating you with more details- and hopefully a price- as soon as we can.
UPDATE: Those clever chaps at Eurodroid have sniffed out the Orange Barcelona’s original name; and it’s a Huawei Boulder. It’s already been spotted at some trade shows, and we’ve taken one of the better read-through videos we found.
Better still, as Recombu had predicted, the price looks set to follow the San Francisco, at around £150. Could the phone get two different colour offerings? The video shows a white keyboard, whilst the Orange site has a black one.
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