Samsung S5560 and B3410: Festive phones from Carphone Warehouse

Pinch, punch, first of the month. December is here, so it's time to open those Advent calendars, if you haven't cracked under the pressure and scoffed all the chocs already. Let's see what's under door number one. Why, it's the Samsung S5560 and B3410 (pictured) mobile phones, available exclusively from Carphone Warehouse! That's a shame -- we wanted chocolate.

They're both pay-as-you-go handsets aimed at a younger audience. The S5560 is a budget smart phone, packing a 76mm (3-inch) touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. One interesting feature is the 'etiquette pause' feature, which sounds like a euphemism for going to the commode but in fact silences calls, texts and alarms when you turn the phone face down, allowing you to concentrate on what you're doing. Jobs knows we could do with some help concentrating when writing about budget smart phones.

Only kidding. The S5560 is available on a pay-as-you-go deal for around £150.

The B3410 is one of them there social-media handsets, including widgets and contacts designed to keep you up-to-date with your online friends on Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and the like. It packs a slide-out Qwerty keyboard and 66mm (2.6-inch) touchscreen.

Concerned parents can take heart with features like 'fake call', which makes the phone ring as if it's receiving an incoming call even though it's not (surely just drawing vicious muggers' attention to the handset), and emergency text messages, a feature which allows the user to quickly send texts to pre-defined numbers. There's also a mobile tracker for seeing where the kids are. Or at least where the handset is.

The B3410 is available now for around £100 on a pay-as-you-go deal. Twenty-four shopping days until Christmas, folks.