Motorola's range of slimline handsets isn't shy about appearing in various bright colours, so seeing one that is blood red probably won't be much of a surprise. But Motorola has done A Good Thing with the SLVR L7 RED because while you make calls, money goes to a good cause.

Specifically, the SLVR L7 RED supports the RED campaign, which was launched by Bono earlier this year. It in turn supports the Global Fund to help eliminate AIDS in Africa, and you can learn more at the Web site.

What this means in terms of hard cash is that when you take out your contract £10 goes immediately into the Global Fund. Then, as you make calls, 5 percent of your spend is put into the Fund by your network operator. My review handset came from O2, but you can get this handset from other operators and the same conditions apply.

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The SLVR L7 RED is light - 96g - and characteristically thin at 11.5mm. In height and width it isn't that different from other handsets, though; 113mm and 49mm. It has the flat keyboard that characterises Motorola's RAZR, PEBL and SLVR ranges. This is not ideal for fast texting because it is not very tactile, but it is fine for number dialling and if you don't do a lot of texting you should be OK with it.

This is a quad-band handset with support for POP3 e-mail. WAP and Web browsing are both catered for, and among the applications is a calendar. Bluetooth is also present, of course. But it is a pity that, for a handset so clearly pointed at a good cause, the SLVR L7 RED has a fairly basic set of specifications which means its appeal is not as wide as it could be.

For example, there is a camera, but with a maximum resolution for images of 640 x 480 it is not going be much of a draw. It takes shots for SMS-ing well enough, though.

A music player is built in and its output quality is pretty good, certainly good enough for use on the daily commute. But again there are some limitations. You have to use the proprietary port to connect a headset, which means you are stuck with the one Motorola provides. And if you exit the music player to do something else, playback stops and you have to return and start a track from the beginning again.

You'll need to add to the 5MB of internal memory with microSD cards if you want to listen to music seriously, too.

I really want to like the SLVR L7 RED and I really want you to like it too, because the cause it supports could do with as much help as it can get. So I am not going to bemoan its average features too much while summing up. Instead I'm going to ask Motorola to extend its support for the RED case to other handsets in its range.