Orange and BIC Launch the BIC Phone, the Pre-charged Disposable Cheap Mobile Phone
Alongside BIC’s disposable pens, lighters and razors at French convenience stores will soon offer a new cheap mobile phone. The BIC phone will come equipped with a charged battery and a SIM card loaded with 60 minutes of prepaid calls from Orange (network operator).
News stands, tobacco shops, major supermarkets and local convenience stores at train stations, and airports in France will sell the BIC phone from September for around EUR49 (US $77).
The slogan on the blister pack, “Turn on and talk” contrasts with the way cell phones are usually sold: after a long wait in-store to activate them, new phones often need an overnight battery charge before they are ready to use.
According to BIC & Orange, new BIC phone will appeal to consumers who like easy-to-use and pay as you go products. It also meets specific phoning requirements, serving as a back-up phone if needed (e.g. a second line when advertising the sale of an apartment, a car … which leaves the main phone line free).
BIC’s involvement with the product is minimal: It doesn’t make the phone (that’s done by the company that makes mobile phones for Alcatel), and it doesn’t distribute it (that’s done by Orange).
The BIC brand is synonymous with disposable items such as its iconic orange ball-point pen, products BIC euphemistically calls “non-rechargeable.”
That’s not the case with the BIC phone, according to Orange.
“It’s not a throw-away product,” said Karine Rolland, a spokeswoman for Orange’s department of Commercial Communications and Sponsoring.
Once buyers have used the initial 60 minutes of calls, though, they might as well throw the phone away unless they are willing to mail off a registration form to Orange and then wait for the phone to be activated.
Customers who do bother to register their phones receive a credit for an additional 50 minutes of calls, and are then able to add further minutes by purchasing Mobicarte vouchers through Orange’s network of resellers. If the phone is not registered, then it will be deactivated two months after the first call is made, even if it has credit remaining.
Available in citrus orange and lime green, BIC phone can be used only for talking, sending and receiving text messages, or listening to FM radio. It weighs 61 grams and measures 98 millimeters by 44 mm by 12.6 mm and there is no Web browser, digital music player or camera.
With a fully charged battery, it can be used for up to 4 hours of calls, or kept in standby mode for 240 hours, Orange said. BIC phone has a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port through which the battery can be recharged. Neither Orange nor BIC representatives could say whether the necessary cable or charger will be included in the pack, however.
[via news.yahoo.com, IDG News Service & orange.com]