PREVIEW: Alcatel One Touch range

The One Touch 995 clocks a 1.4GHz single-core processor – matching up with the Nokia Lumia 800, for one – with 1GB of internal memory expandable by the microSD slot. Its 4.3-inch WVGA screen packing 16M colours is standard for smartphones these days – but impressively tactile and sharp for a company that last gave us the One Touch 282.

Extra-reflective screen thanks to Alcatel's decision to create a glass enclosure in the Barcelona sun to display its products. Reflective screens, thermally active us. <

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At 124g and a chassis measuring in at 127x68x9.75mm it feels extremely light in the hand, though with enough heft not to feel cheap.  <

span>There’s a five-megapixel rear camera that can record 720p video at 30fps.

Running on Android Gingerbread, the 995 is skinned with a fun looking Alcatel overlay sporting a 3D spinning carousel of shortcut ‘cards’ that show the latest information of each app. You can customise the 10 preloaded app-cards to whichever you actually use most, and add up to three more for a total of 13 cards spinning round and round. Watch me spin the spinny thing in our hands-on video!<

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An HDMI port lets you transfer or watch media on an HDTV, or you can also access DLNA for wireless streaming.

The One Touch 995 is pipped for a Q2 release – and yes, it will be upgradeable to Ice Cream Sandwich in the summer.

Alcatel is also hitting at the lower end of mid-range with its One Touch 991, a slightly smaller smartie with a four-inch HVGA touch-display with fewer colours (262K) to call its own.  <

span>It runs a 800MHz processor and the vanilla Android Gingerbread interface.

Internal memory clocks in at just 150MB, though that is expandable by microSD up to 32GB. It supports HD voice calls, so if you’re on an operator that offers it – such as Orange – crystal clear call quality is yours.

Not too slim, not too far: 10.9mm thickness on the One Touch 991.<

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Some software trickery means that the three-megapixel rear snapper can produce snaps appearing to be of resolution five-megapixel. It’ll come in black, white, blue, aubergine and ‘spicy red’.

Our last dalliance with Alcatel at Mobile World Congress was the One Touch 918, a chunky, compact chassis that, in a hark back to the heady 90s days of a different coloured Nokia every day, can be customised with different shades of back cover and trim. <

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The 3.2-inch touch-screen sits above three hard buttons for Home, Search and Back. 

That's what 12.1mm looks like. 

Under these hoods: 650MHz, 3.2-megapixel camera with 30fps video, and Android Gingerbread, also not upgradeable.

Alcatel isn’t the only recent contender in these halcyon days of Android creation – check out our ZTE smartphone and tablet hands-on, plus photo previews of the Huawei Ascend D Quad and mid-tier Honor for more Android action.